The genesis of this began early Sunday morning when the question was asked “When did you learn what it meant to be a Methodist?”
Now, for me, it came in part when I was in confirmation class. But I was in a confirmation class in an Evangelical United Brethren church and we discussed the planed merger of the Methodist Church with the Evangelical United Brethren Church. What I remember from that conversation back in 1964 was my pastor saying “we are going to be called United Methodists; they are joining us.” The meaning of his words really didn’t hit home until around 1991 when I was a member of a United Methodist Church that was a former E. U. B. church and my pastor was also a former E. U. B. like me (and whose father and grandfather had been bishops in the E. U. B. system). My pastor pointed out that if the business world ever wanted an example of a hostile takeover, all they had to do was examine the merger of the two denominations.
But, to answer my own question, I learned about Methodism early on and then again when I was a student in college. One individual answered that they had learned in Sunday School and had kept that knowledge in the forefront of their lives since that time some 40 years before. One other person told me that they had learned it in much the same way, as a youth in a Methodist Church and then again in college. What I found interesting was the comment by a third individual who was raised in the Methodist Church but quit the Methodist Church as a teen-ager because the church was teaching them nothing about why it was a Methodist Church! (This person ultimately learned about Methodism in seminary, which is fortunate because they are an elder in the church today.)
Another individual was learning about Luther in college and this knowledge of Luther lead them to consider other denominations which lead them to a study of Wesley and the Methodist Revival.
Two other individuals told me that they learned about Methodism in preparation for marriage to a Methodist.
Granted, eight people do not make a very convincing sample especially since only three of the eight were raised in a Methodist church. But to have only 1 person say that they remembered from their youth what it means to be a Methodist is not very good.
So, I am going to put the question to you, “When did you learn what it meant to be a Methodist?”
And this begs a second question, “When do people in your church learn what it means to be a Methodist?”
And finally, “When do you think this education should begin? Should it be a requirement for membership? (What would happen if a person failed the qualifying exam?) How much should be taught in Sunday school?”
If I get a sufficient number of responses, I will post the comments in the body of the piece.
I preach a four part series every 2 or 3 years entitled “You be United Methodist If . . .” in which I cover United Methodist beliefs and practice from the pulpit. Also, the occasional confirmation class and one-on-one conversations with people interested in joining the congregation are contexts in which I try to help people understand what it means.
Comment by larry — March 28, 2011 @ 2:07 pm |
I learned what it means to be a Methodist when I started reading books about John Wesley while discerning my call to ministry. I decided I had better know what Wesley preached if I was going to join his tribe.
As a lay member, I never heard about Wesley and was never really encouraged to think about Methodism as anything other than generic mainline Protestantism.
Learning about Methodism has been a source of inspiration and struggle, since the denomination that assimilated your EUB pays scant attention to Methodism.
Comment by John Meunier — March 28, 2011 @ 5:00 pm |
[...] of the United Methodist Church do not understand the structure and philosophy of Methodism – see “When Did You Learn about Methodism?” – I would be interested in knowing when you learned about Methodism) and Christianity (each year [...]
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