John Wesley was an eighteenth-century Anglican priest and Oxford tutor. He and George Whitefield were the primary leaders of the Evangelical Awakening which had a profound effect on the spiritual, social, and political life of both England and colonial America. Wesley gathered converts into a network of small groups for personal accountability, behavioral change, leadership training, and the transformation of their communities. Central to his system was the "class meeting," which proved to be one of the most effective tools for making disciples ever developed. This study examines the historical development, the theological foundation, and the social outcomes of John Wesley's class meeting.
Everyday Disciples: Covenant Discipleship with Youth by Chris Wilterdink resources pastors, youth leaders, and youth groups with information and planning materials related to Covenant Discipleship and accountability practices. Covenant Discipleship encourages youth to connect with Christ and one another through mutual accountability. It also encourages a networked support structure for living in the world as Christ followers.
Kevin M. Watson offers the first in-depth examination of an essential early Methodist tradition: the band meeting, a small group of five to seven people who focused on the confession of sin in order to grow in holiness. Watson shows how the band meeting, which figured significantly in John Wesley's theology of discipleship, united Wesley's emphasis on the importance of holiness with his conviction that Christians are most likely to make progress in the Christian life together, rather than in isolation. Demonstrating that neither John Wesley's theology nor popular Methodism can be understood independent of each other, Watson explores how Wesley synthesized important aspects of Anglican piety (an emphasis on a disciplined practice of the means of grace) and Moravian piety (an emphasis on an experience of justification by faith and the witness of the Spirit) in his own version of the band meeting. Pursuing Social Holiness is an essential contribution to understanding the critical role of the band meeting in the development of British Methodism and shifting concepts of community in eighteenth-century British society.
Marks of a Movement calls us back to the disciple-making mandate of the church through the timeless wisdom of John Wesley and the Methodist movement. With a love for history and a passion for today’s church, Winfield helps us reimagine church multiplication in a way that focuses on making and multiplying disciples for the twenty-first century. Winfield Bevins reminds us of the vital multiplication lessons from the Wesleyan movement, one of the greatest missional movements the world has ever known. He highlights the necessity of discipleship as the starting point and the abiding strategic practice that is key to all lasting missional impact in and through movements. The Methodist movement is an example of the power of multiplying movements that utilize the strategy of discipleship. Within a generation, one in thirty people who were living in Britain had become Methodists, and the movement soon became a worldwide phenomenon. We in the Western Church need a movement of historic proportions once again. What would such a multiplication movement look like for us today? We must look to the past to gain wisdom for the future. And as we look at the pages of church history, there is no better example of a multiplication movement in the West than the Methodist movement of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Marks of a Movement highlights the lessons and key insights that enable us to learn from the past and reapply this timeless, biblical wisdom for today.
The last command Jesus gave the church before he ascended to heaven was the Great Commission, the call for Christians to "make disciples of all the nations." But Christians have responded by making "Christians," not "disciples." This, according to brilliant scholar and renowned Christian thinker Dallas Willard, has been the church's Great Omission. "The word disciple occurs 269 times in the New Testament," writes Willard. "Christian is found three times and was first introduced to refer precisely to disciples of Jesus. . . . The New Testament is a book about disciples, by disciples, and for disciples of Jesus Christ. But the point is not merely verbal. What is more important is that the kind of life we see in the earliest church is that of a special type of person. All of the assurances and benefits offered to humankind in the gospel evidently presuppose such a life and do not make realistic sense apart from it. The disciple of Jesus is not the deluxe or heavy-duty model of the Christian -- especially padded, textured, streamlined, and empowered for the fast lane on the straight and narrow way. He or she stands on the pages of the New Testament as the first level of basic transportation in the Kingdom of God." Willard boldly challenges the thought that we can be Christians without being disciples, or call ourselves Christians without applying this understanding of life in the Kingdom of God to every aspect of life on earth. He calls on believers to restore what should be the heart of Christianity -- being active disciples of Jesus Christ. Willard shows us that in the school of life, we are apprentices of the Teacher whose brilliance encourages us to rise above traditional church understanding and embrace the true meaning of discipleship -- an active, concrete, 24/7 life with Jesus.
Do no harm. Do good. Practice the spiritual disciplines. Watch over one another in love. --John Wesley's General Rules Why is this so hard? Does being a part of the Wesleyan tradition make any difference in living out your faith? Does Methodism offer guidance as we look to the future and seek renewal? Methodist Christians sometimes exhibit the most unchristian attitudes and behavior. People notice. And it's reflecting badly on the church, but we can--individually and collectively--correct the problem. Allow God to enter more deeply into your life until it's hard to tell where you end and God begins. "Most American Christians are struggling to practice their faith," Watson writes. "...Methodists can hold on and try not to let our tradition die, but mere survival is not God's deepest desire for us or the church. Instead, we must choose to live by stubbornly depending on God's Spirit, allowing our lives to give witness to who Christ is." A Blueprint for Discipleship offers a practical approach to Christian discipleship that's distinctly Wesleyan. Watson addresses the overwhelming desire of many Methodist Christians who want a more meaningful relationship with God but aren't sure how to start. Reawaken to the power and vitality of your spiritual heritage. Repent of apathy and spiritual complacency to reclaim, in the words of Wesley, "the form and power of godliness."
A Plain Account of Christian Perfection by John Wesley is about the theory of perfection according to Christian theology. Excerpt: "1. WHAT I purpose in the following pages is, to give a plain and distinct account of the steps by which I was led, during the course of many years, to embrace the doctrine of Christian Perfection. This I owe to the serious part of mankind; those who desire to know all the truth as it is in Jesus. And these only are concerned with questions of this kind. To these I would nakedly declare the thing as it is, endeavoring all along to show, from one period to another, both what I thought, and why I thought so."
