Category Archives: Ministry

The Asbury Connection: Why I Joined and You Should Consider Joining Too

27 Thursday Aug 2026

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On May 24, 2026, Asbury Church started a new ecclesial network we are calling The Asbury Connection. The name is in honor of Francis Asbury, the father of American Methodism. 

On that day, I participated with Rev. Andrew Forrest, the senior pastor of Asbury Church, in a service of ordination where we ordained four of our pastors deacons and three of them elders. We also recognized the ordination of one of our pastors, who was previously ordained in the Wesleyan Church.

Considering that I was ordained in the United Methodist Church and was teaching in a United Methodist seminary not that long ago, this was a big step for me that I did not take lightly. 

In this post, I want to share why:

  • I decided to do this.
  • I am excited about what is happening at Asbury Church.
  • I am hopeful about the future.
  • You should consider joining us.

Before I share these things, let me offer the clarity that this post is an articulation of my own views. I am not speaking on behalf of Asbury Church or the Asbury Connection.

Why I decided to transfer my ordination to the Asbury Connection

I moved to Tulsa soon after Asbury Church voted to withdraw from the United Methodist Church. I missed some of the first conversations we had with various denominations that we considered partnering with after disaffiliation. But I was present and participated in most of the conversations over the course of a 3.5-year discernment process.

During that season, we asked: Which denomination or group or structure is asking the right questions? What group would best set Asbury up to reach the nations for Christ? Where would we be most fruitful and faithful? Which structure is best suited to help churches fulfill the Great Commission in 21st-century America?

I agreed with the discernment of the leadership of Asbury Church that the right connection or denomination did not exist for Asbury. And so, we came to the conclusion that it was our God-given responsibility to start the new connection that we ourselves have been searching for.

I have always had a hard time ignoring the elephant in the room. The most obvious place for Asbury to have joined, by far, was the Global Methodist Church. For now, I will just say that we invested significant time and energy trying to find a path that would work for us to join the GMC. Ultimately, what would have worked for us did not work for the GMC. Deciding not to join the GMC was not a flippant decision that was made lightly. 

I am at peace about that. I have many friends in the Global Methodist Church. I am for them and for their ministries. And I will continue to do what I can to serve the GMC as I’m invited to do so.

I stood with Andrew in ordaining our pastors because I believe it was the next right step for us to take. If you are interested in why I am convinced bishops are not necessary for ordination in the Wesleyan tradition, check out this post.

Why I am excited about what is happening at Asbury Church

Asbury is growing and there is a lot of energy and excitement around the church on Sundays in particular. It is fun to be leading at a healthy and growing church.

This weekend, we had 2,993 people in person in worship. That is an 11.2% increase from 1 year ago.

At Asbury Church, we work hard and it is good for staff morale when there is tangible evidence that we are winning. 

A brief explanation about how we count attendance: We have overhead cameras that take photos of the room and we count noses. The noses we count are literally the noses in the room in worship, not adult education classes, student ministry, or children’s ministry. We do not count online views of livestreams or recordings of worship services in our attendance numbers. In fact, at Asbury we say, “Online church isn’t.” This is an important clarification because many churches do include online numbers in the way they report attendance, which can give a very different mental picture of what is happening on a Sunday morning than what you would experience if you showed up in person. When we say we had 2,993 people in worship last Sunday, we literally mean we counted 2,993 people in the room during our four worship services.

This is a big deal for me and a great example of why I am excited about the Asbury Connection. I do not want to be a part of an institution that encourages disembodied and gnostic spirituality by encouraging people to think of watching a screen as participation in the Body of Christ. And I do not want to be part of an institution that encourages dishonest or manipulative speech that distorts reality. The tendency in denominations I’ve been a part of to encourage counting online views of livestreams of worship, or to count every person who comes into the church at any point for any reason as part of the worship attendance numbers, feels too close to manipulating or distorting reality for my comfort. (We do track attendance in our Adult Discipleship Communities and our children’s and student ministry. We simply do not count it in our worship attendance, because that is not what it is.)

All that to say, I am excited to be at a church that is honest and straightforward in how it counts worship attendance.

As soon as you talk about numbers in terms of growth, especially at larger churches, there will be someone who offers a critique like: “Oh, so, you only care about numbers?” 

No. We care about numbers because each number is a person.

Decline happens. It sometimes happens when everyone involved is doing the best they can, but the demographic trends are all working against them. My issue was being a part of an institution that had seen decline every single year of its existence and had come to frame its slow death as a virtue.

In some interactions outside of Asbury Church, there is an assumption that we think we are better than everyone that is smaller than us. We don’t. We say all the time that large churches are not better than medium and small churches. And we mean that. I pastored a small church right out of seminary. I learned a ton. The people were amazing. And because of their context, they are never going to be a large church. That church was faithful and it was not less faithful because of its average attendance numbers.

Large churches are not better than small churches. But they are different. We think about the difference in many ways in terms of stewardship. There are things that large churches can do that small church cannot do. For example, we can host large events well because of the size of our facility and because our staff has experience hosting large events literally every single week. We can also hire staff who specialize in a particular area of gifting in a way that is more difficult in smaller churches, especially churches that only have one fulltime staff member, the pastor.

Ok, so I am excited to be a part of a church that is experiencing healthy and significant growth. I am also excited about the opportunity I have been given to develop a discipleship pathway for our church. Since I have been here, we have started a New to Asbury Brunch. This gives us a chance to meet folks who are checking out Asbury and wanting to know more. It gives me the chance to set the culture of our church on the front end that helps people decide whether they want to stick around and get to know us better.

Related to that, I am really thankful to be at a place where there is spiritual covering to speak clearly about what we believe, because it is what the church believes. When I was teaching in United Methodist theological education, I was always surprised by how much of a physical toll it took on me to articulate orthodox sexual ethics in the classroom or in events outside of the seminary. I remember feeling tired and just overall worn out for weeks after a conference at the seminary I was at after the 2016 General Conference of the UMC before the Special General Conference in 2019. I felt the same after I participated in a debate with a colleague from the same seminary about the Bible and same sex marriage. 

At Asbury, we believe that clarity is kindness. We work to use plain speech and to say what we mean. We do not believe in manipulation and working to lead people without them knowing exactly where they are being led.

And so, I tell everyone who attends the New to Asbury Brunch that we are not woke and we are conservative regarding sexual ethics in every respect.

People are sometimes surprised that we are so clear about where we stand, and they appreciate it. I think this is because there are far too many church contexts that are like an experience of the children’s story The Emperor’s New Clothes. It is refreshing and a relief to be part of a culture where clarity and straightforward speech is valued.

For me, it is a breath of fresh air to serve at a church where I am encouraged to be direct and candid in what we believe, and that I am in sync with all of it. Not only do I not feel tired after speaking at a New to Asbury Brunch, it is energizing. 

I think this is the difference that spiritual covering and properly aligned authority structures makes. 

Why I am hopeful about the future

As I have written elsewhere, I believe the next season of ministry in the United States is going to be hard. It is going to take our best effort. And yet, I am genuinely and deeply hopeful about the future. In fact, I am most hopeful about the future that I have ever been in ministry. Here’s why:

I believe that the coming years are going to see significant changes in the American church. In particular, I think there are going to be surprising and exciting realignments as mainline denominationalism continues to decline both in terms of its size and its influence in the broader culture. 

I think the future will bring increasing cooperation and networking among non-denominational churches that are open to the person and work of the Holy Spirit.

I could be wrong, but I am hopeful.

And I hope the Asbury Connection will be a part of this realignment. 

I think we are seeing openness to New Testament Christianity, including the fullness of the gifts of the Holy Spirit, becoming mainstream in American evangelicalism. I also think churches that have kind of stumbled back into openness to Spirit have learned from the excesses and mistakes of some Pentecostal and charismatic churches.

I am hopeful about the future here because I have seen Asbury Church become more open and hungry for the fullness of the gospel. We have had prayer and healing services, with more response and hunger than I expected. And, thankfully, virtually no resistance or pushback. I see our pastors stepping into greater authority and wanting more for our people. It fires me up to hear people scheduling prayer sessions to spend time in prayer with someone who needs breakthrough from a particular bondage or addiction.

I am hopeful because I do not feel like we are striving or trying to force something. In the times I’ve been asked to lead, I have just tried to give space for the Lord to do what he wants to do in our midst. And it has been a blessing to witness.

I am also hopeful because Asbury has the strongest tangible commitment to raising up the next generation of leaders for the church that I have ever seen.

This summer we hired 6 high school students to work as interns in our student ministry. It was SO FUN to see high school students praying for their own ministry and teaching the Bible to their peers. It was a blessing to see them planning, preparing, and executing their own vision over the summer. One weekly summer event, a boys Bible Study, doubled in size compared to last summer. And it was entirely through the work of our student interns.

Our student interns also helped start a student leadership team for this year, which will continue the work they started over the summer. I cannot wait to see what the Lord does through them this school year!

We also hired three college students to work as mission interns over the summer. They brought energy and joy to our work as a staff. Rodney Adams, our Executive Pastor, led a group of 6 of our staff to attend Acton University this summer. 2 of our college interns went on that week-long trip and it was great to get to know them better.

The biggest investment we are making in raising up the next generation of leaders for the church is our Fellowship Program. It is now in its second year, which is hard for me to believe. We saw a significant increase in interest this year compared to last year. I am proud of our Fellows and excited to see how the Lord will use them in the church after they complete their Fellowship. For me, simply having Fellows in the room reminds me of the stakes of what we are doing. Formation is always happening. And those coming up after us will not appear out of thin air. We must intentionally invest in the next generation. We are literally putting our money where our mouth is by hiring people for 2-year Fellowships that are full-time staff positions.

Finally, we made a commitment to start a School of Ministry when we launched the Asbury Connection. Last week, I started a pilot project to begin to build out the Asbury School of Ministry. It will serve as the last stage in our discipleship pathway, because, while there is always more Christians can learn, Christian discipleship should not be thought of as a never-ending university seminar. I have known that for a long time, but I’ve had a hard time figuring out what the end of a discipleship pathway should actually look like. When it is fully released, this will be a rigorous and intense period, most likely 2 years, where people will leave knowing they’ve been equipped to serve in the church. They will then focus on being on mission for Jesus in their lives, feeding themselves and others as spiritual parents. 

The Asbury School of Ministry will also be a key piece of the way we form our candidates for ordination as deacon. Many of these candidates have or will attend seminary, which we fully support. (After all, we have an Asbury Theological Seminary Extension Site on our campus.) Formal theological education will be required for ordination as an elder.

Why you should consider joining us

There are several groups of people I think should consider joining us.

If you are following leaders at Asbury Church because you like what we are doing and find it helpful to your work, you should join what we are doing. I have been surprised and encouraged by the folks who reached out immediately when they found out about the Asbury Connection who I had no idea were even watching us.

You should consider joining us if you have felt like you haven’t found your people yet and you think you might like to follow us, or you want to row with us. I’d love to connect you with folks on our team so you can learn more about the Asbury Connection and where we are headed.

You should consider joining us if the existing denominational options weren’t the right fit for you, but you also would like to have more connection and not less with a body of believers outside of your local church. 

Our model is a hub and spoke model. We will have large regional churches with small churches connected to and resourced by them. The Asbury Connection will not be a denomination with a large and unwieldy bureaucracy. The Asbury Connection will have a faith statement and common ordination standards.

To give one example of the distinction: The Asbury Connection will not take on itself the responsibility to provide health insurance for every employee of every church in the Connection. We believe this goes too far in terms of removing authority and responsibility from the local church. (As it happens, denominational insurance also has a major financial penalty on small churches and their employees at the order of tens of thousands of dollars per employee per year.) 

The Asbury Connection will also not have a trust clause. (I cannot imagine any church that left the UMC ever deciding to join anything with a trust clause.)

On the other side, the Asbury Connection will value and enforce doctrinal conformity and adherence to ordination standards across the connection.

There is so much going on in the aftermath of the collapse of the UMC. It will take a while before the dust settles and we can really see what has happened. 

Here is the short version for me for why I am excited for the future of the Asbury Connection: The available denominational options have felt too much like the United Methodist Church that I chose to leave. But the alternatives that have arisen don’t feel like they have strong enough ties that bind.

The timing of Pentecost this year, when we launched the Asbury Connection, was particularly sweet, because it was on May 24th, which is also the anniversary of John Wesley’s famous Aldersgate Street experience where he testified:

I felt I did trust in Christ alone for salvation; and an assurance was given me that He had taken away my sins, even mine, and saved me from the law of sin and death.

For me, this felt like a symbolic connection to our theological heritage. Our goal is not to depart from the tradition we’ve been a part of. Rather, it is to enter more fully into it. We want to see the Lord breathe new life into the best of the Wesleyan theological tradition through our new Connection.

As I close, I’m thinking about John Wesley’s last words. They give me hope and joy as I move into the future:

The best of all is, God is with us.

Indeed, he is.

Parenting Conference with Keith McCurdy in Tulsa

11 Tuesday Aug 2026

Posted by in Christian Living, Ministry, Parenting

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Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK is hosting a parenting conference in September. It will be led by Keith McCurdy, who offered a similar workshop a few years ago. It was extremely well received. So, we are bringing Keith back!

I have read Keith’s new book Raising Sturdy Kids. It is wise, practical, and applicable. He sees the challenges kids are facing right now and is a helpful guide for engaging the cultural chaos of the moment in way that is rooted and grounded in the gospel. I wish I’d read his book when my daughter, who is headed off to college soon, was on her way to preschool.

This event is being organized and led by Rev. Graeme Collett, a colleague and friend of mine here at Asbury. Graeme has a vision to invest in pastors, school administrators, teachers, and others who lead the next generation outside of our church. If that is you and you are in the Tulsa area, or can make it to Tulsa, we are bringing Keith in to meet specifically with you to serve you and bless you.

The description from the registration page for this event is below. Lunch is provided, but registration is required. Register here.

This will be worth your time. I hope to see you there!

P. S. You are welcomed to register to attend the parenting conference itself. It is September 11 from 6:00 pm to 8:30 pm and September 12 from 8:30 am to 3:30 pm at Asbury Church in Tulsa (6767 S. Mingo Rd. Tulsa, OK 74133). Three meals are included with registration. The cost is $60 per adult. Register for the parenting conference here.

Friday, Sept 11 | NOON—1:30 PM
Hosted at Asbury Church, 6767 S. Mingo Road, Tulsa, OK

Asbury Tulsa is honored to host a special luncheon for community leaders featuring nationally respected family counselor, educator, and consultant Keith McCurdy.

The topic for our luncheon is “Leading the next generation in the midst of cultural chaos”.

This gathering is designed for those who are investing in the next generation every day—school administrators, teachers, counselors, church leaders, nonprofit staff, coaches, and community partners. Together, we’ll explore the unique challenges facing today’s children, teenagers, and families, while gaining practical insights for leading, serving, and supporting young people in an increasingly complex culture.

Keith McCurdy is a Family and Parenting Educator and Consultant, Licensed Professional Counselor, and Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Drawing from decades of experience working with families, schools, churches, and organizations across the country, Keith brings a thoughtful, practical, and faith-informed perspective on developing resilient young people. His work emphasizes the importance of healthy struggle, emotional resilience, and cultivating environments where children and students can thrive.

Whether you lead in a classroom, a church, a nonprofit, or another community setting, you’ll leave encouraged and equipped with practical tools, a broader understanding of the challenges facing today’s generation, and renewed vision for the important role you play in shaping their future.

Lunch will be provided, and there is no cost to attend. Registration is requested as seating is limited.

We hope you’ll join us for this meaningful opportunity to learn, connect with fellow community leaders, and invest together in the next generation.

My Sermon on New Beginnings at Asbury Church

22 Friday May 2026

Posted by in Methodist History, Ministry, Sermons, Wesley

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I had the privilege of preaching at Asbury Church last weekend, the week before we launch the Asbury Connection on Pentecost.

I talked about new beginnings and the opportunity we have with this beginning to consecrate ourselves for a new season in the life of our church.

I preached Joshua 1:1-9, a beginning I’ve been reading and praying on for years. I also shared three stories from the history of the Wesleyan/Methodist tradition that point to key beginnings for the Wesleyan tradition.

I had a timer on stage that was counting down to the beginning of our Pentecost service. It felt like the perfect image for me, because I wanted my sermon to kick off the final week of preparation for the beginning of the Asbury Connection.

I hope you’ll check out my sermon here:

I can’t wait to see what the Lord does this weekend!

Kevin M. Watson is a Pastor and the Senior Director of Christian Formation at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. He is also on the faculty at Asbury Theological Seminary, anchoring the Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States. Affiliate links, which help support my work, used in this post.

Who Do You Want to Work with on Hard Things?

01 Friday May 2026

Posted by in Asbury Church, Christian Living, Church culture, Ministry

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If you have hard work to do and much is unclear, what is the most important thing to get right?

First, a word about why the church has hard work to do and much is unclear. Then, my answer to what I think is most important to get right.

For several years I have thought about how much disruption and change has been happening in the culture, church, and academy. 

An image I often use is tectonic plates shifting, which cause earthquakes. The rumbling and shaking from earthquakes can alter the surrounding landscape and cause significant damage to buildings and infrastructure.

Tectonic plates have been moving in the culture, church, and academy. Or, perhaps one has caused rumbling and shaking that has altered the landscape of the others. 

From my seat as a seminary professor and pastor, I have been trying to articulate the challenges the church is facing. If you can diagnose the problem, then you will have an easier time identifying potential solutions.

I wrote a post a few months ago I titled: “Where Do We Go from Here?” It focused on demographic trends that show how difficult things will be for churches like mine in the coming years. 

I worked really hard on that post and am proud of it. If you missed it when I first published it, I hope you’ll check it out here. The argument I’m making here, really builds on this post. 

I keep thinking about one thing from that post. After summarizing demographic data from Ryan Burge and summarizing analysis from Aaron Renn and Christian Smith, I made a basic comment on what is facing the church:

This is going to be really difficult.

I think it might be particularly hard for people in my tribe (folks who were reared in Mainline Methodism). I don’t think people have yet understood just how deep and wide the culture shifts from the mid-2010s through the pandemic have been. We are not going back. The landscape has changed. 

Conversion to faith in Jesus is much harder than it was a few decades ago, much less 50 years ago.

I think the way denominations have functioned, since the founding of the UMC in 1968, has been within a Positive World framework. We don’t even live in Neutral World anymore. We live in Negative World. The strategies and plays from Positive World don’t work anymore. And the evidence of that is in front of many of our faces every Sunday morning. 

(If the Positive, Neutral, and Negative World framework isn’t familiar to you, I highly suggest reading Aaron Renn’s “The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism.”)

One of the reasons the work facing the church is going to be really difficult is because we are trying to understand exactly and how much things have changed while things continue to change. (From legalizing same sex marriage to fluid gender separated from biology, to woke ideology, to the gradual and then rapid rise of AI, and so on.) And while we are trying to understand (but don’t fully understand), we must make decisions and act.

It is ok to not be confident about the right answers to the variety of challenges facing the church.

I don’t think it is ok to recognize that things aren’t working and just stubbornly keep doing the same things anyway.

And I don’t think it is ok to pretend that things are just fine and continue with the work of the church with strategies that worked in the 1980s.

Again, people coming from Mainline Protestant contexts may be particularly at a disadvantage here. I’m not sure if they are worse off than Southern Baptists or Roman Catholics. I don’t know those denominations well enough to have an informed opinion.

A major disadvantage of my background was being formed in a bureaucratic and risk-averse institution that was often unwilling to acknowledge reality at all if it was inconvenient. 

Let me illustrate this with one example:

At the Annual Conferences I attended, there would be a part of the conference where we had to vote to close churches that were no longer viable. They usually had less than 10 people in average attendance and were not able to pay to maintain their building. One would think this would be cause for lament or self-reflection. There was no need for shame or condemnation. But it was sad. Yet, these churches were always introduced in a way that you would have thought they were among the most dynamic and effective churches in the entire conference at sharing the gospel and the church’s mission to make disciples. One year, I leaned over and asked a friend, “If that church is doing so well, why is it closing?”

It felt like a very strange adaptation of the children’s story The Emperor’s New Clothes. (Spoiler: The emperor had no clothes on. But everyone pretended that he did, until a child who didn’t know any better articulated what was obvious to everyone loud enough for even the emperor to hear.)

So, church leaders are faced with the challenge of accurately diagnosing, and then understanding, the times in which we live (while they continue to rapidly change). And they must also continue to do the work of the church as best they can in real time.

On top of that, in many of the places I’ve been, there is a strong aversion to leaders leading. At times, the attempt to lead is itself offensive. This is often, though not always, an overreaction to the failures of a previous leader (or the failures of the system that sabotaged the previous leader). These things are complicated!

Back to the question I began with: If you have hard work to do and much is unclear, what is the most important thing to get right?

My answer: The most important thing to get right is answering the question: Who do you want to work with on hard things?

This is the best way I can explain the joy I’ve found in my work at Asbury Church. At one level, my job at the church is the hardest job I’ve ever had. But I am having the most fun I’ve ever had. I am having fun because I am part of a team that is willing to ask hard questions, refuses to settle for polite nonsense, and keeps pressing because we believe that God is not done with us and he has more for us.

We don’t have all the answers. That’s ok. No one does.

The work of the church has always been hard. And it is the best job in the world. I believe a key to thriving in this work for the long haul is finding the people you want to work with on hard things.

I found my people and I’m grateful.

P.S. If you’re interested in seeing the kind of work I’m doing with my people, check out our Pentecost service, which will launch the Asbury Connection. (It will also be available on Asbury Tulsa’s YouTube channel a few days after the service.)

Kevin M. Watson is a Pastor and the Senior Director of Christian Formation at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. He is also on the faculty at Asbury Theological Seminary, anchoring the Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States. Affiliate links, which help support my work, used in this post.

Understanding John Wesley’s View of Ordination: A Surprise in the Founding of American Methodism

24 Friday Apr 2026

Posted by in Asbury Church, Methodist History, Ministry, Wesley

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I am a small “c” conservative. I want to understand why something is the way that it is before I tear down, rearrange, or remove it entirely. In my work as an historian, I often find it helpful to simply reread key documents to understand why things were the way that they are and, therefore, are the way that they are.

One document I have read many times since I left the United Methodist Church and have been praying, talking with others, and seeking to discern the way forward post-disaffiliation from the UMC is the letter John Wesley wrote to “Our Brethren in America” after he took the bold step of ordaining two lay people deacons and then elders in order to launch the Methodist Episcopal Church.

As is typically the case with historical documents at key inflection points in history, there is much in this letter that is of interest. But there is one detail that I’m not sure I really understood or appreciated until it became clear to me that I would not be able to stay in the UMC. I am convinced Wesley is correct about this detail and it has been a key piece of my own discernment about what I think the Lord is doing in my life and at my church.

First, a bit of background to help you understand this letter. Wesley wrote the letter to “Our Brethren in America” after he and James Creighton ordained Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey as deacons on September 1, 1784, and then elders on September 2. Wesley and Creighton also laid hands on Thomas Coke, who was an ordained elder in the Church of England, and set him apart as a superintendent.

These actions were crucial steps toward establishing denominational Methodism, leading to the formation of the Methodist Episcopal Church, which was the first Methodist denomination in the United States.

The steps Wesley took were also controversial and radical. John Wesley was an elder in the Church of England. Elders do not ordain in the Church of England, bishops ordain. John Wesley was not a bishop. And so, Wesley’s decision to take authority to ordain upon himself required explanation. And that is what Wesley did in his September 10, 1784 letter to “Our Brethren in America.”

Here it is in its entirety:

By a very uncommon train of providences many of the Provinces of North America are totally disjoined from their Mother Country and erected into independent States. The English Government has no authority over them, either civil or ecclesiastical, any more than over the States of Holland. A civil authority is exercised over them, partly by the Congress, partly by the Provincial Assemblies. But no one either exercises or claims any ecclesiastical authority at all. In this peculiar situation some thousands of the inhabitants of these States desire my advice; and in compliance with their desire I have drawn up a little sketch.

Lord King’s Account of the Primitive Church convinced me many years ago that bishops and presbyters are the same order, and consequently have the same right to ordain. For many years I have been importuned from time to time to exercise this right by ordaining part of our traveling preachers. But I have still refused, not only for peace’ sake, but because I was determined as little as possible to violate the established order of the National Church to which I belonged.

But the case is widely different between England and North America. Here there are bishops who have a legal jurisdiction: in America there are none, neither any parish ministers. So that for some hundred miles together there is none either to baptize or to administer the Lord’s supper. Here, therefore, my scruples are at an end; and I conceive myself at full liberty, as I violate no order and invade no man’s right by appointing and sending laborers into the harvest.

I have accordingly appointed Dr. Coke and Mr. Francis Asbury to be Joint Superintendents over our brethren in North America; as also Richard Whatcoat and Thomas Vasey to act as elders among them, by baptizing and administering the Lord’s Supper. And I have prepared a Liturgy little differing from that of the Church of England (I think, the best constituted National Church in the world), which I advise all the traveling preachers to use on the Lord’s Day in all the congregations, reading the Litany only on Wednesdays and Fridays and praying extempore on all other days. I also advise the elders to administer the Supper of the Lord on every Lord’s Day.

If any one will point out a more rational and scriptural way of feeding and guiding these poor sheep in the wilderness, I will gladly embrace it. At present I cannot see any better method than that I have taken.

It has, indeed, been proposed to desire the English bishops to ordain part of our preachers for America. But to this I object; (1) I desired the Bishop of London to ordain only one, but could not prevail. (2) If they consented, we know the slowness of their proceedings; but the matter admits of no delay. (3) If they would ordain them now, they would likewise expect to govern them. And how grievously would this entangle us! (4) As our American brethren are now totally disentangled both from the State and from the English hierarchy, we dare not entangle them again either with the one or the other. They are now at full liberty simply to follow the Scriptures and the Primitive Church. And we judge it best that they should stand fast in that liberty wherewith God has so strangely made them free.

There is so much in this letter that is interesting and even instructive for the church today. I think the second to last paragraph might be my personal favorite. I love Wesley’s humility, honesty, and willingness to lead in the midst of wrestling. He basically says, “If you can show me a better way, I would love to be convinced. I’ve thought about this for years and this is the best I can come up with. It was time to act, so I did the best I could with everything in front of me.”

I appreciate this because our assumption ought to be that this is what everyone has been doing on the other side of disaffiliation. We may not get everything right, but we must do the best we can.

As much as I like the details in that paragraph, however, it is not the detail I was referring to at the beginning of this post.

Did you notice John Wesley’s own understanding of ordination and how different it is from that of contemporary mainline Methodism?

The key detail is in one short phrase: “Bishops and presbyters are the same order, and consequently have the same right to ordain.”

John Wesley was not a bishop. American Methodism did not start with bishops as a separate office or order from elders. The elders were the overseers. This is why bishops are not ordained in the UMC, for example. They are set apart among the elders to superintend the work beyond the local church. (This is one reason that there has been debate about whether bishops in the UMC ought to be a lifelong office, or only an office one has while one is actively exercising the functions of the office.)

Here is the key detail that I believe gives warrant to elder-led ordination in Wesleyan polity and ought to at least give humility to those who follow in John Wesley’s footsteps who embrace an episcopal polity:

American Methodism did not begin with bishops as a required office for ordination. It began with an elder (John Wesley) deciding to take authority himself to ordain based on his reading of a history of the early church and the New Testament witness.

For me personally, this has made me relax about concerns about apostolic succession as a continuous line of succession of ordination that is rightly ordered that goes all the way back to the apostles. American Methodists of any stripe don’t have a claim to that because our first ordinations did not come from a bishop, but from an elder taking the authority to ordain without the blessing of his own church.

I am not saying Methodism is missing one of the marks of the church. We are apostolic in that we are carrying, stewarding, and defending the teaching of the apostles to hand it down to the next generation.

Let me also say I was ordained by a bishop. I am thankful to have been ordained by Bishop Robert E. Hayes, Jr. I do not think it is wrong for Methodists to have bishops. I also do not think it is wrong for Methodists to not have bishops. Why? 

Because the beginning of Methodism as a denomination is literally built on the conviction that bishops and elders are the same order.

I believe Wesley was correct. In the New Testament, elders and overseers are the same category. In Acts 20:17-35, Paul is speaking to one audience. In Acts 20:17 Paul “called the elders (presbyteros) of the church to him.” It is to these same people (the elders), Paul says in verse 28, “Pay careful attention to yourselves and to all the flock, in which the Holy Spirit has made you overseers (episkopos), to care for the church of God, which he obtained with his own blood.”

For what it is worth, when you look at the history of the Wesleyan tradition in the United States across the range of Wesleyan denominations, the office of bishop is one of the significant places of disagreement among these denominations. Again, this doesn’t mean it is wrong to have bishops. It does mean that there have been spectacular abuses of power from some American Methodist bishops. There have also been many examples of some bishop’s asserting their personal convictions over and against the clear polity of their own church.

All of this matters to me, because Asbury Church, where I serve, will hold a service of consecration and ordination this Pentecost. We will not have bishops at this service. The ordinations will be elder led. And I am going to participate. Over the past several years, I have spent a significant amount of time and energy reading, thinking, and praying about the best path forward. I have listened and tried to understand the various approaches other churches that left the UMC have taken. Like Wesley, the best I can say is, “I cannot see any better method than that I have taken.”

I am not taking this step begrudgingly or hesitatingly, though I have spent a season of watching and waiting. I am taking this step with joyful expectation for what the Lord has in store for us. If we are wrong, the Lord will make it clear to us. But with the best light I have right now, I am as confident as I can be that this is what the Lord is leading us to do.

As Asbury Church, we believe that if you are still breathing, God has more for you. This phrase comes from our Senior Pastor, Rev. Andrew Forrest. It is a beautiful contemporary expression of the Wesleyan belief in the possibility of radical holiness in this life. From womb to tomb, God always has more!

I can’t wait to see the details of that “more” coming into focus over the coming weeks and years.

Kevin M. Watson is a Pastor and the Senior Director of Christian Formation at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. He is also on the faculty at Asbury Theological Seminary, anchoring the Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States. Affiliate links, which help support my work, used in this post.

Join the Asbury Church Fellowship Program

04 Wednesday Mar 2026

Posted by in Asbury Church, Class Meetings, Fellowship Program, Ministry, Underground Seminary, Wesley

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We are committed to raising up the next generation of leaders for the church at Asbury. We believe doing this well requires a significant investment of time and resources. One of the ways we have begun this work was by launching a Fellowship Program at Asbury Church last year.

Asbury Church Fellowships are two-year full-time paid positions, with benefits.

We are six months into the launch of the Fellowship Program and so far it has been a spectacular success! We hired Grace Hess and Caleb Starr as our inaugural Asbury Fellows and they’ve been great! We want to build on that success, so we are starting our search for the next round of Asbury Fellows. Please help us spread the word!  

What is the Asbury Church Fellowship Program?

The Asbury Church Fellowship Program is a two-year fellowship in Tulsa, Oklahoma, designed to prepare future church leaders for today’s cultural context. 

Fellows gain hands-on experience through rotational roles in:

  • Pastoral Ministry
  • Students/College/Young Adults
  • Business Administration
  • Outreach/Evangelism
  • Experience/Hospitality
  • Worship Arts
  • Communications
  • Asbury Classical School

Fellows will grow through mentoring and discipleship. (This is where I get to spend most of my time with the Fellows.) I meet with Fellows weekly for a Wesleyan class meeting experience, one-on-one check-ins, and a monthly book discussion. I love reading and engaging ideas and I want to introduce Fellows to the best books I’ve read on the Christian life, discipleship, the person and work of the Holy Spirit, big ideas about current issues, personal productivity, leadership, and more. The purpose of all of this will be to grow in Christ, ability to lead and disciple others, and be equipped to lead and minister in our changing cultural moment. (Some of the books we have read so far are: Dallas Willard’s The Divine Conspiracy, Aaron Renn’s Life in the Negative World, and Edwin Friedman’s A Failure of Nerve.)

Asbury Fellows will be present at all worship services (including Wednesday morning communion and Thursday evening), staff chapel, and Wednesday evening discipleship activities, with a “see a need, meet a need” attitude. 

Fellows will also observe leadership meetings, attend the monthly pastor’s Bible Study, assist with pastoral care and visitations, and other experiences that serve the Fellow’s growth and development as a ministry leader.

The program is ideal for ministry-minded individuals seeking accelerated spiritual and leadership growth within a growing, evangelical congregation with Wesleyan theological roots. Fellows will be in seminary or recent seminary graduates.

Why I Am So Excited about the Asbury Church Fellowship Program

I am best at inviting people to things I enthusiastically believe in and I enthusiastically believe in what Jesus is doing at Asbury Church! Asbury Church has remarkable leadership. And really fun things are happening here.

I believe the Fellowship Program is a crucial strategy in a time of uncertainty and significant change in American Christianity. The Fellowship Program is an intentional investment in in-person formation. The problems facing the church in our day will not be solved by applying more technology. We need to invest more fully in relationships in enfleshed spaces. The people I have seen really grow and thrive in their lives in Christ all have one thing in common: They are anchored within a family of faith that provides care, nurture, and discipline. And so, Asbury Fellows will move to Tulsa to be fully present here for two years.

This is a major investment in in-person formation in order to raise up the next generation of leaders for the church. I expect this program to grow over the coming years. And I am excited to see Fellows go from Asbury Church to lead in other churches and themselves raise up leaders for the church.

We are in a time of major change in the broader culture, the church, and the academy. One of the things this means is that approaches to raising up leaders for the church are changing in real time. Some of the things that were taken for granted for the past 50 years are no longer bearing fruit.

The Asbury Church Fellowship Program is our first step to proactively addressing the need for new leaders to be formed, strengthened, and released to lead in the church. I have become more convinced over the past decade that raising up leaders best happens within the church and not outside of it.

Who is Asbury Church?

Asbury Church is a conservative evangelical church from the Wesleyan theological heritage in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In 2026, Asbury has averaged nearly 2,900 people in-person in worship on average each week. (That is 13% growth compared to just last year!) We are passionate about figuring out how to do discipleship and evangelism with excellence in Negative World.[1] 

(The “Negative World” framework is integral to the Fellowship Program, so you will want to familiarize yourself with it if you don’t know about it and are trying to discern whether this is right for you.)

Asbury Church has the kinds of ministry opportunities you would expect of a church of this size: a pre-school, weekly small groups, kids and youth ministry, recovery ministry, and more. We lean into big events like Christmas Eve and Easter, as well as our own made-up holiday – Celebration Sunday! We are a Bible reading church, which is expressed through Bible reading guides and all church Bible Studies (which are roughly once a month during the school year). We also host a seminary extension site (Asbury Theological Seminary, a separate institution) on our property, which reflects our commitment to theological education and raising up the next generation of leaders for the church. Our commitment to education and formation is further seen in our launch of a Classical Christian School (Asbury Classical School) that is in its second year. And we are known in our community for our commitment to missions in and beyond our community.

Who is the Asbury Fellowship Program for?

The Asbury Fellowship Program is ideal for people who have at least one year of full-time seminary experience to recent seminary graduates, who intend to go into local church ministry as their first career. The Fellowship Program is for people who are hungry for more of Jesus, want to grow, desire a deeper understanding and experience of the person and work of the Holy Spirit, and sense a calling to the work of the church. 

Asbury Fellows will be people who love being around Jesus’s church, are excited by the prospect of being immersed in the life of a church for a season and are eager to serve and participate in the full worshipping life of Asbury Church. Fellows will not only be hungry for more of God, but they will come humble, ready to grow and learn, and be led for a season. 

The Asbury Fellowship Program will be a season of accelerated growth for Fellows in their preparation for leadership and administration of the local church. This Fellowship is for people who know they are called to the local church in some sense but may not be sure which part of the church they are called to. This is for people who know they don’t know everything and want to learn from a large and growing church that believes God has more for everyone and is passionate about pursuing joy individually and corporately. 

When will it start?

Applications are due by April 17, 2026, for a program start in August/September 2026.

Click here for full job listing and program details.

P.S. Don’t miss Underground Seminary with Asbury Theological Seminary’s President Dr. David Watson. He will discuss the book he and I wrote together that is hot off the press: Faith & Fire: Methodism as a Move of God. Click here for more details.

[1] We believe Aaron Renn’s diagnosis is accurate. The church in the United States is not in Positive World or Neutral World anymore. The dominant culture and elite taste makers overwhelmingly view the teachings of Scripture and those who unapologetically hold to them negatively. For more, see Aaron Renn, Life in the Negative World (Zondervan, 2024). For the article that led to the book, see Aaron Renn, “The Three Worlds of Evangelicalism” in First Things https://firstthings.com/the-three-worlds-of-evangelicalism/

Kevin M. Watson is a Pastor and the Senior Director of Christian Formation at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. He is also on the faculty at Asbury Theological Seminary, anchoring the Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States. Affiliate links, which help support my work, used in this post.

Join Dr. David Watson at Underground Seminary: Faith & Fire

27 Friday Feb 2026

Posted by in Christian Living, Church culture, Methodist History, Ministry, Underground Seminary

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Our next Underground Seminary is going to be our biggest yet! This is the first time that we will have a guest who travels in from out of state to be with us. And I am so pumped to introduce him to you.

This Underground Seminary is called Faith & Fire.

And it will feature Dr. David Watson, the President of Asbury Theological Seminary. 

Asbury Theological Seminary is one of the largest seminaries in the world and is the largest Wesleyan evangelical seminary in the United States. Asbury Seminary’s headquarters are in Wilmore, KY which is where the outpouring of the Holy Spirit happened on campus in February 2023. I love getting to be on the faculty and teach at Asbury!

Who this is for:

Underground Seminary is for people who are in ministry, interested in ministry, or considering ministry. It is for people who are hungry for more of God. It is for people who want to learn how to be more effective in work in the church. It is for people who want to grow in faith and holiness.

Underground Seminary is a place for candid and off the record discussion of ideas that matter, particularly for the church in the 21st century and might not fit in a typical seminary curriculum. Underground Seminary is non-academic, not for credit, and only in person.

And my favorite part: Underground Seminary gives people considering or getting started in ministry access to great leaders. This is one of my favorite parts of doing this. I have two decades of ministry experience in the church and academy, and I know firsthand that great leaders are also in demand and have full schedules. It excites me to be able to give people access to my favorite leaders.

Underground Seminary is serious and fun. 

It is inspiring and practical.

What this Underground Seminary is about: 

Faith & Fire

You will get to have a conversation with Dr. David Watson, President of Asbury Theological Seminary. He and I have written a book together called Faith & Fire: Methodism as a Move of God. This will be the first time I get to talk about this book. And it is going to be so much fun!

I am going to invite Dr. Watson to start by sharing what people in ministry need to not just survive, but to thrive in their work. How should people prepare for ministry and what maintenance should they do to continue to grow in their work? What do you need to do to bring faith & fire to your seminary education, maintain it throughout seminary and your entire ministry?

Then, Dr. Watson and I will talk about our new book. For more than a century, from John Wesley’s “heart warming experience” at Aldersgate Street through the dramatic growth of the Methodist Episcopal Church through the 1850s, Methodism was a powerful move of God. In our book, David and I share the keys for a Spirit-filled movement of God in our day. David will unpack this in ways that will be relevant and insightful for your ministry.

When is this?

March 26, 2026 from 12:00-2:30 pm.

Where is this?

This Underground Seminary will meet at Asbury Church in the CLC. Asbury Church is located at 6767 S. Mingo Road, Tulsa, OK 74133. The CLC is just to left when you come in the West Foyer. We will have hosts ready to greet you and point you in the right direction from any of the main entrances.

You need to register.

Register at this link. 

The cost for this Underground Seminary is $10. You will receive a copy of Faith & Fire and lunch is included. In case it isn’t obvious: We are not making any money here. The church will cover the additional cost for every person who attends. (If you have dietary restrictions, please email amiller@asburytulsa.org after you register.)

You need Faith & Fire! 

So does the church.

Are you ready for more? Come join us!

Kevin M. Watson is a Pastor and the Senior Director of Christian Formation at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. He is also on the faculty at Asbury Theological Seminary, anchoring the Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States. Affiliate links, which help support my work, used in this post.

Where Do We Go from Here?

09 Monday Feb 2026

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

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This is a question that is good and healthy for people and institutions to ask periodically.

This question became acute for churches that left their denominations of many years, often due to the presenting issue of same sex marriage. This has happened across mainline denominations. Perhaps the most public recent separation was within the UMC.

I am now on staff at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. Asbury was for years the largest United Methodist Church in its Annual Conference. 

Since leaving the UMC, Asbury has been in a season of discernment about the future after leaving the United Methodist Church. 

Where do we go from here?

The presenting issue for the era of disaffiliation from the UMC was the decades long denominational infighting over sexual ethics, particularly same sex marriage. The breaking point, however, was when it became clear that the bureaucracy of the UMC was willing to nullify the decisions of General Conference when it disagreed with them by simply ignoring them or refusing to enforce them. The decision of bishops and other UMC leaders to impose their judgment over that of General Conference shattered the polity of the UMC, which was the very mechanism that was designed to protect unity in the midst of deep disagreement.

Some orthodox United Methodists could live with the official teaching of the church being one thing on paper and another thing “in real life” happening with no consequence.

I was not one of them.

On the other side of disaffiliation, United Methodism swiftly changed its position on sexual ethics so that its actions are now consistent with its practice. This brought the advantage of consistency and coherence. But it came at the expense of faithfulness to the clear teaching of Scripture at the main pressure point of the present cultural moment.

Some orthodox United Methodist could live with this. I don’t understand how.

If you believe that same sex marriage is not a thing that the Triune God can bless, then I do not understand how you can be “in connection” with a denomination where clergy say that God does bless them and where they regularly occur. The idea that one can be United Methodist and unimpacted by this because it does not happen in your church is either foolish or intellectually dishonest. It is at best incoherent with the basic meaning and purpose of a denomination.

Where do we go from here?

I want to talk about a recent post from Ryan Burge that brings urgency to this question. In fact, it suggests that we don’t have much time left to decide where we are going. And though I will highlight data that relates to the United Methodist Church, the UMC is not the point of this post. I would guess that the Global Methodist Church, the denomination born out of the disaffiliations from the UMC earlier this decade, is probably in a similar position as the UMC is. (Burge does not include date for the GMC in his piece.)

Most importantly, for my focus, Burge’s data is relevant to my own church. We generally fit the picture he shows.

If you are not already familiar with Ryan Burge’s work, you should be. Burge is professor of practice at the Danforth Center on Religion and Politics at Washington University.

He is one of the very few positive examples I can think of where a person has gained a significant platform on social media by delivering consistently thoughtful and nuanced content, particularly regarding the contemporary church. Burge’s work is focused on demographic data, analyzing trends, and pointing to implications for the church.

His recent post “When Are Half Your Members Going to be Dead?” has given urgency to the question:  Where do we go from here?

Are we presuming we have a future, despite all evidence to the contrary?

The heart of Burge’s post is showing how top heavy in terms of age most Protestant denominations are.

I’ll use the UMC to illustrate, but you can see the details of other denominations in the two images I’ve included.

Look how few members in any of these denominations are young. Not one of the 20 denominations listed has more than 50% of its members under 44 years old. In the UMC, only 16% are 18-44.

Burge emphasizes this age range in his article because this is the age range of fertility, broadly speaking. That is, the rest of the folks in the group are not going to be adding to membership by giving birth to children.

He does not unpack this in his post, but another angle of this is the theology, views and values around life itself, and starting families (how soon and how big). The more progressive the denomination, the more likely it is that the fertility rate will be lower even within the age range of fertility.

21% of the membership of the UMC is between 45-59, which is more than 18-44 combined. And, at 43%, there are more than double the number of people who are 60-74 than 45-59. (And there are 8x as many 60-74 year olds as 18-29 year olds.) 63% of the UMC is 60 years and up. 

This represents a demographic crisis.

I want to pause here. I doubt very many United Methodists read my work anymore. I suspect there are a lot of people who read this who are not fond of the UMC. And I think this kind of data brings a tremendous temptation to self-congratulation.

“See, this is why we left?”

And I suspect for most people reading this, you would be completely missing the point.

Is your tribe different?

Self-congratulations, posturing, or denial won’t accomplish anything positive. 

I am thinking about this because this has been a topic of conversation among the staff at Asbury Church, where I serve.

So, to be as clear as I can be about the point of this post: This is not a post to celebrate the seeming demise of others. 

The point is to be in touch with reality so we can ask the question I started with:

Where do we go from here?

Let’s start by stating the obvious:

If the denominations Burge lists do not figure out how to grow younger, they don’t have a future.

That is a descriptive statement, not a moral argument.

We are all mortal. I will die someday. And if no one comes behind me, the thing that I am part of will not exist anymore.

I am worried that older people will be offended by what I write. Please understand me. Age is not a moral issue. It is not immoral to grow old. It is just what happens.

But if an institution consists of primarily senior citizens and is no longer able to reach young people, then it is dying.

This is all the more difficult to talk about in a healthy way because our culture idolizes youth in ways that are damaging to young people and can invalidate the worth and value of older people. The older we are, the more likely we are to experience acutely the limitations of our bodies. 

As we age, moving our bodies becomes more painful.

To young people who do not experience significant pain:

Take time to notice the literal physical pain some of the older members at your church endure to simply come to church. There are people who show heroic courage, strength, and grit by showing up. This will humble you and help you not take your own body for granted. Perhaps it will even encourage you to not take gathering with the faithful for worship for granted.

To older people:

I say to you with love, I know that talking about this can be uncomfortable. It is not at all my intent to signal that you are unimportant or lacking in value. Not at all! You are the reason we are here! My hope for you is that if you turn your hearts towards reaching the next generation (and many of you already have!), you will gain peace and joy knowing that reinforcements are coming and the mission you have given your life to will continue after your death. 

This applies to me. 

We are all moving towards the grave. We all ought to humble ourselves and learn from those who have gone before us. And we should all do all that we can to build up, strengthen, encourage, and bless those who are coming after us.

One of the reasons work like what Ryan Burge is doing is helpful and interesting is because it provides a more neutral way to talk about the future. It is hard to ignore or deny that a problem is coming when you look at the second image from Burge’s article.

There is, however, at least one obvious sign of hope for the future. Did you notice that there is one major exception? Look at the Church of Christ.

21% of the Church is 18-29. 27% are 30-44. This means that 48% of the Church of Christ is in the peak fertility range! It also means that the largest percentage in any one of the five age ranges is a tie for 30-44 and 60-74. So, there is a significant generational balance. It gets better. The third largest group is the youngest. Look at the Church of Christ in the second graph. You don’t want a long thin tail, as so many of the denominations included have.

You want, at a minimum, the people coming behind to be able to replace the people and resources of those who are ahead. 

It took a lot of spadework to get to this point. Now, I want to share a few thoughts about this information. Fair warning, it may feel more discouraging before there is hope. But I am writing this post because I do feel hope for the future. I believe the Lord has already given us the way forward, if we would have the courage to take it.

My first thought comes from reading Aaron Renn’s Life in the Negative World and Christian Smith’s Why Religion Went Obsolete. These books are both crucial for thinking about evangelism and discipleship in the contemporary church.

I’ve mentioned Renn’s work here before. Renn argues that we live in “Negative World,” where elite culture is opposed to the core claims and commitments of the gospel. I think he is right. (I wrote a review of Life in the Negative World here.)

Rev. Andrew Forrest, the Senior Pastor at Asbury Church where I work, has written a book that show how to avoid being passive and victims in Negative World and move forward. Hint: Forrest gives away the core concept in his book’s brilliant title: Love Goes First. (I wrote a review of Love Goes First here.)

You should read all three of these books. The church desperately needs leaders who are doing the deep work to think about the times in which we live and who refuse to settle for running plays that worked in the 1950s but simply do not work today.

Here is how reading and thinking about these things came through in reading Ryan Burge’s post:

The work before the church is going to be extremely, nearly impossibly, difficult.

There is so much that could be said here. I’ll say three quick things to illustrate how hard this is going to be.

First, the Baby Boomer Generation is literally a one-of-a-kind event. The really wide parts of the second image represent this generation. There are just less people at each age behind the Baby Boomers. So that is the first demographic reality that makes this extremely difficult.

Second, over the past thirty years the dominant culture has shifted dramatically. In the years immediately following World War II, there was cultural pressure to be a member of a Christian church in the United States. Sometime in the 1990s that shifted to neutral, neither positive nor negative. And in the mid-2010s that shifted further to negative cultural pressure. So, when the Baby Boomer Generation was around my age, there were cultural incentives, or social pressures on people to go to church. Today, with this major loss of members coming in the next 10-15 years, there are negative incentives, negative social pressure on people becoming followers of Jesus. 

Put simply: It is harder to “make” a convert today than it was fifty years ago.

Third, the institutions that represent these groups are sick and dying. In other words, they are not in a place to lead a resurgence or a renewal. They might have been able to do that back when I was in seminary when professors at the mainline liberal seminary I attended talked about the coming “death tsunami” that was headed for the UMC. 

One of the things we talk about all the time at Asbury Church is how hard it is going to be going forward. We are looking for others who share a sense of urgency about figuring out how to lead and move forward “for such a time as this.” Figuring out how to reach people my age and younger is urgent and has to be the top priority for every church or they will not have a future.

As I was looking at Burge’s charts in a staff meeting at Asbury, someone brought the focus back to the Church of Christ: “Why are they different?”

I don’t know much about the Church of Christ. But I do know that sociologists have found that there is something of a law of church growth in the United States. I first came across this in the fantastic book The Churching of America, 1776-2005 by Roger Finke and Rodney Stark. 

Here is the law of church growth in the United States:

High expectation, high demand churches grow. Low expectation, low demand churches decline.

I am sure that the Church of Christ, especially compared to the other denominations Burge includes, is a high expectation and high demand church.

I spent a decade trying to get United Methodists to move away from sloppy nonsense like “open hearts, open minds, open doors.”

Methodism has grown when it has had clear expectations of its members and enforced them. It has declined when it has not.

The Methodist Episcopal Church grew from the smallest Protestant denomination in the U.S. to the largest by far from 1776 to 1850. (See The Churching of America for details.) And during this time, you were required to attend a weekly small group meeting to remain a member. If you missed more than three times in a quarter, you were removed from membership. There was a document that outlined the lifestyle expectations for members in terms of sins to be avoided, concrete actions that expressed love of neighbor, and insisted on a disciplined practice of the means of grace (practices like Bible reading, prayer, worship, holy communion, and fasting). 

This is not the only way early Methodism was a high expectation, high demand church. Read my book Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline: A History of the Wesleyan Tradition in the United States for a detailed account.

Today, in many churches you can join a church by standing up for a few moments during a worship service and making a few vows. And you won’t be removed from membership even if you don’t keep any of the vows you made.

As I’ve thought about where we are and where we are going, it is just so obvious: This is going to be really difficult. 

In Negative World, there are no longer any incentives for people to come to a church that is more a social club than a place that is focused on Jesus Christ and helping people meet him and give their lives to him as not only savior, but Lord of their lives.

There are a variety of ways you can miss the mark in terms of high expectation and high demand. Cults, for example, are high expectation and high demand. They provide a clear sense of belonging and identity. But they do not make disciples of Jesus Christ.

You can also miss the mark by jettisoning any attempt to be Christian and simply be an activist organization. Many college students and young adults are finding meaning and identity in protest and advocacy that is cult-like in terms of the demands it makes and the all-encompassing sense of belonging and identity it gives (or demands).

When Methodism was at its best, it was a high expectation and high demand church. It was focused on the gospel and was built to ensure that no one lost sight of growing in concrete practical discipleship to Jesus Christ.

You did not have to be a member of Methodism.

But you could not be a member of Methodism in name only.

John Wesley and those who carried on his work from one generation to the next into at least the mid-nineteenth century were marked by a commitment to basic doctrine, spirit, and discipline.

Here is how John Wesley put it in the last years of his life:

I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out. (J. Wesley, “Thoughts Upon Methodism”)

I wrote a 400-page book about what this meant and how true it has been in the history of the Wesleyan tradition in the United States. 

And I have never been more convinced that this is true than I am today.

One of the things that consistently amazes me about people at my church is their desire to grow. They want to be faithful. And they are eager to be led. It is so encouraging.

In Negative World, this will only become truer.

People who come to our churches will want to know if Jesus is real and if he can make a difference in their lives. When they come to faith, they will want to learn how to follow Jesus. Nominal Christianity doesn’t make sense anymore, especially to younger people.

So, where do we go from here?

We must become churches that are serious about discipleship and formation. 

The bad news is: This will not be easy. In part because the truth is that many of our churches have not been most concerned about discipleship and formation. This means that in addition to the work of building, we also have work to reform, redirect, and change.

The good news is Jesus is real. Everyone knows the Great Commission from Matthew 28. We may need to especially remember the very last sentence of Matthew’s Gospel: “And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

We are not alone. We have never been alone. 

Church leaders, we’ve got our work cut out for us.

Let’s get to it.

Upcoming Events at Asbury: What to Know

09 Friday Jan 2026

Posted by in Class Meetings, Ministry, Teaching, Underground Seminary

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Happy New Year!

This Spring is going to be awesome here in Tulsa at Asbury. 

At Asbury Church we have just started our Year Through the Bible, using The One Year Bible. And we are off to a great start! Throughout Advent, we gave away 11,500 Bibles and completely ran out. We ordered 4,000 more in mid-December and they just arrived yesterday.

Among other things, we have created a website to help specifically to help people read through the Bible in 2026. I am consistently impressed with the great work Asbury’s staff is able to do on these kinds of things! Check out yearthroughthebible.com.

Today is January 9th. You can still join us! In fact, even if you aren’t in Tulsa, you can download the Life Bible App and set the start date to January 1, 2026, and read along with us for free. (Click the Life Bible App button at yearthroughthebible.com and there is a video that shows you how to sync the app up with the beginning of the year so you are on the correct reading for January 9th. Unfortunately, you cannot do this on YouVersion.)

We had more than 8,000 people attend Christmas Eve services in person at Asbury this year. It was so fun to see so many people in worship, especially extended families. 

After Covid and 2020, I will never take for granted worshipping in person with people again.

This past Sunday, we had 3,074 people in person for worship at Asbury, more than we’ve had in worship the first Sunday of the year since 2014. (Though we live stream our worship service and publish sermons online, we do not count online views in our worship attendance numbers. We literally count noses in the sanctuary or chapel.)

My favorite part of life at Asbury has been getting to know individual people and seeing them take steps forward in their faith. I am in a small group with 8 people, and we are linking arms and committing to read through the entire Bible together in 2026. We met for the first time last night and I feel so excited and hopeful for what the Lord is going to do this year.

If you live in the Tulsa area, you should come and be a part of what God is doing at Asbury. 

If you don’t live in the Tulsa area, I want to invite you to be part of some things that are worth coming to Tulsa for at the Asbury Theological Seminary Tulsa Extension Site.

I know this can be confusing to folks, so let me clarify that there are two Asburys. (Asburies?) Asbury Church and Asbury Theological Seminary. I get to work at both. The Church is in Tulsa, OK. Asbury Theological Seminary is in Wilmore, KY, with several extension campuses including one in Tulsa. Asbury Church hosts the Asbury Theological Seminary Tulsa, OK Extension Site. 

Despite the potential for confusion, I like that the church and seminary I’m at both share the same theological heritage and intentionally express that by being named after Francis Asbury, the Father of American Methodism.

Francis Asbury statue at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK

Now, back to exciting upcoming events in Tulsa at the Asbury Seminary Tulsa Site:

I am teaching two hybrid classes this Spring semester. A hybrid class is part online and part in person. This means you can complete the entire class online with a 3 day in-person intensive in Tulsa. (To state the obvious, this means you do not have to live in Tulsa to be able to take a class with me.)

These intensives are SO FUN!

I am teaching TH501: Basic Christian Doctrine. The in-person intensive is March 5-7, 2026

I am teaching TH650/SF650: Wesleyan Discipleship. The in-person intensive is March 26-28, 2026.

You should take both classes, of course.

But, if you can only take one, I am especially excited about Wesleyan Discipleship. This is my favorite class to teach. It is an historical introduction to the basics of discipleship in the Wesleyan tradition that also offers very practical guidance on how to implement the essentials of following Jesus with a Wesleyan accent. Students will learn about the theology and practice of the Wesleyan class meeting and band meeting and receive hands-on training in implementing these groups.

This will be my fourth time teaching this class. I’ve received amazing feedback from students each time about how it has changed their own faith and equipped them to lead in their own churches.

I cannot wait to teach this class!

I am also excited about this version of this particular class because Asbury Theological Seminary’s President, Dr. David Watson, is coming to Tulsa! (People always want to know if we are related. We are not.) 

I was thrilled to learn of Dr. Watson’s appointment to serve as President of Asbury Seminary and am looking forward to having him be with us here in Tulsa. This is a big deal.

President Watson is going to do 3 things I want to invite you to attend:

1. He will lead our next Underground Seminary, where he will discuss the brand-new book we wrote together: Faith and Fire: Methodism as a Move of God. (More on this book in a future post.) This event will be here in Tulsa on March 26, 2026, from 12:00-2:30pm. More on this Underground Seminary here soon. 

2. Dr. Watson will preach at Asbury Seminary’s chapel service for my hybrid class. That chapel service will be on Friday March 27, 2026, at 11 am in the Asbury Church Development Center chapel. This service is for the Asbury Theological Seminary community. If you are considering seminary, this would be an ideal time to come check us out. You can sit in on my class before chapel, then hear from the President of Asbury Seminary, and stick around for lunch with current students. If you’re interested reach out to penny.hammond@asburyseminary.edu.

3. Dr. Watson will be preaching at our Sunday morning worship services at Asbury Church on Palm Sunday (March 29th). Sundays at Asbury are so fun. I always encourage students to stick around for worship on Sunday if they are able. Sundays are really fun and it is a great chance for students to get a sense of how things work at a different church than their own.

It is not too late to enroll for class at Asbury Seminary this Spring! I know of a student who started the admissions process on a Sunday and received word that he was admitted by Thursday. But time is running out. You should start the application process today and then enroll in my class!

Like I said, this Spring is going to be awesome here in Tulsa at Asbury.

Kevin M. Watson is a Pastor and the Senior Director of Christian Formation at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. He is also on the faculty at Asbury Theological Seminary, anchoring the Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States.Affiliate links, which help support my work, used in this post.

5 Steps to Develop Daily Bible Reading Habit

04 Thursday Dec 2025

Posted by in Bible, Christian Living, Ministry

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How do you start a habit? Or, better, how do you become disciplined in doing something specific over and over again so that doing it becomes second nature?

Starting a habit is easy. Or, maybe better, starting a habit is not a habit. 

Developing and sustaining a habit is difficult and requires discipline over weeks, months, and years.

Everyone knows that good habits (like daily exercise) are important and will make your life better. And everyone knows that bad habits (like eating a gallon of ice cream before bed every night) need to be avoided, or they will make your life worse.

But how do you actually do this?

I want to share my thoughts on building a habit in one specific area I’m working on for my work at Asbury Church. (The graphic below is for a workshop I’m doing this month.) The ideas here can be used more broadly to develop and sustain a habit in any area of your life.

Asbury Church is a Bible reading church. We say this all the time at Asbury!

And we mean exactly what the words say. We literally read the Bible at Asbury.

It can be easy to give lip service to the idea of reading the Bible but not actually do it. We read the Bible in our worship services. We read the Bible in our Monday morning staff chapel. We read the Bible in our midweek communion service. You get the idea.

And we work hard to lead our people to read the Bible in private daily.

We have often done this by preaching through one book of the Bible at a time. Our senior pastor, Andrew Forrest, creates Bible reading guides that we give out that have the entire text of the book we are reading through divided up into short daily readings. Andrew will offer a short commentary to help people better understand what they are reading. Andrew frequently says, “The commentary is not the point. The Bible is the point.” 

You can see the Bible reading guides Andrew has written here.

In 2026, we are leaning into reading the Bible even more. We are asking our people to read the Bible in a more disciplined way.

2026 is Year Through the Bible at Asbury Church.

We are going to read through the entire Scripture over the course of the year. It is going to be hard. And it is going to change the lives of everyone who joins us!

Our number one discipleship priority for Year Through the Bible is simple: We want to see people develop a robust daily habit of reading the Bible. People who do not have a habit of daily Bible reading will develop one. And people who already have a daily Bible reading habit will strengthen it.

Given this, the most basic question in my work is this:

How can I help people actually develop the habit of daily Bible reading? 

I am sure that anyone who does what I am suggesting here will develop a habit of daily Bible reading.

This will work if you do it.

The hard part, as we all know, is doing, not knowing what to do.

Here is how to install the habit of daily Bible reading into your life.

1. Decide what you are going to eliminate. 

I assume your life is already full. Few people have tons of margin they are just waiting to fill with good habits. The challenge is you already feel like you have 30 hours of stuff to do in 24. 

Therefore, the first thing you need to do is eliminate something you do every day that tends to be about 30 minutes. If I had to guess, I would bet that for at least 90% of people, this would be mindlessly watching television or doom scrolling social media before bed.

Is the content you are consuming making you more hopeful? Is it energizing? Is it helping you become the kind of person you want to be? 

Probably not.

Reading the Bible will.

If you are serious about building a habit of reading the Bible every day, you will make the hard choice to eliminate something so you will have margin to add a new habit.

2. Decide when you are going to read the Bible every day. (This is where most people start talking about habits, but I think the previous step is important.)

I know you already know this. Again, it is the doing that is hard, not the knowing.

The first thing you need to do to “win” in developing a daily Bible reading habit is to decide when you are going to do it. You need to literally develop a concrete specific plan. 

When are you going to read the Bible? 

If you do not pre-decide this, you won’t do it. It is that simple.

Short cut: For almost everyone, the short cut to developing a daily Bible reading habit will be to do it first. Get up, grab your coffee, and spend the first 30 minutes of your day reading Scripture and talking with the Lord.

Let me ask you right now: Can you tell me when you read the Bible every day? If you can, congratulations! You have a daily Bible reading habit. If you cannot, you almost definitely do not read the Bible every day.

Advanced Tactic: Try to think about the difference between your consistent routines and times when the routine is disrupted. Is there a way you can frame when you read the Bible that accounts for those differences? As I mentioned in the short cut, first is what works best for me. I plan to read the Bible first thing in the morning and so I get up in time to do that first before I do anything else. And when I fail to read the Bible on a given day, it is almost always because I did not have a plan to read the Bible first.

3. Decide where you are going to read the Bible every day.

It is important that this be consistent. Is the place you read the Bible on weekday mornings overrun with children watching cartoons on Saturday morning? Then, you need somewhere else to read the Bible. Think about your environment in as much detail as you can. Where can you consistently read the Bible at the time you are planning to read it without be interrupted or distracted?

4. Decide where your Bible and anything else you need will be. Keep your Bible in the same place. You will not develop a habit of reading the Bible daily if you can’t find it! Ideally, your Bible will be where you are planning to read the Bible. If you are going to sit in the same chair every morning, then leave the Bible on the table next to the chair. This may have the bonus of being a topic of conversation with family or friends who see it in a conspicuous place. And, if you slip up and forget early on in implementing this habit, you will have a visible reminder which will give you a chance to pick it back up.

5. Do it with other people.

Join a small group to hold each other accountable and to discuss what you are learning and places you have questions.

Community is helpful in forming any habit. This is a basic part of the success of Weight Watchers (dieting) and CrossFit (exercise) to name just two examples.

At Asbury Church, we are launching new small groups that will form for the purpose of helping people read through the Bible together in 2026.

If you do these five things, you will develop a habit of reading the Bible daily. And you can apply this to any habit you want to build.

1. Decide what to eliminate so you have margin to do it.

2. Decide when you are going to do it.

3. Decide where you are going to do it.

4. Decide where the things you need to do it will be.

5. Do it with other people.

P.S. You should join us in reading through the Bible in 2026. We are reading The One Year Bible (ESV). You can grab a physical copy here. Or, you can read along in YouVersion by downloading the app and searching “The One Year Bible” in plans. (Be sure to include “The” and it will be the first search result. It is the one with a green leaf at the bottom left of the cover.) If you start the YouVersion plan on January 1, you’ll be on pace with us all year.

Kevin M. Watson is a Pastor and the Senior Director of Christian Formation at Asbury Church in Tulsa, OK. He is also on the faculty at Asbury Theological Seminary, anchoring the Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. His most recent book, Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline describes the purpose of the Wesleyan tradition and the struggle to maintain its identity in the United States.Affiliate links, which help support my work, used in this post.