Category Archives: Methodist History

Peter Cartwright on Class Meetings

10 Tuesday Apr 2012

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The following extended quote is from The Autobiography of Peter Cartwright. Cartwright was a nineteenth century Methodist and politician in Illinois. (He ran against Abraham Lincoln for a seat in the US Congress in 1846, and lost.) Towards the end of his autobiography, Cartwright reflected on the importance of the class meeting for American Methodism. His account reveals not only his sense of the significance of the class meeting for nineteenth century American Methodism, but also the key emphases of the class meeting.

Class-meetings have been owned and blessed of God in the Methodist Episcopal Church, and from more than fifty years’ experience, I doubt whether any one means of grace has proved as successful in building up the Methodist Church as this blessed privilege. For many years we kept them with closed doors, and suffered none to remain in class-meeting more than twice or thrice unless they signified a desire to join the Church. In these class-meetings the weak have been made strong; the bowed down have been raised up; the tempted have found delivering grace; the doubting mind has had all its doubts and fears removed, and the whole class have found that this was ‘none other than the house of God, and the gate of heaven.’ Here the hard heart has been tendered, the cold heart warmed with holy fire; here the dark mind, beclouded with trial and temptation, has had every cloud rolled away, and the sun of righteousness has risen with resplendent glory, ‘with healing in his wings;’ and in these class-meetings many seekers of religion have found them the spiritual birthplace of their souls into the heavenly family, and their dead souls made alive to God.

Every Christian that enjoys religion, and that desires to feel its mighty comforts, if he understands the nature of them really, loves them and wishes to attend them. But how sadly are these class-meetings neglected in the Methodist Episcopal Church. Are there not thousands of our members who habitually neglect to attend them, and is it any wonder that so many of our members grow cold and careless in religion, and finally backslide? Is it not for the want of enforcing our rules on class-meetings that their usefulness is destroyed? Are there not a great many worldly-minded, proud, fashionable members of our Church, who merely have the name of Methodist, that are constantly crying out and pleading that attendance on class-meetings should not be a test of membership in the Church? And now, before God, are not many of our preachers at fault in this matter? they neglect to meet the classes themselves, and they keep many class-leaders in office that will not attend to their duty; and is it not fearful to see our preachers so neglectful of their duty in dealing with the thousands of our delinquent members who stay away from class-meetings weeks, months, and for years? Just as sure as our preachers neglect their duty in enforcing the rules on class-meetings on our leaders and members, just so sure the power of religion will be lost in the Methodist Episcopal Church.O for faithful, holy preachers, and faithful, holy class-leaders! Then we shall have faithful, holy members. May the time never come when class-meetings shall be laid aside in the Methodist Episcopal Church, or when these class-meetings, or an attendance on them, shall cease to be a test of membership among us. I beg and beseech class-leaders to be punctual in attending their classes, and if any of their members stay away from any cause, hunt them up, find out the cause of their absence, pray with them and urge them to the all-important duty of regularly attending class-meeting. Much, very much, depends on faithful and religious class-leaders; and how will the unfaithful class-leader stand in the judgment of the great day, when by his neglect many of his members will have backslidden, and will be finally lost?

(Source: The Autobiography of Peter Cartwright. (New York: Carlton and Porter, 1857), 519-520)

The Class Meeting and Covenant Discipleship

02 Monday Apr 2012

Posted by in Accountability, Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry, Wesley

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As readers of this blog and other pieces I have written are aware, I see the early Methodist class meeting as not only an ancient relic of days or yore, but as a practice that can and should be reclaimed by Wesleyans (and so does the seminary where I teach, where all students participate in a class meeting during their first year). There is one piece of this that comes up frequently in conversations about reclaiming the class meeting that I have not yet directly addressed – the relationship between the early Methodist class meeting and Covenant Discipleship (CD). I believe that there are some important differences between the class meeting and CD. Yet, I have been hesitant to speak directly to the similarities and differences between the class meeting and CD for several reasons.

First, I am a big fan of David Lowes Watson’s work. In many ways, I am standing on his shoulders. The renewed interest in the class meeting is largely a product of the time and energy he has invested as a scholar and a churchman in describing the class meeting, and in seeking to find ways to help contemporary Wesleyans reclaim this practice. His Early Methodist Class Meeting remains the standard book on the class meeting in early Methodism. And his vision for CD groups remains the most constructive proposal for how people can be equipped to return to a form of accountable discipleship (Steve Manskar also has a great book by that name and is doing wonderful things to keep Wesleyan discipleship before the broader UMC). In countless conversations I have had about the class meeting, people have spoken of their participation in CD groups and the valuable role they have played in their lives.

I am also hesitant to critique CD, because I think it is valuable. I am not interested in being seen as someone who is an opponent of CD. The differences that I see between CD and the class meeting are not serious objections or major flaws to CD itself. In other words, I am glad that people participate in CD groups. Further, I don’t want to fall into the trap of doing nothing because it isn’t perfect or exactly the way that I would do it.

CD almost always comes up in conversations about reclaiming the class meeting, particularly in several recent conversations I have had. I do have some concerns about how easily people assume that the two are synonymous. Because of my interest in reclaiming the classing meeting, I have decided it is time to spell out my concerns about CD as a contemporary version of the class meeting. Nevertheless, I want to stress that I offer this as a sympathetic critique.

I attended Wesley Theological Seminary in from 2002 – 2005. During my first year as a student at Wesley, we were required to participate in a weekly CD group. We were also required to form a weekly CD group as a part of our field education/internship experience in our second and third years. These experiences were generally positive for me, particularly the group that I was a part of during my internship. However, as I began to study the class meeting in its own rite, I increasingly began to feel a sense of unease about the assumption that CD was the same thing as the class meeting.

My sense is that a major assumption that went into the development of CD was that the General Rules functioned as a clear structure or guideline for the time that was spent in the class meeting. In other words, the content of the class meeting looked something like each person in the meeting being asked whether they had avoided doing harm, had done all the good that they could, and had practiced the means of grace. If this were the primary activity of the class meeting, CD would be a fantastic translation of the class meeting that provides a practical acknowledgment that the contemporary UMC is so diverse theologically that there is no longer an agreed upon list of sins that should be avoided (i.e., we no longer agree on what should be included under the first General Rule). A major positive of CD is that it allows individual groups to create a customized list of General Rules. It helps groups to reclaim a rule of life. And this is a valuable thing to reclaim!

However, I do not believe that the General Rules provided the major structure for the early Methodist class meeting. My sense is that they were in the background and that people were clearly expected to keep them, and would be called out if they were clearly violating one of the General Rules. But I do not think the major activity of the class meeting was giving an account of how you had kept the General Rules in the past week, which I take to be the main function of CD. Rather, I think the major activity of the class meeting was answering the question that is listed in the General Rules itself, to talk about one’s experience of God, how one’s “soul prospers.”

The General Rules begin with a description of people who came to John Wesley “deeply convinced of sin” and “earnestly groaning for redemption.” As Wesley began to meet with this group, and it began to grow, the first “United Society” was formed in London. These societies consisted of people “having the form and seeking the power of godliness, united… that they may help each other to work out their salvation.”

The class meeting, according to Wesley in the General Rules, arose in order to “more easily” keep track of whether people in the societies “are indeed working out their own salvation.” And class leaders, again, according to the General Rules, were to meet with the people in their classes each week in order to do three key things:

“1. To inquire how their souls prosper.
2. To advise, reprove, comfort or exhort, as occasion may require.
3. To receive what they are willing to give toward the relief of the preachers, church, and poor.”

This list suggests to me that the primary activity of the class meeting was conversation about the state of each person’s life with God. Wesley’s narration of the beginnings of the United Societies is filled with language that points to the search for a direct experience of God being one of the key emphases of early Methodism in general, and of the class meeting in particular.

To put this differently, I think CD can much more plausibly be viewed as a contemporary adaptation of the Anglican Religious Societies for the 21st century, than the Methodist class meetings. The Religious Societies would come up with a list of rules that they would commit to keep and be accountable to, just as in CD. In the class meeting, one was accountable to the General Rules, but this was in the background and only came to the foreground if there was a pressing reason for this to happen (like someone violating one of the rules).

I became more convinced of the difference between CD and the early Methodist class meeting when I began formally studying the popular Methodist experience of communal formation as a PhD student. To the best of my memory, I do not recall ever reading an account of a class meeting that stated explicitly, or suggested that the rhythm of the class meeting was taking turns discussing the member’s faithfulness to the General Rules. There were examples of people being asked if they were keeping the means of grace, etc. However, these questions were part of a broader conversation that centered on the search for an experience of justification by faith and the witness of the Spirit of one’s adoption as a child of God. The overwhelming sense I had after reading popular Methodist accounts at the Methodist Archives was that people were desperately seeking an encounter with the living God.

Ultimately, I think there is a serious mistake that comes in equating CD with the class meeting. CD is focused on a covenant that you and the group are held accountable to. Unless my experience in these groups was a complete aberration, (and my reading of texts about CD was way off base), a person who is involved in a CD group will not necessarily ever be asked about how they are doing in their walk with God. Based on the way it is conceived, it would seem that CD itself could become yet another way of insulating ourselves from asking difficult questions about what is actually happening in our lives with God. (I’m not saying that this is what typically, or even frequently, actually happens in CD groups.) Based on the way CD is designed, it would seem to be possible to do all of the things in a CD covenant and not grow in your love and knowledge of God, or even have someone ask you about this vital aspect of your life.

Someone recently said to me that it is very difficult for many contemporary Methodists to know where to start in answering a question like, “How is it with your soul?” I think this person is right. We have largely lost the language for speaking of a living breathing relationship with the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It was suggested that CD could be a way of backing into these kinds of conversations. I think that is possible, and I know many people who would testify that their relationship with God is stronger because of their involvement in CD. However, I think most people avoid conversations that are uncomfortable or feel risky, rather than accidentally stumbling into them.

Ultimately, I think Covenant Discipleship does more work than is necessary. It is more complicated than it needs to be. I do not see a reason why the class meeting cannot be picked back up as it was generally left off (well, historians could do some needed quibbling here). There is no reason why people who want to be faithful Christians cannot begin to gather together in small groups to talk about how things are going in their lives as followers of Jesus Christ, to support each other and to encourage each other to grow in grace.

I think the best way to reclaim the language of a lived experience of God is by trying to speak it, even if by fits and starts. Ultimately, reclaiming the early Methodist class meeting may be scary and intimidating, but it does not need to be complicated.

What do you think?

On the Class Meeting

27 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by in Accountability, Christian Living, links, Methodist History, Ministry

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I recently wrote a post for Seedbed on “How to Reclaim Wesleyan Class Meetings.” Check it out if you are interested.

For those of you who are finding your way to my blog for the first time because of the Seedbed article – Welcome!

A year and a half ago I wrote a series of posts on the Wesleyan Class Meeting for the 21st century that may be of interest to Seedbed readers who want to learn more. For convenience, here are the titles of the posts in that series:

1. The Origin and Development of the Class Meeting.
2. The Potential Contribution of the Class Meeting for 21st c. Wesleyans/Methodists.
3. The Target Audience of Class Meetings.
4. Top Ten Ways to Guarantee Your Class Meeting Will Fail (Intended to be humorous).
5. Is the Class Meeting too Judgmental and Exclusive?
6. The Role of the Class Leader.

A good friend of mine from Munger Place, a church plant from Highland Park UMC in east Dallas, described his experience being a contemporary class leader in an excellent and insightful series of posts that gives a valuable perspective into the lay experience of the class meeting. His posts can be found here:

1. My experience with classes and the role being in a small group has played in my faith journey.
2. The impact leading a class meeting has had on my Christian faith.
3. The impact of classes on my church.
4. The potential impact of class meetings on The UMC.

Finally, I have received questions in various online forums about the difference between the early Methodist class meeting and contemporary Covenant Discipleship groups. I am working on a post to describe the similarities and differences of these two groups as I see them.

As always, if you would like to subscribe to this blog and automatically receive future posts, you can subscribe by email by clicking here or in a reader by clicking here.

Love Feast

16 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by in Christian Living, Life, Methodist History, Wesley

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On February 18, 1750 John Wesley wrote in his Journal:

“Today, likewise, wherever we assembled together, God caused his power to be known, but particularly at the love-feast. The honest simplicity with which several spoke, in declaring the manner of God’s dealings with them, set the hearts of others on fire, and the flame spread more and more, till, having stayed near an hour longer than usual, we were constrained to part.” (Works 20:321)

Recently, I have been experiencing the way that God does seem to cause his power to be known when people speak with “honest simplicity” about the ways they have experienced God’s work in their lives. Yesterday, I was able to be a part of a love feast with Seattle Pacific Seminary students. We took an hour and a half in the middle of finals to share some light food and talk about how we have experienced God over the past few months.

The best part was that Wesley’s testimony to the power of the love feast in the above account came to life for me in a new way. As we shared with each other, I gained an experiential understanding of what the early Methodists experienced at this love feast when the Holy Spirit “set the hearts of others on fire, and the flame spread more and more.” And I think all of us left feeling like we had been renewed by our encounter with the living God.

In fact, I have been experiencing God’s presence in my life in new ways over the last month or so. I have been blessed several times in the last month with a tangible experience of God’s presence as I have been a part of conversations where people spoke with honesty and simplicity about “the manner of God’s dealings with them.” I have left each of these conversations with a deeper awareness of God’s goodness and his steadfast love for me.

Through these conversations I have experienced my own brokenness more deeply than ever and my deep need for the healing that only God can bring. In one conversation, a dear friend reminded me of two qualities of God: gentle and jealous. I was reminded that God is gentle, that he is so tender and careful with us. God loves us deeply and perfectly at every single moment of our lives. He has never been disappointed in us.

And yet he is jealous. God wants all of us. He wants us to be wholly given to him and the purposes that he has for our lives.

This is why, as I tweeted a few days ago, I still believe entire sanctification is the grand depositum that God has given to the people called Methodist. The gospel is the good news of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ through the crucifixion and the resurrection. Christianity is the promise of salvation, of healing, of rescue to the broken, the hurting, the perishing. But just like the church cannot get to Easter Sunday without Good Friday, we cannot get to the hope for new life in Jesus Christ without recognizing our own brokenness. We cannot save ourselves, we need a savior. And thanks be to God, we are offered salvation through the person and work of Jesus.

I am convinced that the fullness of the gospel is not only hope for life after death. The fullness of the gospel is not a few strategies for improving your life at work or at home. And though I love The United Methodist Church and desperately want it to have a future that is filled with God’s presence, the fullness of the gospel is not survival.

The fullness of the gospel is that at every point of need in our lives God has already acted to meet the need. The fullness of the gospel is that salvation is freely offered to every single person. The fullness of the gospel is that sin is no longer necessary, because the Great Physician is ready to heal us of all that is not in accordance with his purposes. The fullness of the gospel is that we can experience forgiveness for all that we have done that we should not have done and that we can actually live the kind of life that God created us to live.

When I was in high school I read a quote by Henry David Thoreau that has haunted me every since I first read it, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” I think Thoreau is probably right. This would be very bad news, if this were all there news there is. But thanks be to God it isn’t. The good news is that we do not need to live lives of quiet desperation, it is not necessary or inevitable. We can live fully and obediently in God’s presence today!

As Paul says in a moving passage at the end of Romans 8, “I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Rom 8:38)

Anything contrary to God’s purposes in our lives is no longer necessary. Which is not to say that it no longer has a hold on our lives. We cannot release ourselves. But God can and thanks be to God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit that he is both able and willing.

These are some of the ways my heart has been set on fire as I have heard others share God’s “manner of dealing with them.” Thanks be to God for love feasts!

John Wesley on the End of the World

19 Thursday May 2011

Posted by in Methodist History, Wesley

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For a period of time George Bell was a preacher in John Wesley’s “connexion.” As Bell was accused of “enthusiasm”, Wesley was initially hesitant to disassociate himself from Bell. The breaking point for Wesley came when Bell prophesied the end of the world on February 28, 1763. Here is what Wesley wrote in his published Journal when the day Bell prophesied the world would end arrived:

Preaching in the evening at Spitalfields on ‘Prepare to meet thy God,’ I largely showed the utter absurdity of the supposition that the world was to end that night. But notwithstanding all I could say, many were afraid to go to bed, and some wandered about in the fields, being persuaded that if the world did not end, at least London would be swallowed up by an earthquake. I went to bed at my usual time and was fast asleep about ten o’clock. (John Wesley, Journal, February 28, 1763, Works of John Wesley, Bicentennial Edition, vol. 21: 407.)

A Future with Hope for The United Methodist Church

12 Tuesday Apr 2011

Posted by in Book Review, Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry

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The recent conversation about the Call to Action report and the Leadership Summit (known in the twittersphere as #umclead) has stirred up quite a bit of conversation amongst United Methodist leaders about the future of the denomination. It has also revealed a significant amount of discontent with the status quo as well as the proposals from the CTA about a way forward. One particular concern I have frequently heard is related to the role of younger people in the church. We hear a lot about the need for younger clergy in particular, but are we ready to entrust the church to them?

From that perspective, the timing of the release of Generation Rising: A Future with Hope for The United Methodist Church could not be better. The book is written by younger leaders in The United Methodist Church about why the church has a hopeful future.

As Andrew C. Thompson notes in the introduction, “There is one thing that is lacking in recent books on Wesleyan renewal in the church, though: the voice of a younger generation” (xii). To put it bluntly: a lot of people are talking about the future of the church. But the people who are consulted about the future, or given a platform to talk about what is needed for a bright future, are usually not people who are the future of the church!

If for no other reason, then, I am excited by this book because it is one of the first attempts to let the folks who are the future speak for themselves. I am pleased that Abingdon has chosen to support this task. I hope the book will be successful because that would be a sign to younger generations that the general church really does care about who we are, what we think, and what we are passionate about. Success for the book would also be great because Abingdon and other publishers are driven by profit and a desire to make money. If this book sells, it will be easier to make the case that there is a market for voices like these in the future. (I am thinking of the numerous books that came out related to emergent that began with Brian McLaren’s success and eventually led to folks being published who would not have been published otherwise. I am particularly reminded of this book, which is like Generation Rising for emergent: An Emergent Manifesto of Hope.)

The book contains multiple excellent chapters addressing the following topics: Discipleship (Andrew C. Thompson), Holy Communion (Timothy Reinhold Eberhart), Preaching (Joy Jittaun Moore), Evangelism (Jeffrey Conklin-Miller), Small Groups (Kevin M. Watson), Missions (Arnold S. Oh), Race (F. Douglas Powe, Jr.), Ecology (Presian Burroughs), Youth Ministry (Sarah Arthur), Young Adults (Julie O’Neal), Ordination (Eric Van Meter), and Internet Ministry (Shane Raynor).

If you were reading carefully, you may have noticed that I wrote the chapter on small groups. My chapter provides an introduction to the historical background of small group accountability in early Methodism. I then argue that involvement in a small group (class meetings) was basic to what it meant to be a member of the Methodist Episcopal Church for the first several decades of Methodism’s existence as a church in its own right in the United States. Ultimately, I suggest that reclaiming something like the class meeting for the contemporary United Methodist Church is key to a hopeful future for Methodism. In many ways, writing this chapter was the stimulus for much of the writing I have done here over the past few months about the relevance of the class meeting for 21st century Methodism. If you have enjoyed the posts here, you may want to read my more formal discussion of similar issues in this book.

The book is edited by Andrew C. Thompson, blogger and sometime columnist for the United Methodist Reporter. Andrew is also finishing his ThD at Duke Divinity School and will begin teaching Wesleyan Studies at Memphis Theological Seminary this fall. One of the real joys of working on this project with Andrew and the other authors is that in reading their work and interacting with them, I have found even more hope for the future. I am grateful to have been included in this project and hope you will check it out.

New Volume of Wesley’s Works Forthcoming

07 Thursday Apr 2011

Posted by in Book Review, Methodist History, Wesley

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I am anxiously awaiting the release of vol. 10 of the Bicentennial Edition of the Works of John Wesley. The title of vol 10 is The Methodist Societies: The Minutes of Conference and will contain, as the title helpfully implies, the minutes from the various conferences in early Methodism. I am particularly interested in getting a copy of this book in my hands because there are several passages from various minutes I would like to cite from the critical edition in my dissertation. This volume is edited by Henry D. Rack, who is best known for his biography of John Wesley, which is seen by many as the standard biography of John Wesley.

The Bicentennial Edition is the scholarly edition of John Wesley’s works, as distinguished from the Jackson edition, which is much cheaper, but is not comprehensive and contains no footnotes or annotations. The Bicentennial Edition is fairly expensive (although about a year ago, Cokesbury was selling the previously published volumes for $15 each) but it is, in my view, a worth while expense for the library of any pastor in the Wesleyan family. The Bicentennial Edition has published all of the volumes of Wesley’s sermons and all of the volumes of Wesley’s Journals and diaries.

Are you as excited as I am?

The General Rules and a Holy Lent

09 Wednesday Mar 2011

Posted by in Accountability, Christian Living, links, Methodist History, Ministry, Wesley

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One of many highlights of last week’s annual meeting of the Wesleyan Theological Society was a conversation I had with Michael G. Cartwright about a new resource on the “General Rules.” Cartwright and Andrew D. Kinsey have developed “Watching Over One Another in Love: Reclaiming the Wesleyan Rule of Life for the Church’s Mission” which is a 28 day day study of the “General Rules.” I have not had the chance to read through this resource, but it looks excellent and I am looking forward to getting into it. (My first impression, when I was given a copy was that the design and layout is beautiful!)

And the price of this resource is right. You can download it here for free! For more, you can also go to The Indiana Annual Conference’s Wesleyan ConneXion page to download another free resource that contains articles by Richard P. Heitzenrater and William J. Abraham on the relevance of the Wesleyan tradition for contemporary United Methodism.

As I write this on Ash Wednesday, I can’t help but think that using “Watching Over Another in Love ” could be a great way to help you have a holy Lent in preparation for the good news that we will hear again on Easter Sunday. In fact, it would be a great way to take on John Meunier’s recent challenge to focus on what it would look like to “be Methodist” during the forty days of Lent.

Published in Methodist Review

06 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by in Article Review, Life, Methodist History, Wesley

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For those of you who may be interested in my research on the early Methodist band meeting, I have recently had an article published in Methodist Review an online, peer-reviewed academic journal. The title of my article is “Forerunners of the Early Methodist Band Meeting” and (as the title suggests) it explores the key antecedents that influenced the development of the Wesleyan Methodist bands.

If you want to read the article, you simply have to register with Methodist Review (which is free) and then download the PDF file. Once you register you have access to both vols. 1 and 2 of the journal and can download any or all of the articles that have been published.

The Methodist Class Meeting for the 21st Century: Where Are They Now?

18 Thursday Nov 2010

Posted by in Accountability, Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry, Wesley

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It has been awhile since I have added to my series on the class meeting for the 21st century. (If you have missed this series and want to learn more about the relevance of Wesleyan class meetings for the 21st century, click here for the last post and an outline of the entire series.) I recently received a great question from a reader about my post on the class meeting for the 21st century. The basic question was, Are there Methodist churches that have class meetings? The question is so good, I am going to dedicate a post to it.

The short answer is Yes!

In the Dallas-Fort Worth area I have worked with several ministries about starting something like a contemporary version of the class meeting. Here are three different ministries and the way that they have implemented a 21st century version of the class meeting in their unique contexts:

1. Munger Place Church

Munger Place Church is a congregation that was relaunched by Highland Park United Methodist Church. Public worship began at Munger Place just over a month ago. Munger Place has adopted the class meeting as their basic approach to small groups, which they call “Kitchen Groups.” In the first month as a worshiping congregation, Munger has already had a small group launch that resulted in starting five Kitchen Groups. The leaders for these five groups came from a previous small group that began meeting last spring. My family has been part of the leadership team that helped “relaunch” Munger Place and we have been blessed to be involved with Kitchen Groups as well. I am excited by the way that Andrew Forrest, the campus pastor, has embraced the class meeting model and renamed it. When Andrew talks about membership at Munger Place, he always mentions that part of the expectations of membership include involvement in a Kitchen Group. (One caveat: The link to the Kitchen Group page on the Munger website contains a video that is not specifically about Kitchen Groups. The video was actually made by Cornerstone for their small group ministry, which has a bit different emphasis.)

2. S.M.U. Wesley Foundation

This is an example of a way that a United Methodist campus ministry is implementing a Wesleyan approach to small groups. This year, the Wesley Foundation at Southern Methodist University has started both class meetings and band meetings. Every time I meet with the director, Andy Roberts, and intern from Perkins School of Theology, Robert Perales, I leave energized and excited by the ways that both Andy and Robert are pouring themselves into the students at S.M.U. From the conversations with them, I am coming to see campus ministry as a context that is particularly ripe for Wesleyan forms of communal Christian formation. Andy has recently invited me to speak with the students leaders at the Wesley Foundation over a few weeks in the Spring – I can’t wait!

3. Nexus Community, A Church of the Nazarene

Finally, I was invited by Nexus Community, which at the time was part of Richardson Church of the Nazarene and has since become a new church plant, to share with them about the history of Wesleyan small groups and their contemporary relevance. The last time I spoke with them, I broke the congregation up into small groups and we did a “speed class meeting.” This gave everyone a chance to experience a very abbreviated form of the class meeting and dip their toes in the water of talking about their lives with God. Nexus has since started three class meetings, one meets at the church and two meet in the leaders’ homes.

These are just three examples, and I only know about them because of the ways I have been invited to walk beside them as they begin to reclaim the Wesleyan practice of “watching over one another in love.” Do you know of churches that have 21st century class meetings? Have you been in one? Please leave a comment and share your experience!