Why Do Methodist Ministers Move So Frequently?
Why Are Methodists Called Methodists?
What is distinctive about the United Methodist Church?
What is Charge Conference, and why do we have it?
Why Do Methodist Ministers Move So Frequently?
It seems like every time you turn around, the Methodist minister is moving to another appointment, and a new one is coming to town. Why do they have to move so frequently, especially if the pastor is doing a good job?
The mobility of Methodist ministers is called “itinerancy,” which means going from place to place to do something. It was part of the Methodist movement from its beginnings in the early American colonies. There were several reasons for this. John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, believed in itinerancy as a way of keeping pastoral assignments short so that deep attachments would not be formed. Wesley believed that if a pastor stayed too long in one place, his effectiveness could be compromised. Another practical reason was that the mobility of the Methodist minister allowed him to travel fast and light up and down the colonies. The usual practice was to go from town to town, on what was known as a circuit. The preacher would usually stay with a family, conduct services, perform weddings, and other pastoral tasks. This mobility took its toll on the pastors as they often were traveling in all kinds of weather.
This ability to be mobile positioned the Methodist church to respond to the westward expansion following the Revolutionary War. As settlers began to cross the Appalachian Mountains, the Methodists had the mechanisms of ministry in place to move with them. As the Methodist movement grew and expanded with the nation, it is said that at one time, there were more Methodist churches than there were post offices.
At one time, not so long ago, pastors did not know if they were moving until the pastoral appointments were read at Annual Conference. Many pastors would rush out of Annual Conference, call home, and tell the family to start packing.
Today, ordained United Methodist pastors still take a vow to go where they are sent. The process is a little more humane and rarely a last minute notification. While a pastor’s moving is often a sad time for both pastor and congregation, itinerancy allows pastors to be deployed where their gifts and graces are needed, as well as providing rich opportunities for churches to continue vital ministries under the pastoral leadership of new pastors.
Rev. Bill Sterling, Easton District Superintendent
Why Are Methodists Called Methodists?
The term “Methodist” was given to the members of the Holy Club at Oxford University. The members of the Club were college students with a difference. Instead of socializing and partying, they strived to live accord to William Law’s disciplines of the holy life. Needless to say they stood out from the other students. It was some of these students who started calling the Holy Club “Methodists” as a term of derision. This put-down of trying to live by a method was then used by John Wesley and the other members as a proud epithet. As time passed, a larger Methodist movement grew, through classes and conferences that took place under the spiritual and temporal direction of John Wesley. The name Methodist came to refer to this spiritual reform movement within the Church of England.
Some of these folks came to America with a great desire to spread the Wesley message of grace and an ordered spiritual life. These groups, too, took on the name Methodist. The term had such a hold on people in America that even when people wanted to change Methodism they always kept the name Methodist. By 1866 here in the Mid-Shore area these different organizations of Methodism existed: Methodist Episcopal Church, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Methodist Protestant Church, Methodist Episcopal Church, South, and Delaware Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. In the late 1960s, most of those churches joined together into the United Methodist Church.
What does “Methodist” mean to you in 2011? Is it spiritual? Institutional?
Rev. Gary Moore, Easton District Superintendent-Elect
What is distinctive about the United Methodist Church?
In terms of core beliefs about the Christian faith, the United Methodist Church shares the same doctrines as other denominations: the Triune God, human life made in God’s image, Jesus as Son of God and Son of Man, the primacy of faith over works to enter the kingdom of God, the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion, the role of the pastor, the church as the Body of Christ, and many more.
The two distinctive qualities of Methodism, historically and in current practice, that set it off are:
1. The centrality of the grace and love of God in Christ for the salvation of the world. All Christian denominations believe this proposition, but Methodism puts greater emphasis on it, and places it at the center of the faith – as compared to the role of rules, doctrine and sacraments in other churches.
2. This belief then is lived out by pastors through itinerant mission work. Ordained ministers, known as “elders,” serve the world by being willing to serve wherever sent in ministry and not called by the local church. They are to serve the Sacrament of Holy Communion wherever, whenever, and to whomever without approval of a bishop or the local church. Early Methodist preachers would serve Communion to people in public places, like in front of a Court House. As a result, Methodism grew among the rich and poor, black and white, free and slave, because of grace and the freedom of the Elders to go out. No other Christian group has followed this distinctive practice!
As United Methodists, how distinctive are we? Do people understand our members as being gracious and loving? Are we known for what we do in and for the community in Christ’s name?
Rev. Gary Moore, Easton District Superintendent
What is Charge Conference, and why do we have it?
The key word is “conference.” Methodism is not about “Jesus and me” and there are no “independent churches.” The essence of Methodism is accountability to God and one another. John Wesley recognized that original sin had corrosive effects upon the individual. The class and the conference were tools to keep sin in check. Grace can only be truly effective when the individual is placed in a structure of accountability. And the “class” – later, “charge” – too must be held accountable by the District Superintendent and Annual Conference.
Before the term became “charge conference” it was “quarterly conference.” Early Methodists were members of classes and not churches. All the classes of Methodists in a geographical area would meet quarterly with the Presiding Elder to give an account of their spiritual life by responding to a prescribed set of questions.
However, by the 1840s these classes began to take the shape of congregations, and the conferences became more concerned with financial and temporal matters (before then there was hardly any recording of detailed financial information). The quarterly conference and presiding elder stayed in place until the 1939 merger.
Although the Circuit became a Charge and the Presiding Elder became District Superintendent, the basic Wesleyan idea of accountability nonetheless remains to this day. When the Charge Conference convenes, with the permission and under the direction of the District Superintendent, it is as if all the other Charge Conferences in the Annual Conference are also meeting to conduct the business of the Lord. This is the embodiment of the Methodist ideal of “Connectionalism.”
Methodism has always run contrary to the American notion of individualism. In its best moments the Charge Conference embraces the Biblical idea of the Body of Christ.
Rev. Gary Moore, Easton District Superintendent
The Apostles’ Creed always raises the ‘catholic’ question. Why do we use the word, since we are not Catholic?
1. The Apostles Creed is a very old statement of faith that has ‘grown up’ over the years. No one knows how it was started and the first known written formulations are of a shorter version than we use today. For example, the words “He descended into hell” are absent, as in our version, but they are present in the Episcopal Church’s use of the Creed. So, if you are an “original intent” person, you will struggle to find the original one.
2. The Creed was not developed by an official church council, like the Nicene Creed. That is why it does not have the theo- logical precision of the official church creeds. It feels more personal to us and that is why we like it so much. And, in all honesty, that is why it is the only creed mentioned in the Book of Discipline, because we Methodists do not seek a very precise knowledge of God. (That is not all good either – Just watch the debates at General Conference in April on your computer!) We are a doctrinal church and not a creedal one, and that is a discussion for another day!
3. Now the problem word: “catholic.” It means universal. It is not to be under- stood as a denomination or just oneaspect of Christianity. We affirm that the church is more than being Method- ist. Is the recital of the creed a subver- sive act – smashing down all the divisions we have set up against one another? Methodist versus Catholic?
4. Final thought: It is very hard to be ONE. It is easier to be a diverse group of Christian tribes each one keeping to itself. To be truly “catholic” is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” Then the love of God becomes visible in the “one true and holy catholic church.”
Rev. Gary Moore, Easton District Superintendent