CHAPTER 1
FOUNDATIONS
In order to understand how a church or any institution is organized, it is essential to understand the foundations upon which the institution is built. For instance, a Roman Catholic or an Episcopalian may find the United Methodist practice of removing members from the rolls after two years of inactivity hard to understand, and perhaps downright offensive. He or she may feel that this is not the way a church ought to treat its constituents who have been baptized into the family of God, and who deserve better than to be "put out of the family" in such a seemingly unceremonious way. But a look at history soon helps the person understand why our church functions this way; for United Methodism began not as a church, but as a disciplined religious society. So when people became Methodists in the days of John Wesley, they were not joining a church—they were probably already members of the Church of England—rather, they were joining a society (what we today might call a "small group") for the express purpose of bettering their spiritual condition. So the rules were strict and the discipline tight, and it is out of such "societies" that The United Methodist Church of today has evolved. This historical background has, for better or for worse, left its imprint upon United Methodism, and one of the places we see it is in our attitude toward the termination of church membership because of inactivity.
The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church, 2008 is organized in such a way that these "foundations" of our organization are set forth at the outset in a "Historical Statement" (pages 9-20) and in Paragraphs 1–61, 101–104, and 160–66. This portion of the Discipline forms the basis for this chapter.
Historical Origins
The Uniting Conference of The United Methodist Church, held at Dallas, Texas, in April of 1968, brought together into one church two great Protestant churches—The Methodist Church and The Evangelical United Brethren Church. These two churches, similar in doctrinal outlook as well as in matters of organization, may well have come together years earlier if it had not been for a language difference—the Evangelical United Brethren did their work among the German-speaking people, while the Methodists worked among the Englishspeaking population. With these language barriers now gone, all real reasons for continuing separation ceased to exist, and the union took place. A brief look at these two streams of church life is in order.
The Evangelical United Brethren Church was itself the result of a union consummated in 1946 of the Church of the United Brethren in Christ and The Evangelical Church. The spiritual father of the United Brethren was Philip William Otterbein, an ordained minister of the German Reformed Church, who, along with Martin Boehm, began preaching to the German-speaking settlers of the middle colonies of young America in the late 1700s and early 1800s. There is a remarkable similarity between the work of Otterbein and the work of John Wesley. Both saw a society desperately in need of the gospel; both emphasized the necessity of a vital and experiential relationship to God; both began their work with the intent not to establish new churches, but to bring about a renewal of faith within established churches; both eventually saw the need of establishing a church in America; both were gifted, natural leaders of great energy and conviction.
The societies grew rapidly under Otterbein's leadership, and meetings of the ministers were held in 1789 in Baltimore, Maryland, and in 1791 in Paradise Township, York County, Pennsylvania. Starting with the meeting on September 25, 1800, in Frederick County, Maryland, these meetings were held annually. It was not until 1815, however, when the first General Conference was held near Mt. Pleasant, Pennsylvania, that a book of discipline appeared. In 1841, a constitution was adopted, and though it was amended in 1889, the Church of the United Brethren in Christ functioned and grew under this constitution until its merger with The Evangelical Church in 1946.
The Evangelical Church had its beginnings with the work of Jacob Albright at about the same time the United Brethren were organizing. Albright was not an ordained minister, but a tilemaker and a farmer. However, his view of religion as being primarily a vital, personal, experiential relationship to God put him in complete agreement with Otterbein and Wesley. After Albright's own conversion in 1791, he began preaching and gathering some followers, who met in their first council in 1803. In 1807 the preachers held the first of what were to become annual meetings, and in 1809 a book of discipline was adopted. At the first General Conference, the name "The Evangelical Association" was adopted. This was in 1816, and the association grew and thrived through the century. In 1891 a split occurred within the church, with one group of ministers and laity leaving to form The United Evangelical Church. This new church held its first General Conference in 1894, but almost from its inception there were those who felt that the two branches should be reunited, and in 1922, only thirty-one years after the original split, the two churches came back together to form a united body, The Evangelical Church.
These two churches, the Church of the United Brethren in Christ and The Evangelical Church, had worked side by side in America, both originally among German-speaking people and both very much alike in outlook and structure. So it was a natural thing that in 1933 representatives of the two groups should begin negotiations, which culminated in 1946 with the formation of one church, The Evangelical United Brethren Church. It was this church which was to join a plan of union that resulted in the formation of The United Methodist Church in Dallas in 1968.
The other party to that plan of union was The Methodist Church, which had its beginnings in England with the work of John Wesley in the 1700s. Born into a parsonage home in 1703, Wesley grew up to become the outstanding religious figure of his century. He secured his education at Oxford University and was ordained a clergyman of the Church of England. While at Oxford, he and some companions formed a small group for prayer, study, and service to people in need, and, because they set out such a rigorous and methodical schedule for their activities, they were derisively referred to by some of their more worldly fellow students as "Methodists." But Wesley soon found, like the Apostle Paul and Martin Luther before him, that striving for salvation by the keeping of rules and regulations, by trying harder even to the extent of going off to America as a missionary to the Indians, was of no avail. Finally, on the evening of May 24, 1738, at a prayer meeting held in Aldersgate Street in London, Wesley had a personal experience in which, he said, "I felt my heart strangely warmed, and I felt that I did trust in Christ, in him alone for salvation, and that he had saved me from the law of sin and death." So, religion had become for John Wesley what it was later to become for Philip William Otterbein and Jacob Albright: a direct, personal, unforgettable experience of the presence and love of God, an experience so overwhelming that it had to be communicated to others.
John Wesley went out from the Aldersgate experience to begin the preaching, organizing, and administrative work that was to result, at the time of his death over fifty years later, in some half a million souls in England called Methodist and an infant church in America. Wesley remained a clergyman of the Church of England until his death, and he insisted that his societies in England should remain that—societies—and not become a church. However, after the American Revolution had taken place, he recognized that the Church of England could no longer function in America and that an ordained clergy was needed. His efforts to get the bishop of London to ordain some of his preachers failed, so finally Wesley himself ordained two men and set aside Dr. Thomas Coke as a superintendent for the work in America, giving him directions to ordain Francis Asbury a second superintendent.
On December 24, 1784, Dr. Coke met with about sixty preachers in Baltimore, Maryland, and organized The Methodist Episcopal Church. At this "Christmas Conference" all essential steps to organizing a church were carried out, and Francis Asbury emerged as dominant leader and "bishop," a term whose use Wesley was opposed to, but which quickly became common usage among American Methodists.
Two important divisions were to occur in this rapidly growing, frontier-following young church. A group of persons concerned with lay representation in the church left it in 1828 to form The Methodist Protestant Church. In 1844 another division occurred, this time between North and South. The issue was interpreted by some to be over slavery, and by some to be over the powers of the General Conference and the episcopacy. Almost from the time of these divisions, there were forces at work to bring about a reunion, and, after years of negotiation, this took place on May 10, 1939, when The Methodist Episcopal Church, The Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and The Methodist Protestant Church came back together to form The Methodist Church. It was this church which, in April of 1968, at Dallas, Texas, united with the Evangelical United Brethren to form The United Methodist Church.
Theological Affirmations
What kind of theological claims or affirmations do United Methodists make about their church? What do they believe it to be? How do they believe it fits in with the plans and the will of God? What are its relationships to other churches? Answers to these questions provide important foundation stones for an understanding of the organization of the Church.
The Preamble to the Constitution sets forth some of the answers to these questions:
The church is a community of all true believers under the Lordship of Christ. It is the redeemed and redeeming fellowship in which the Word of God is preached by persons divinely called, and the sacraments are duly administered according to Christ's own appointment. Under the discipline of the Holy Spirit the church seeks to provide for the maintenance of worship, the edification of believers, and the redemption of the world.
The church of Jesus Christ exists in and for the world, and its very dividedness is a hindrance to its mission in that world.
(The Book of Discipline, 2008; page 21)
This statement is a skillful blending of at least three other official statements about the church. One of these is the definition of the church contained in Article XIII of the Articles of Religion of The Methodist Church (Discipline; page 62). The second is the definition of the church set forth in Article V of the Confession of Faith of The Evangelical United Brethren Church (Discipline; page 67). The third is in Paragraphs 201, 202, and 203 of the Discipline, concerning the local church. Paragraph 203 makes explicit what is only implicit in the earlier statements, that the persons "have been baptized." It also makes clear that a local congregation "is also an inherent part of the church universal, which is composed of all who accept Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior, and which in the Apostles' Creed we declare to be the holy catholic church" (Par. 203).
A number of important theological affirmations are contained in this Preamble to the Constitution. "The church is a community ..." This makes it clear that the church is not a building, it is not a certain organizational structure, it is not a denomination; the church is people, consciously and purposefully joined together. "... of all true believers ..." This indicates that what binds the people into a community are certain shared convictions, which are not spelled out here but are presumed to be the historic beliefs of the Christian church. "... under the Lordship of Christ." There's really only one head of the church, and that is Jesus Christ himself. Churches may elect officers and authorities to exercise certain important functions on behalf of the community, but always it is recognized that the only true head is Jesus Christ himself.
"It is the redeemed and redeeming fellowship ..." Here is revealed something basic about both the nature and the purpose of the community. It is redeemed; that is, it is composed of persons who have recognized their incompleteness apart from God, have confessed their faith in Christ as Savior and Lord, and have become a part of the community of his followers. They are redeemed in that their lives have been set on the way that God intends for them. But the fellowship is redeeming in at least two senses: First, the redeemed (the members of the church) are in continuous need of redeeming—thus redemption is always more of a continuing process than it is a completed transaction; in United Methodist parlance, we are always "going on" to perfection. The second meaning of redeeming is an evangelistic one: While the redeeming process is going on with the redeemed, it is also reaching out to the world, through both the words and the acts of the fellowship. Such words and acts constitute the ministry of the redeemed fellowship.
"... in which the Word of God is preached by persons divinely called, ..." One of the central emphases of this community, one of its marks, is preaching—preaching the Word of God. United Methodism's founder, John Wesley, was one of the great preachers of his time, and the heritage of strong and vital preaching has been with us from the very beginning. Furthermore, it is a long-held conviction of United Methodists that preachers are called by God. The first question of a person taking the first step toward the United Methodist ministry used to be, "Do you believe yourself to be divinely called to preach the gospel?" But it is important to note here that our Church has never attempted to put a particular interpretation on just what a "call" is, believing that God is capable of calling persons in an infinite variety of ways.
"... and the sacraments are duly administered according to Christ's own appointment." United Methodism shares with Protestantism in general the recognition of two sacraments, as compared to seven recognized by Roman Catholicism. The criterion for a sacrament, according to most Protestant theologians, is that it be something that Christ specifically told his followers to do. So, we recognize baptism (Matthew 28:19) and the Lord's Supper, or Holy Communion (Matthew 26:26-28). United Methodism also shares with the Protestant community the conviction that while the sacraments are very important means of grace, they are not the sole means of grace. While Roman Catholic views about baptism are undergoing change in recognizing differing ways in which baptism may come to persons, the traditional view has held baptism absolutely essential for salvation. United Methodism rejects this position, on the grounds that this is an unwarranted limitation upon the limitless power of God and contrary to the very nature of God as revealed in Christ, which is love. Does this mean that we believe the sacraments to be unimportant? By no means! Baptism remains the indispensable first step of a person into the Christian community, and the Holy Communion provides us with the bread and wine that feed us as we travel along the Way, a constant reminder of him who is not only the Way, but the Truth and the Life.
"Under the discipline of the Holy Spirit ..." It is appropriate that the word discipline should appear in this definition, for it is an old and honored word in United Methodism. It is often used as a title to describe the book of rules we live by within the Church, but that is only one expression of the broader discipline referred to here. This is the discipline of a people under orders—a people acting out together their response to the commission laid on them by our Lord himself: "Go into all the world and proclaim the good news to the whole creation" (Mark 16:15). The usual objection to discipline is that it is binding and restrictive, but the marvelous thing about the "discipline of the Holy Spirit" is that it frees! It is this discipline we are talking about when we sing, "Make me a captive, Lord, and then I shall be free" (The United Methodist Hymnal, 421). While it could not be claimed that the discipline practiced by United Methodism has always come under the discipline of the Holy Spirit, it is true that the spiritual children of the methodical John Wesley have enjoyed a freedom not always enjoyed by their Christian colleagues of other denominations. This is especially true of the pastors, where the free pulpit and the relatively freewheeling ways of United Methodist clergy are often the envy of their ministerial colleagues.
"... the church seeks to provide for the maintenance of worship, the edification of believers, and the redemption of the world." The language here is similar to that in the confirmation ritual, and it serves as a condensed "job description" of the church. There is some significance to the "maintenance of worship" coming first, since worship is the starting point for everything else the church does. It is no small thing to consider how the church has, through the centuries, provided regular worship services for its people, week in and week out, year in and year out, in the open country, in hamlets, in villages, towns, cities, and great urban centers. I marvel when I think that a church I once served as pastor has provided the opportunity for worship to the community every Sunday for over one hundred fifty years! It is easy to take worship for granted, yet its centrality to the whole mission of the church is amply demonstrated both theologically and historically. So, the worship of God as he has been revealed to us through Christ is the indispensable first task of the church.
