June Fulton felt strange sitting on the third bench.
At every service since she joined the choir at age 12 – basically her entire life – she has sat with them on the stage behind the pulpit at Mt. Vernon United Methodist Church (UMC). ), in Trinity, North Carolina.
But there was no chanting during the disaffiliation vote. So Fulton, now one of the matriarchs of Mt. Vernon, took a seat on the bench next to a friend.
“Everyone filled out their piece of paper, a ballot, and he had to sign it,” Fulton told CT. “Everyone went up and put their paper in the basket, and then we sat there quietly. So quietly. It was so strange to sit there so quietly while we waited.
Representatives of the denomination collected the ballot papers. They went into a back room and counted votes to see if the small rural church would be one of thousands to leave the UMC because of LGBTQ affirmation, fidelity to traditional Christian teachings on sexuality, of the authority of the Church. Book of Disciplineand years of deadly ecclesial conflicts.
Fulton leaned over to her friend and told her how sad it all was. She said it’s not something you want to do.
Her friend said: “I just wonder what it’s going to be like.” I think we made the right decision. But I just wonder what it’s going to be like,” Fulton recalled.
Fulton wondered that too. She hoped the congregation would soon put all this behind it: the debates; acrimony and its weight; sorrow; and the complex and never-ending process of disaffiliation.
“We can move forward,” she said, “and get back to doing the things we’ve always done: caring for people, caring for people and being the Church.” »
Mt. Vernon voted to leave. Today, almost a year later, only few indications remain that this congregation was part of the Mainline Church which was one of the largest, most powerful and influential Protestant groups in the States -United. A dilapidated road sign about a mile down the rural road bears the denomination’s name and logo along with directions to the church. The hymns in the pews still say United Methodist.
But Mount Vernon, like 7,630 other churches, is free from the UMC. Thirty-three percent of the denomination’s congregations in western North Carolina have left, along with more than half of those in Texas, 38 percent in Pennsylvania, 35 percent in Ohio and nearly a third in Indiana.
Across the country, newly separated Methodists hope, pray and seek revival. As Fulton hoped, they move forward and backward.
Ten miles from Trinity, at Wesley Memorial Methodist Church in High Point, North Carolina, Brenda Radner was one of about 300 people who attended a two-day seminar on Methodist identity in February, with lectures on history, theology, ethics and Wesleyan ethics. hermeneutics. She began attending Wesley Memorial 56 years ago, when she was just 19 years old. But the congregation’s recent exit from the UMC made him want to delve deeper into Wesleyanism and learn more about the particularities of its religious tradition.
It’s exciting, Radner told CT, to think about what could happen next.
“I would love to see a renaissance. And I think it could come. I would love to see it start here in High Point,” she said.
Renaissance is one of the explicit goals of School of Methodism, organized by the John Wesley Institute. The first two-day event was held at Wesley Memorial, and a half-dozen more are planned at other churches this spring and summer, according to director Ryan Danker.
The first began with a call to worship. Hundreds of Methodists stood in the neo-Gothic church to sing Charles Wesley’s great hymn, “O for a Thousand Tongues.”
Before communion, the gathered believers raised their voices again with another classic from the co-founder of Methodism, singing an invitation to new life.
“Come on, everyone!” Come, you sinner! Everything in Christ is ready now,” they sang. “Come all, souls oppressed by sin, wanderers restless after rest. »
The event brought together many North Carolina members of the new Comprehensive Methodist Church, which is forming following a split with the UMC. But members of UMC congregations, as well as members of the Anglican Church of North America, some previously unaffiliated congregations, and perhaps a few people from the Church of the Nazarene, the Wesleyan Church, and of the Free Church were also present. Methodist Church.
Danker spoke about their shared history during his opening lecture at the High Point Sanctuary. He called them back to their original philosophy, formed during the fires of the 18th-century Methodist revival that swept across Britain, the United States and the world.
“I’ve noticed recently that everywhere I go – I talk to all kinds of Methodists – there’s a desire for the vibrancy of Primitive Methodism,” he said. “What I want to do with my time here is provide somewhat of a model for Methodist revival.”
Danker urged all Methodists to look to this story to find the hearth, dry wood, and kindling that the Holy Spirit can ignite.
The next day, Suzanne Nicholson, a professor at Asbury University, spoke about recovering John Wesley’s approach to reading Scripture. Too many people, she told the assembled Methodists, have been led astray and distracted by debates over technical terms in hermeneutics, forgetting what the Bible is really for.
“John Wesley said that God wants to transform us and the Scriptures will transform us,” Nicholson said. “Scripture is the trustworthy revelation of the mind of God. »
The traditional Methodist approach to the Bible is literalist, according to Nicholson, but that does not mean that Wesley or other early Methodists like Peter Cartwright and Francis Asbury read everything literally. Instead, they accepted the simple meaning of the text, which involves an assessment of the genre of writing, literary and historical contexts, and the broader history of Scripture, moving from original sin to justification by faith, to the new birth and within and without. holiness.
Methodists should read the commentaries alongside the Scriptures, Nicholson said, and pray and ask for the Spirit’s illumination. They should also look back at Wesley’s historical Bible reading practices.
“One of the things we see in Wesley’s sermons is that they are full of Scripture,” she said.
Several women attending Methodism said they believed the greatest hope for Wesleyan revival and revitalization would come from the deep commitment to the Bible that Nicholson spoke of.
“We have to kind of immerse ourselves and be in the Word,” said Catherine Fulcher, who attends Wesley Memorial.
Her friend Angie Fary agrees. Growing up Baptist before joining the UMC 20 years ago, Fary enjoys learning about the history and tradition of John Wesley and early Methodism. But she said she was especially encouraged, in this time of transition, to hear speakers remind Methodists of the Bible.
“We are going to stay the course on the Word of God,” Fary told CT.
Some Methodist world leaders also devoted much energy to prayer. They say they want the new denomination to be bound less by bureaucracy and legal arrangements than by intercession.
Laura Ballinger, an Indiana pastor on Global Methodist’s prayer steering committee, said representatives from different regions of the new denomination meet monthly to pray. There are also groups in each region who pray, and more at the local level. The Church encourages each congregation to appoint a “prayer person.”
Those in the pews of Global Methodist churches are urged to remember that they are dependent on God and that this new, fresh expression of Methodism will need His enabling, enabling and sustaining grace.
“We want Jesus to be Lord, so we need to listen to Him and pray to Him and ask for empowerment,” Ballinger told CT. “We want to be a church – truly a church – that is connected to each other and to the Lord through prayer. »
Many people fasted and prayed for weeks before the convocation conferences that formalized the regional organization of Global Methodists. According to Ballinger, the meetings were marked by long times of prayer and an overflow of the fruits of the Spirit, especially love and joy.
“I saw people crying with intense joy,” Ballinger said. “At a business meeting.”
Prayer requests prior to the Great Lakes Region Convening Conference focused primarily on practical concerns. Methodists were asked to pray that the conference would run smoothly, that registration would be orderly and efficient, and that everything said on stage would edify the Church.
But those on the prayer list were also asked to ask God for an outpouring of the Spirit and for each person present to “listen to the Lord”.
Carol Perry, a member of Grace Methodist Church in Decatur, Illinois, said that as she drove home, she thought about how every face seemed filled with joy and how there was so much love, even from people she didn’t know. It was a powerful religious experience.
“I think part of the joy comes from the freedom we have… because we are truly following Jesus and the church he is building,” Perry wrote. “I’ve only been following Jesus for about nine years. Freedom in Christ is a phrase I’ve heard a lot but haven’t really experienced in such a profound way.
The regional conference was something of, in the words of another Methodist hymn writer, “a before taste of divine glory.
Back in Trinity, North Carolina, the new global Methodist pastor preached on this theme on a rainy February morning. Caroline Franks spoke to the Mt. Vernon congregation about a recent meeting she had with people interested in being ordained in the Global Methodist Church.
“They heard what God is doing among us, this remnant movement,” she said.
The denomination is still forming, Franks said, and the revival of Methodism is just beginning to take hold. But if they look now, the congregation at Mt. Vernon can barely glimpse the great work God is doing. Franks compared it to the experience of the disciples who saw Jesus transfigured on a mountaintop.
“It’s a taste, a taste, a glimmer of what God is going to do,” she said. “It’s a glimpse of the glory of God.” A glimpse into what grace really is.
Back in the choir on the piano side of the stage, June Fulton believed him. She thought it was good. So this is what it looks like, she thought. She looked forward to seeing more of the new life this revival would bring to the Methodist congregation to which she had belonged since her birth.
“We really don’t know all the ins and outs of what’s going to happen,” Fulton told CT. “But we are united again and I hope we grow.” We want to build a new fellowship hall and of course we want to reach out to the community. We’ll have to see what happens, but it’s exciting.
