TEACHING CHURCH
Early Methodism was organized by Wesley and Asbury on the
basis of a series of questions. Wesley believed that the
leader led by putting two questions to the church, and the church
lived by responding to the leader’s questions.
Don’t you find it significant that the key questions with
which Methodism’s first conferences opened were these three:
1. What to teach? 2. How to teach; and 3. What to do; that is how
to regulate our doctrine, discipline and practice (Doctrine
and Disciplines, 1798, Pg. 18). Notice the very first
question – What to teach? Wesley was convinced that
Christians must be intellectual equipped to follow Jesus. The
demands of discipleship are too great not to have the whole person
engaged by the claims of Christ including a person’s intellect. Wesley
believed that preachers were primarily guardians of doctrine. They
not only preached in such a way that won people to Christ, but
to make sure they were winning people to Christ!
This past year I have had a number of experiences as bishop that
have confirmed my sense that Wesley was right. The day we
spent at ClearBranch pondering the Methodist Christian way of believing,
including the follow-up sessions in numerous churches, the Conference-wide
discussions on War and the War in Iraq, as well as the teaching
experiences I have had in dozens of Alabama churches, have all
convinced me that Methodist people want to be taught. They
long to grow in their faith. They expect their church to
offer meetings whereby they grow as disciples.
The Wesley movement was distinguished principally by its determination
not only to win people for Christ but also to grow people into
Christ. Notice that our Conference mission statement explicitly
states our intention to “Grow More Disciples” for Jesus
Christ. A primary way we grow in our faith is by continuing
to be informed about our faith, to explore the richness of Christian
believing and to learn more about Jesus and his way.
I am therefore impressed that any growing must also be a teaching
congregation, where the chief teacher is the pastor. In congregations
that are successful in reaching new disciples, the need for teaching
and Christian formation is even greater. We not only want
to reach people for Christ we want to teach people for Christ.
Every pastor ought to be able to identify a setting, other than
the pulpit, in which that pastor is teaching people for Christ.
Woe to any pastor or congregation that gets preoccupied with merely
caring for the congregation, managing and maintaining the organizational
machinery of the congregation and neglect the duty to teach the
faith.
One of the most appealing aspects of the younger generation that
we are trying to reach is that they appear to have a wonderfully “teachable
spirit.” They realize that they have not been well
informed about the faith, and they appear to be grateful to, and
attracted to a church that takes the teaching office seriously.
What to teach – the substance of the Christian faith, its
most important convictions – how to teach – how to
let the Holy Spirit energize a new generation of disciples – note
that this comes before any of our righteous work, our regulative
responsibilities and our organizational forms.
Someone has said that the primary work of leadership is asking
the right questions. It is up to the leader to ask good questions;
and it up to the congregation to give appropriate answers. Thank
you Wesley and Asbury for teaching us to ask the right questions!
William H. Willimon
