John Wesley and his friends, The Holy Club" were derisively called "methodists" because of their strict discipline. John Wesley famously said: "I look upon all the world as my parish." And so does the United Methodist Church. Just as Wesley and the early Methodists were very organized, so are we United Methodists. By organizing our congregations into districts and conferences and jurisdictions and a worldwide "general" conference Methodists are able to multiply and streamline their efforts to accomplish more good. No individual United Methodist stands alone. He is part of a congregation that is organized into assorted committees and boards to oversee different aspects of the church's mission. The pastors and laymen cooperate with other congregations in their district under the leadership of district superintendents to maximize the good works in a larger area. I our case there are a dozen or so districts within our Annual Conference (in our case the Northern half of Georgia, with a bishop assigned as its leader. The Conference is a major unit of Methodist work. The conference has a wonderful youth program that includes summer camps and retreats, it sponsors pastors schools and retreats, it assigns pastors to the congregations of the conference (a pastor for every congregation, a congregation for every pastor.)
It seems to me that those who want to "disaffiliate" (disband and organize new groups) wish to toss out much of the "method" from their new groups. To me it looks a lot like Baptist-lite.
No comments:
Post a Comment