Where Do We Go from Here?

09 Monday Feb 2026

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Book Review, Christian Living, Methodist History, Ministry, United Methodism

Tags

Aaron Renn, Andrew Forrest, Asbury Church, Christian formation, Christian Smith, Christianity, demographics, John Wesley, Methodism, Negative World, Ryan Burge, Wesley

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.

Thoughts on Joy and Gratitude (Via a Superficial and Abnormally Personal Illustration)

14 Wednesday Jan 2026

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Life

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Christian formation, Christianity, college-football, football, gratitude, Indiana, Jason Witten, joy, ncaa, ncaa-football, negativity, OU, pessimism, sports

My senior pastor, Andrew Forrest, likes to say that you cannot be ungrateful and experience joy. If you are grateful, you will experience joy.

I think there is a lot of truth in this. And since hearing Andrew say this, I’ve noticed a number of places where it makes sense of my own experience.

Something I experienced last week made this stand out in a way I didn’t expect. The details may seem trivial to you. Stick with me. I think there is an important principle here.

For the story to make sense, I need to give you some brief context for why this matters to me:

I am an alum of the University of Oklahoma. Football is a big deal at OU. The Sooners won their last national championship in football when I was a student. I attended every home game and the OU-Texas game (63-14!) that year. Aside from OU’s complete domination of Texas that year, the Nebraska game was the next most memorable game I experienced. OU was losing 14-0 after Nebraska’s first two possessions. And then held Nebraska scoreless the rest of the game and won 31-14. It was awesome!

A fun aside: I barely remember the national championship game because my girlfriend came over – now my wife! When I think back to that game, I remember being excited Melissa was there more than I remember the game itself.

Ok, so I am an OU football fan. It is fine if you aren’t. You do you.

Much more depressing, I became a Dallas Cowboys fan during my time as a PhD student at Southern Methodist University. I remember actually saying to my wife, “I think I’m becoming a Dallas Cowboys fan, and I don’t like it.”

Something happened last week that brought these two things together in a way that brought back memories of a few times I actually enjoyed being a Dallas Cowboys fan. (It has been so long, I forgot what it felt like.)

Here is what happened:

The University of Oklahoma hired Dallas Cowboys legend Jason Witten to coach tight ends.

I can’t really explain it. This was one of those very trivial things that basically has no real impact on my life, but did impact me. When I heard the news, I felt excited and hopeful about the future for OU football. I’m sure there are lots of mundane reasons for this. They don’t matter that much here. I’m trying to use a mundane story to illustrate a deeper truth.

Soon after I heard the news of Witten’s hire, it occurred to me that Jason Witten playing for the Cowboys the last time I remember enjoying being a Cowboys fan in any way. He was easy to root for. I’ll never forget the play where his helmet popped off, and he still shrugged off the tackle and ran for 30 more yards. (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, look it up!)

It was both terrifying and electrifying.

So, an NFL legend tight end, who will almost certainly soon be inducted into the Hall of Fame is coming to coach the tight ends for my favorite team.

Awesome!

Exciting!

So Cool!

But then do you know what I noticed?

Some people weren’t excited.

A brief side note on social media and algorithms.

The algorithms for the internet are largely responsible for us seeing things like the most ridiculous and negative reactions to Jason Witten’s hire. Social media algorithms are finely tuned to incentivize things like sarcasm, disdain, contempt, disgust, anger, and rage. The uglier and more likely to spike your adrenaline reading it, the more likely it is to be pushed by the algorithm. The algorithm wants to keep your attention, period. And that is because your attention is what is being sold. At this point in the development of social media, we are naive and foolish if we expect to see the best and most thoughtful responses to anything on social media. Rather, we should expect to see the angriest and most irrational people around (and some bot accounts that don’t represent real people at all). Anger, fear, these will keep your eyeballs glued to your glowing screen for longer.

Wait? Why would anyone not be excited that Jason Witten is a new coach at OU, especially in the exact area where he was one of the best of all time?!

Here is a generic complaint that I think fairly summarizes them all:

“Just because he was a great tight end does not mean he will be a great coach.”

Wow. Ok, Debbie Downer.

Something about this has kind of stuck with me. Gnawed at me. I realized what it was on Friday night when I was watching the Indiana Hoosiers absolutely dismantle the Oregon Ducks.

Indiana completely dominated Oregon.

The insight came when someone commented on how the crowd, which was in Atlanta, GA, was 95/5 in favor of Indiana.

And it just seemed like a party.

When the game became a clear blowout; it just hit me. I was saddened by the pessimism and negativity of some of the responses to Witten’s hire that seemed to come from entitlement and ingratitude.

In case you know nothing about college football, here is the short version:

The Indiana Hoosiers are known for being really good at basketball. That’s because there was a time they were really good at basketball. And also because they’ve never been good at football.

Until last year in head coach Curt Cignetti’s first season.

This year, Indiana is the last undefeated team. And on January 19^th, they will play for the national championship. Their quarterback, Fernando Mendoza, has already won the Heisman Trophy. And they have completely dominated the teams they’ve played so far in the playoffs.

It is a great story, maybe the most unexpected story in American sports of my lifetime, especially if they win it all.

Ok, so now I can tie it all together.

Some Oklahoma fans seem entitled, ungrateful, and just pessimistic in general. OU had a great year this year. They went 10-2 in their second year in the SEC with a very difficult schedule. (By the way, this was a massive improvement from last year’s 6-7 record.) Sure they lost their last game. So does every team but one every year.

You can see negativity has become a cancer when your school unexpectedly hires an NFL legend to coach the literal position they were so good. And this is also the same position your team has been the worst at over the past few seasons. And you are still negative.

Indiana fans seem joyful and grateful for this season. Three years ago, nobody thought Indiana would be playing for a national championship.

Perhaps their lack of expectation has made it easy for them to be grateful.

Maybe Oklahoma fans are too used to success and have lost the ability to delight in it. Entitlement makes it harder (impossible?) to be grateful. To experience joy.

Now, I have no idea how Indiana fans will react if they don’t finish this remarkable run and win the entire thing. And I have no idea what Jason Witten’s legacy as a college coach will be.

Ultimately, this post isn’t about sports. I don’t know what is going to happen next or how people will react. Here is what I do know:

My pastor is right. You cannot experience joy and be ungrateful.

If you look for reasons to worry or be pessimistic you will find them. That is easy. I think it is also lazy. Oh, I guarantee you it is a path to misery.

I want to be like the long-suffering fans of the Indiana Hoosiers and just receive the unexpected gifts that come my way. I want to savor good things. I want to keep doing the next right thing on the unremarkable days and the hard days.

I want to become a person characterized by gratitude. And, therefore, can joyfully receive the good gifts God gives me.

Lord, help us have eyes to see your blessings and receive them well.

How to Achieve the Goal of Reading the Bible in One Year

10 Wednesday Dec 2025

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Bible, Christian Living

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Tags

Bible, Bible in a year, Christian formation, Christianity, discipline, faith, goals, God, habits, Jesus, One Year Bible

Last week, I shared my thoughts on developing a habit, specifically the habit of daily Bible reading. Knowing how to do it is not hard.

Doing it is the hard part.

In this post, I want to talk about the difference between a habit and a goal.

My daughter received a bike for Christmas last year. And we decided to set a goal to ride our bikes 1,000 miles in 2025.

At the point that we decided to do this, neither of us were really riding bikes much at all. So, for us, this was a pretty bold goal.

I gave serious thought to this particular goal before suggesting it to my daughter. I wanted it to be hard. I wanted it to be something that would require us to put in consistent work and effort over the course of the entire year. I also wanted it to be realistic.

I knew there would be times we would ride more and times when we would ride less (like when it seemed to rain every day for two weeks, or when I was out of town). It wouldn’t be a very satisfying goal to accomplish if we hit the target in mid-March of 2025. And we would almost certainly quit if it required extreme commitment and near perfection every single day for 365 days.

1,000 miles in 365 is about 2.74 miles per day. That means we could do a short ride every day, or longer rides several days a week.

At one level, we have worked to develop a habit of riding bikes together. But it was not exactly a daily bike riding habit. We don’t really care if we ride every day. We care that we accomplish the goal of riding 1,000 miles. We win when we color in the last box on our chart.

With three weeks left in 2025, we have riden 960.73 miles. We are on track and the finish line is coming into view.

When we color in the last box, my daughter will feel a tremendous sense of accomplishment that comes from not only doing something difficult, but doing something difficult that requires consistent effort over a long period of time.

Riding bikes in 2025 with my daughter while preparing for the Year Through the Bible has made me think about the difference between a daily habit and a big picture goal. We are actually after both with our One Year Bibles.

The first priority is developing and strengthening a robust daily Bible reading habit. I wrote about this in depth here.

But a very close secondary priority for everyone who starts with us in January is reading the entire Bible in one year.

By way of reminder, here is a short summary of how to develop a habit of reading the Bible every day:

1. Decide what to eliminate so you have margin to do something new.

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.

Some quick thoughts on habits vs goals

I think one of the challenges of leading a church through reading the Bible in a year is that you are combining two things.

First, you are using a year as a long ramp to help people really build a habit of daily Bible reading. A habit is something that becomes an action that you do regularly and consistently over a period of time. Developing a habit of daily Bible reading is a top priority for anyone who wants to be a disciple of Jesus Christ. It will literally change your life.

Second, reading through the Bible in a year is not only working towards building a habit, it is a goal. Goals are concrete and measurable. They start and they end. Reading through the Bible in a year, then, is also a goal that is finite and has a completion date.

One of the reasons the daily Bible reading habit is the first priority is because many people will join Asbury mid-year and we will encourage them to begin where we are, which means they will not read the entire Scripture in that calendar year, but they will establish a habit of daily Bible reading. Regardless of when you join in with us, you can work on developing a robust daily Bible reading habit. And that is a foundational habit in the life of everyone who is a disciple of Jesus Christ.

That is the win!

I also get really excited by the idea of thousands of Christians reading the entire Bible cover-to-cover over the course of a year. Maybe it is just because I personally love these kinds of goals.

I want to share a few thoughts about the goal of reading the entire Bible in one year.

This is so obvious, but the first thing is to follow the steps above for building a daily Bible reading habit.

The obvious question, however, if you want to read the entire Bible in one year using the One Year Bible is: What do I do if I miss a day?

If you don’t read the Bible one day and the goal is building a habit, the most important thing is to literally do whatever it takes to read the Bible the next day. (This is why it matters that you pre-decide when and where to do it. If you miss a day, just follow the plan the next day.) The problem with building a habit is not missing one day. The problem is that one day tends to become two days, which tends to become three, and then three weeks.

So, if you are working on building a habit and you miss a day there is only one thing that matters – Do it the next day!

And if you have a goal to read the entire Bible in a year, it turns out that the solution is the exact same if you miss a day: Do it the next day!

But here is one important difference between a goal and a habit:

You cannot make up ground on a habit. You either read the Bible yesterday or you didn’t. And that either helped you have a habit of daily Bible reading or it helped you have a habit of not reading the Bible daily. There is no way to make up for missed days in building a habit.

You can make up ground on some goals. If the goal is to read the entire Bible in one year, I can still do that if I didn’t read the Bible yesterday. But it means I must read more on at least one other day than normal.

Here is another important difference between a habit and a goal:

The idea of a habit is that it does not have an expiration date. Habits are not designed to end. Think about the habit of exercise or of going to bed on time. There are seasons and stages of life and reasons you start new habits. But the idea of a good habit is a thing that you are trying to install in your life that becomes automatic and continual.

Goals do have an end that you are working towards the entire time. I often set a goal to read 100 books in a year. When the calendar turns over to a new year, I have either done it or I haven’t. And there is a sense of accomplishment and completion that comes with accomplishing goals.

I think every disciple of Jesus Christ needs to both develop a habit of reading the Bible daily and they need to read through the entire Bible.

I think habits and goals actually reinforce each other. You are more likely to develop a daily Bible reading habit if you have a goal in mind you are working towards that is specific and measurable. And this is exactly why it is common for churches to lead a congregation wide effort to read through the entire Bible in one year.

Ok, so for both building a habit and pursuing a goal, here is what you should do if you miss a day:

Do it the next day!

Keep going!

That will both help you move forward again on your habit. And it will help you make progress on your goal.

Here is one practical step that applies only to the goal of reading the entire Bible in a year even if you are not perfect in your daily habit:

Add a time block once a week that is for catching up.

This is not the same time as your daily Bible reading habit. It needs to be a different time. To establish the habit of daily Bible reading, you need a plan to do the same thing every day.

I would suggest planning for one-hour. Remember step one for building a habit. This will require eliminating another hour of something else you do.

I would recommend scheduling this one-hour block during a time that usually feels more relaxed in your week so you are more likely to use it when needed.

If you build an additional hour into your week to read the Bible, you will be able to make up significant ground if you fall behind. And if you schedule that into your weekly calendar, you also get a reward for being on pace – a free hour to do whatever you like!

If you follow these steps, I am sure you will both develop a daily habit of reading the Bible. And you will read the entire Bible cover to cover in one year.

This is essential for Christian discipleship. If you don’t yet have a habit of daily Bible reading, you can! Why not start now? You can work through these steps right now.

P.S. I have not been perfect in reading the Bible daily. But I can say it has become a habit in my life. And not once have I regretted spending time reading the Bible. You won’t either.

P.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.

5 Steps to Develop Daily Bible Reading Habit

04 Thursday Dec 2025

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Bible, Christian Living, Ministry

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Bible, Bible in a year, Christian formation, Christianity, discipleship, faith, God, Habit, Jesus, small groups

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.

Cultivating Culture: Doing Common Things Uncommonly Well

29 Wednesday Oct 2025

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Church culture, Ministry, Underground Seminary

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Asbury Church, Bible, Christian formation, Christianity, church, Church culture, church staff, culture, faith, Jesus, Methodism, Methodist

One of the things I have really appreciated about my time in Tulsa has been learning about the importance of culture in an organization. I knew quite a bit in theory about this before coming to Asbury Church. But I did not have firsthand experience of an organization intentionally working on setting a healthy culture with excellence and experiencing breakthrough like I have here.

I’ve experienced this in a handful of ways. One of my favorites is the way Andrew Forrest, Asbury’s Senior Pastor, and Rodney Adams, Asbury’s Executive Director, develop and use punchy short phrases over and over again that point to and motivate desired outcomes within the staff and the Church. I’ll share some of these here from time to time because I think they will be helpful to you. Here is the first one:

“At Asbury, we do the common uncommonly well.”

This is a great phrase for so many reasons. Here are a few:

1. It changes the way we think about the things we commonly do.

There is a tendency to think that because something is common, we already know how to do it with excellence. But that is not the case. In fact, the common is often done exceptionally poorly. And that is a disaster for the culture of any organization!

Can I give you an example?

Since moving to Tulsa, I occasionally lead the first part of our worship service. When I do this, my job is to kickstart the service with appropriate tone and confidence.

If you have been to any worship service, they all have this in common. There is some moment that starts the worship service. And most of the time there is not much forethought given to that moment.

But it sets the tone for the entire service! It is crazy to not practice, rehearse, and prepare with uncommon effort for this moment.

And so, I have practiced over and over and over again in my office, in front of the mirror, and in front of colleagues. And I still have room to get better.

Boy has this been humbling.

As I’ve tried to do the common welcome and greeting uncommonly well, I have made mistakes. I once showed our staff a recording of a welcome and greeting at our Thursday evening service when I forgot to introduce myself, take off my name tag, and empty my pockets. I then showed the recording of the 11am Sunday service where I had ironed out these mistakes to illustrate the difference practice makes.

Working to do the common welcome and greeting to a worship service uncommonly well has been difficult and challenging.

And it has been SO FUN! I have really enjoyed being part of a culture of excellence and seeing myself improve in a basic skill for pastoral ministry. Growth is fun.

2. This phrase makes it obvious that we are a place that expects hard work, consistent effort, and commitment to improve.

Doing basic things with excellence takes work. It takes effort. It takes hunger and commitment to grow. It requires a willingness to receive feedback and be coached up.

And, guess what?

These are also all qualities we want to see embedded in the culture at Asbury Church.

3. Doing the common uncommonly well gives everyone the opportunity to focus on doing their work with excellence.

In church work, the Sunday morning worship service is the most important part of the week. It’s true. But this can also lead people to thinking excellence is only required at the most public facing and visible thing happening on Sunday morning, such as the music and the sermon.

Emphasizing doing the common uncommonly well helps everyone be engaged in doing their work with excellence.

Am I currently working to do the basic functions of my job with excellence? Even asking that question almost always surfaces areas where I can grow as a leader.

4. This phrase creates a disincentive to join the team at Asbury, or remain on it, if someone does not want to work with excellence.

I love the way doing the common uncommonly well puts the focus on a positive target. And so this last one may initially seem negative or off-putting to you. However, another thing we often say at Asbury is, “clarity is kindness.” We are pursuing excellence. We expect everyone on our staff to do the common uncommonly well. Therefore, I see it as a kindness to folks considering joining our team to make this expectation clear.

One of the reasons working on the culture of an organization matters is because different places have different cultures. I love being at Asbury Church! But Asbury may not be someone else’s cup of tea.

That is ok!

It just means Asbury won’t be the right place for them to work.

I am thankful for the ways Andrew and Rodney are intentionally bringing clarity to the staff at Asbury Church here in Tulsa, OK.

And I have found it energizing to think intentionally about the ways I can do the common uncommonly well in my work. Growth and improvement are fun. And I always have room for more of both in my work.

Next Step: What is one area in your current work where deciding to do basic work with greater intentionality and excellence would make a significant impact? Start with a basic and simple step and build from there.

Here is an example of a next step from Asbury:

The first practical step toward doing the common uncommonly well here was a focus on email, especially subject lines. Andrew took time in several monthly staff meetings to explain this emphasis and then walk through how to improve use of email, especially writing subject lines that provide clear communication to the sender, especially when they are for internal work at the church. Immediately after that meeting, I started thinking about the purpose of an email subject line differently, and working on writing them with greater intentionality.

P.S. Have you registered for our Underground Seminary event yet? The deadline to register is October 30^th. This is an opportunity to hear Asbury Church’s Senior Pastor, Rev. Andrew Forrest, talk about his new book Love Goes First. This is one of the best books I’ve read in the past decade. If you are in the area, you don’t want to miss this. Register now before time runs out. Details here.

P.P.S. I am teaching two classes at Asbury Seminary in Tulsa this coming Spring. Both classes are hybrid classes, which means you only have to be on-site in Tulsa for three days for the entire class (the rest is online). I am teaching a class on Basic Christian Doctrine March 5-7, 2026. And I am teaching a class on Wesleyan Discipleship March 26-28, 2026. They are worth taking in their own rite. But they also meet ordination requirements for various denominations, including the Global Methodist Church’s new ordination requirement for a class in Wesleyan Discipleship. I love getting to teach from my research and publishing on Wesleyan small groups like the class and band meeting. And this class is not only about the ideas but equipping to do them. It is so fun! Don’t miss it. (For more information, click here, scroll down, and shoot me an email.)

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.

Reflections on Teaching and Learning at Asbury

24 Thursday Apr 2025

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Life, Methodist History, Ministry, Teaching, Underground Seminary

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Tags

Asbury, Bible, Christian formation, Christianity, class meeting, deliverance, faith, God, Jesus, John Wesley, Methodism, prayer, Seminary, small groups, Teaching, Wesley

I have previously shared here about my conviction that the culture or atmosphere of the classes I teach is more important than being sure I say all the words I want to say or get all the content in before the class ends.

I am not sure I always get this right. Actually, I’m sure I don’t always get this right.

However, I am increasingly confident that students are most impacted by the things that happen in my classes because I intentionally create an atmosphere that is open to the Holy Spirit than they are by the lectures that I give. And maybe even more than that, I find that students are more willing to listen to what I have to say when they are convinced that I care about them. So, I think that prioritizing the culture or atmosphere of classes I teach enhances student learning and engagement with the content of the course.

And I don’t think this goes the other direction.

This week, I’ve found myself reminiscing on the things I saw the Lord do over the past month. I wanted to share a few highlights here.

I taught back-to-back intensives a few weeks ago. And they were such a blessing!

Before my Basic Christian Doctrine class, I put together the second Underground Seminary event. We called it “What They Don’t Teach You in Seminary.” It was led by Rodney Adams, the Executive Director of Asbury Church. Rodney gave a detailed behind the scenes look at how a large church like Asbury is run, the strategic decisions he makes as Executive Director, and the challenges of leading that are particular to a church. (You can read about the original announcement here.)

From my perspective, it was a fantastic success. There were 23 people who came to this meeting, which was immediately before a class that had 16 students. I am encouraged both by such a strong turnout and that the Underground Seminary idea is building energy for what is happening at Asbury-Tulsa. It is energizing to me to have people in the building talking to each other about ministry. I am best at inviting people to things I passionately believe in. Asbury Church is one of those things for me.

During the class itself, I had a sense that the Lord wanted to minister in some ways to the specific people in the room. I am still learning and growing in how to lead and take risks appropriately in this space. These students were so gracious and hungry for Jesus. It was wonderful. The highlight of the weekend for me was checking in with someone at the end of class that I had particularly felt a burden to pray for and they said, “I feel like myself again for the first time in a year.”

Thank you, Jesus!

Several students stayed with members of Asbury Church. On Sunday morning, one of the students ran into the family that had hosted them, and they were so excited to see each other. The hosts sat with the group of students and my family in worship. I was so blessed by such a tangible connection of my church loving my students well and seeing church and academy connected in such a lovely way.

The next week I had another hybrid. First Methodist Church in Tulsa hosted a Holy Spirit Conference that was amazing. I was invited to lead a breakout on spiritual parenting. This is something I have thought a lot about and am passionate about but had not had a chance to teach on to a group of people. I learned a lot in preparing and was challenged and blessed in thinking it through in order to lead the workshop. I drove straight from First Methodist to Asbury to prepare to teach my second intensive in two weeks, The Theology of John Wesley (with 23 students).

I love getting to teach this material. It has been a blessing to systematically read through Wesley’s sermon corpus in a short window of time. (I highly recommend this if you are a leader in a Wesleyan context and have not done this.) The biggest gift for me personally was rereading two great books by one of the academics I most respect, Dr. Kenneth J. Collins. The two books are core texts for The Theology of John Wesley (which is a required class for every major at Asbury Theological Seminary) and I highly recommend them both. Read Collins’s John Wesley: A Theological Journey first to get a sense of Wesley’s life. It is a great book because it unpacks Wesley’s own life and legacy, but from a rich theological lens.

After you read this, you should read The Theology of John Wesley: Holy Love and the Shape of Grace. In my opinion, this is Collins’s masterpiece. Reading this book in preparation to teach helped me teach with greater clarity than the last time I taught this material. Collins does a masterful job explaining core concepts like justification, the new birth, and entire sanctification. He is fearless in his fidelity to the witness of Scripture and Wesley’s understanding of it.

In addition to this class just being a delight, there were some powerful moments where the Spirit met us. Rev. Graeme Collett, one of the associate pastors at Asbury Church, preached for the Asbury Seminary chapel service on Friday. Graeme has become a good friend and one of the best surprises in our move here to Tulsa. And unlike any sermon I’ve experienced here yet, the Lord gave Graeme a clear word for this specific class at this specific time. (And this is saying something, because we’ve had an embarrassment of riches in terms of the quality of preaching we’ve had in our chapels here!) The highlight was Graeme’s burden to anoint students to remind them of their callings and to seal the work of the Holy Spirit in them. I believe every single person in the room came forward for prayer at some point. Lots of beautiful Holy Spirit tears and ugly crying. It was one of those times you are just aware the Lord is doing deep work in people right before your eyes. I am so thankful for Pastor Graeme’s leadership and for the Spirit’s presence with us in chapel.

We lost track of time and went more than thirty minutes over, but that is one of the special things about these intensives. It didn’t matter! Sometimes people will say in ministry that “the trains have to run on time.” The great thing about the intensives I teach is that there is one train and we’re all on it! So, we got where we were supposed to go when we were supposed to get there.

The second highlight of the Theology of John Wesley hybrid was a word I felt like I got from the Lord on Saturday morning, before the last day of the intensive. As I was praying that morning, I had the impression that the Lord wanted me to start the day by inviting people to share testimonies to what they had seen the Lord do so far in our time together.

I need to admit that this is often hard for me. Sometimes I’m afraid nobody is going to say anything, and it will bomb. I’ve gotten more comfortable holding space as time has gone on, but it is still an area I’m growing in. And I felt that Saturday morning.

Goodness was I wrong to be concerned. There were so many wonderful testimonies people were ready to share about how the Lord had met them. God is so good!

That part went so well, the Lord nudged me to notice the second thing I had written down as I had been praying that morning:

“Deliverance?”

In part, I think this came from witnessing a powerful deliverance at the Holy Spirit Conference the Wednesday night before my class started. I also think it came from reflecting on how important deliverance ministry was in John Wesley’s own ministry. (For more on this, see Dr. Peter J. Bellini, Thunderstruck! The Deliverance Ministry of John Wesley Today )

I gave what felt like a pretty timid invitation to receive prayer for deliverance if someone felt like they needed it. I am not going to go into details here for a variety of reasons, except just to say that the Father, again, showed me His desire to communicate with His children. I also experienced the power and authority of Jesus Christ in a deeper way that I don’t think I can adequately express. It was just a blessing.

I have so much to learn. One thing that I have found really helpful is thinking about my classes as laboratories. Here is what that image means to me: in a lab, you do something real but you also reflect on it and can interrogate the experiment itself. So we can meet in a small group in my Wesleyan discipleship class and talk authentically about the state of our souls. And we can also then ask how the conversation felt, what could we do differently? Was there something that felt unhelpful or could have been more helpful? Lowering the stakes and explicitly thinking of the time together in class as a learning environment gives permission to make mistakes and raises the expectation for pursuing excellence. I love that combination.

I’ve seen this with prayer for healing in my classes. I’ve seen this with seeking to hear the Lord’s voice and be guided by the Holy Spirit. And I’ve seen it in lively classroom conversations about deep matters of theology. It is challenging. And it is fun.

I can’t wait to see what the Holy Spirit does next!

P.S. Did you know that I am launching a Fellowship Program at Asbury Church? We are hiring two Fellows that will be paid full-time positions, with benefits. Starting this August. More details about the Fellowship Program and how to apply here.

The Most Important Distinction in the American Church Today: The Next Underground Seminary

12 Wednesday Mar 2025

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Ministry, Teaching, Underground Seminary

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Aaron Renn, Andrew Forrest, Asbury Church, Asbury Theological Seminary, Christian formation, culture, discipleship, Evangelism, Negative World, Underground Seminary

We are going to have back-to-back Underground Seminary meetings here in Tulsa (March 27 and April 6) and I am pumped!

What is Underground Seminary?

There are some things that don’t fit in courses I teach, or perhaps even in the seminary curriculum at all, that people preparing to lead in the local church need to wrestle with, think about, or just have someone tell them. There are also conversations that I want to have with people who are preparing to in the church that I think will be helpful to them and I don’t know where they would fit in specific classes.

In my role for Asbury Church, I’m still interested in shaping pastors. So, I have been working on optional, not-for-credit, opportunities that typically come alongside classes I am teaching for Asbury Theological Seminary. I’m calling these special events “Underground Seminary.”

Underground Seminary is for people preparing to lead in the church who are hungry to learn and grow. They want to gain as much wisdom and experience as they can from as many different places as possible as they are prepared and equipped to lead.

I’m most excited to work with people who know God has more for them and they are going after it. Underground Seminary is for these people.

Our next Underground Seminary meeting:

Rev. Andrew Forrest, Asbury Church’s senior pastor, will lead our next Underground Seminary. It will be focused on the ways dramatic changes in the broader culture have impacted the church and radically changed the context in which we seek to share the gospel. Andrew will share a diagnosis of the problem facing the church and point to solutions for a way forward.

I’ll let Andrew share more about what he wants to do in this workshop in his own words:

The most important thing for church leaders to know in 2025 is that we are living in what Aaron Renn has called “the negative world.”

Things are different these days. Over the last decade, American culture has changed in ways that have become more hostile to the church and the claims of Christ, the result of which is that a majority of those who hold the keys to power in American society—those in politics, media, and education—have a negative view of Christianity. In light of these changes, I believe that the most important distinction in the American church today is not in the ways we normally categorize the church. The most important distinction in the American church today is between those who recognize we live in “the negative world” and those who have not yet accepted this fact.

This distinction matters because it directly affects our strategies for carrying out the Great Commission. Our mission from Jesus has not changed, and our responsibility to evangelize cannot be avoided. But the strategies we employ to complete that mission need to be constantly shifting, depending on the cultural context. The problem we face today is that many of our strategies for evangelism were developed in and for a previous cultural context, one that was largely positive about Christianity and that saw the Christian faith either something good or at best neutral. But that culture is gone, and it’s time for new strategies. If we keep running our plays out of the old playbook, we are going to lose the game.

I want to talk frankly about how we can lead the church to not only survive in negative world but thrive. I’m interested in talking to people who are hungry to make a difference and who are not satisfied to keep running plays out of an outmoded playbook.

Andrew is a brilliant strategic thinker about the local church and its role in the world. He has boldness and courage that I admire. He is willing to do the deep work it takes to get to clarity about hard things and big ideas. This is going to be a challenging and convicting conversation. And I think it is going to be a lot of fun. (If you want to know more about “Negative World” check out Aaron Renn’s book. The link is an Amazon affiliate link, which helps support my work.)

How to join us:

This Underground Seminary will be Sunday April 6^th following worship Sunday morning. Lunch will be provided, and we will conclude by 3pm. In order to ensure that there is food and space for everyone, you need to RSVP if you would like to attend. We will send the location for the meeting to you after you RSVP by emailing Laura.Wilkie@asburyseminary.edu. Deadline to RSVP is March 28^th.

P.S. It is not too late to register for the March 27^th Underground Seminary with Rodney Adams, which I’m playfully calling “What They Don’t Teach You in Seminary.” Details here.

Kevin M. Watson is Director of Academic Growth and Formation at Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa, OK Extension Site. He is also Scholar in Residence at Asbury Church. 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.

My Wesleyan Discipleship Class and What God Is Doing in Tulsa

15 Wednesday Jan 2025

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Class Meetings, Life, Ministry

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

Christian formation, class meeting, Methodism, small groups, Wesley

For the first time in my career as a seminary professor, I have had to be concerned about whether the classroom would fit all the students who were signing up to take my class. For the first time, I have had to tell people who wanted to take vacation time off work and pay their own way to travel to Tulsa just to sit in on the class as auditors (which means they get no academic credit!) that I could not let them in the class.

Oh, and this class is just an elective.

What is happening?!

A few years ago, I taught a class that was unlike any other I had taught. I have had a handful of great experiences as a seminary professor. But this class was different.

If you had asked me when I was teaching Methodist History at Candler School of Theology, for example, to describe the best class I’d taught, I would have talked about feeling like the students really “got it.” They left the class with a mastery of the key concepts and ideas I wanted them to receive. They were engaged and genuinely interested in the material. And having a better understanding of the meaning of Methodism, they had a deeper commitment to working, by the grace of God, to renew the Wesleyan theological tradition.

And yet, I often felt like something was missing. Or maybe better, it felt like something hadn’t quite come into alignment in terms of what I was trying to do overall.

In the Fall of 2022, I had the opportunity to teach a course that, at the time, I would have said was the best class I had ever taught. But it also occurred during the most painful and confusing time of my life.

On the one hand, I had certainty during the class that exactly what I was wanting to see happen was happening in my students during the class. As a teacher, you don’t always know what is happening with your students. But sometimes you do. Sometimes it is not awesome. And you know it. And sometimes you know that your students are experiencing exactly what you are hoping they experience. And that is so awesome you can’t really appreciate it until it happens, or at least I didn’t know it could be that good until it was.

On the other hand, I found out in the last half of the semester that I had not been selected for a position I had applied for and, as a result, I was being terminated at the end of the semester.

The class was a great experience for me. I loved those students so much. I was thankful I got to finish this class and the other one I was teaching. It was also one of the most gut-wrenching things I’ve ever done.

I walked through it the best I could. I’m sure I made mistakes. I am so thankful for the healing that has happened and continues to happen.

One thing that was really challenging was the sense that I had finally figured something out. It felt like magic in the classroom. And I was gutted that I was not going to get to continue doing the things I had learned that worked.

But God.

The Lord, in his kindness to me, opened a door to teach at Asbury Theological Seminary, the school I’d been yearning for more connection with for years, in the city (Tulsa, OK) I had been feeling drawn to for years.

Last Spring, I was given the opportunity to teach this same class again for Asbury at our main campus in Wilmore, KY. Seven students enrolled in a class that was brand new and not even in the ATS catalogue yet. I was so thankful to get to teach again.

My second time through the class showed me that the previous class was not a fluke.

The things I learned were repeatable, which is a key principle of disciple-making work.

But looking back I also think there was some spiritual interference. For example, just before the intensive part of the class (where we all gathered for 20 hours of class in 2.5 days), I lost my voice! I mean I really lost my voice, for the first time in my life. It was bizarre. The Lord gave me just enough strength to communicate each day of the intensive and it improved just enough for me to manage to preach in chapel after my class ended before I headed back to Tulsa.

Tomorrow evening, I will start teaching my Wesleyan Discipleship class for the third time.

And this time 34 students are coming to Tulsa.

34 students!

As far as I know, this is the largest class we’ve ever had in Tulsa. And it is an elective.

And I have this deep confidence in my spirit that collectively this class is going to experience the blessing of the Lord’s presence with us.

At every intensive I’ve taught in Tulsa, the Spirit has been present in a powerful way. It has felt to me like Asbury Theological Seminary’s Tulsa Extension Site is a laboratory of the Holy Spirit. We dive deep into the content and information of the course, while also actively seeking to experience the things we are learning about.

A course on Wesleyan Discipleship is tailor made for just that. We will learn about band meetings and class meetings, laying the historical and theological foundation for these core practices. And we will not only learn about the class meeting, we will experience it in a laboratory where we can do the real thing, talk about it, and discuss how we can practice it more effectively.

By the grace of God, we will learn about the stages of growth in faith and how to help people move from being spiritual infants all the way to spiritual parents.

And the Father will be given permission to do whatever He wants to do during our time together.

The past year and a half has been so good. So fun.

Today, I feel like a kid on Christmas Eve. I cannot wait to see what God does tomorrow and this weekend!

Please pray for me to teach well and for all of us to be open and receptive to receive what the Spirit has for us!

Thank you, Jesus.

Interested in studying with me in Tulsa? Check out Asbury Theological Seminary here: https://asburyseminary.edu

Join My Seminary Course in Wesleyan Discipleship in Tulsa [January 2025]

24 Thursday Oct 2024

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Accountability, Class Meetings, Holiness, Methodist History, Ministry

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Band meeting, Christian formation, class meeting, discipleship, John Wesley, Methodism, Methodist, small groups, Wesley

I am teaching a course on Wesleyan Discipleship in Tulsa as a January-Term course at Asbury Theological Seminary this coming January (2025). You should join me!

What is the course about?

Here is my description of the course:

Wesleyan Discipleship explores the history, theology, and practice of discipleship through a Wesleyan lens. Particular attention is given to the role of communal formation in eighteenth-century Methodism. John Wesley’s theology of discipleship is explored, along with a variety of aspects of Christian formation in community in early Methodism. Particular attention is given to the way Wesley’s theology of social holiness was expressed in early Methodist small groups, especially the class meeting and the band meeting. Students will apply the historical and theological understanding of Wesleyan discipleship to contemporary ministry contexts.

Why I am FIRED UP about this class:

This class will have an intensive on site here in Tulsa from the evening of January 16^th through January 18^th, 2025. I LOVE the time together with students at intensives! This class beautifully lends itself to teaching in this format.

Hybrid classes have 20 hours of in-person instruction over 2.5 days. (The rest of the course requirements are met through online engagement and completion of online modules.) It is intense! But I have also found, perhaps surprisingly, that it is also an opportunity for a spiritual retreat for students.

The in-person experience gives us the opportunity to worship together. We will start the class by attending worship at the Thursday evening service at Asbury Church, where Rev. Andrew Forrest will be preaching. Andrew is an exceptionally gifted preacher of the Scriptures and a brilliant communicator. I love being able to start class off by tangibly connecting the church and academy by walking across the parking lot to go to worship.

We will also have an Asbury Theological Seminary – Tulsa chapel service for the class and students in the area on Friday January 17.

I will get to spend hours talking about my scholarly passion – the importance of community and connection for the Christian life. I love getting to teach students and engage their questions around these topics!

And most important, we will spend time talking about and practicing ways to reintroduce these tried and tested methods that gave Methodism its name.

At the end of the course, students will have the kind of knowledge gain you would expect from a typical seminary course. But they will also have experience participating in class meetings, experiencing small group dynamics, and reflecting on various challenges and opportunities of leading small groups like class and band meetings.

I think of this course as like a laboratory. We will learn a lot about the concepts, but we will also engage them in a hands-on way. In a laboratory you can not only experience a class meeting, but you can also talk about your experience of a class meeting. In my view, this is essential for becoming an expert practitioner. You need not only a theoretical framework and some practical experience, but you also need a place to talk about your experience so you can acknowledge, address, and overcome obstacles and challenges.

I am more confident than I have ever been that groups like the Wesleyan class meeting and band meeting will be at the center of Christian discipleship in these new and strange times we are entering.

These intensives are aptly named. They are not easy. J-term is not a short cut. In fact, it is a three-week academic sprint. My goal is to maximize the 20 hours we get to spend together to suck the marrow out of the class and be as fully equipped to make disciples of Jesus Christ in the contemporary church as possible.

I want students who come hungry and ready to learn and grow. And that is what we are seeing here in Tulsa. It is SO FUN!

How is the course being taught?

I am teaching this course as a hybrid course at Asbury Theological Seminary at our Tulsa, OK Extension Site (housed at Asbury Church).

What is a January-Term, or J-Term, course?

A J-Term course is a full three credit course that is offered entirely within the month of January. This coming J-Term will start on January 2, 2025 and conclude on January 24, 2025.

What is a hybrid course?

A hybrid course is a course that has parts that are online and parts that are in person. This specific course will have four online modules based on four main sets of reading, students will write a reflection paper that summarizes the content of the reading, critically engages it, and applies it to their own ministry context.

The in-person part is January 16-18, 2025 at Asbury Church’s Development Center in Tulsa, OK. The in-person meeting will be from 6:00pm-9:00pm January 16, 8:30am-5:30pm January 17, and 8:30-5:30pm January 18. The in-person meeting is required for completion of the course. It is also the highlight of the entire course!

Does this course meet the Wesleyan Discipleship and Spiritual Formation requirement for ordination in the Global Methodist Church?

The Convening General Conference of the Global Methodist Church, which met a few weeks back, updated the educational requirements for ordination. And one of the changes that was made was the addition of a course called “Wesleyan Discipleship and Spiritual Formation.” I don’t mean to brag, but I believe this course hits the bullseye for what the GMC is looking for here! So, yes, if you are seeking ordination in the GMC, this course meets the Wesleyan Discipleship and Spiritual Formation course requirement. You can take this course and meet all GMC ordination requirements with either an Asbury Theological Seminary M.Div. or our 60 credit (exactly 20 courses) Master’s in Christian Ministry (MACM).

Should I take this course if I am not in the Global Methodist Church?

Yes!

If you want to help your church more effectively make discipleship of Jesus Christ, this course is for you.

I am passionate about Wesleyan Discipleship, not because I am most passionate about John Wesley, but because I believe the Wesleyan theological tradition has a proven track record of excellence in intentional and effective disciple making. We do well to learn from experts who have gone before us. This course is not specifically for students from any one denominational tradition. I mentioned the GMC above only because there is obvious relevance for the GMC because they just made this exact course a required course to be ordained an elder in the GMC. (Your church or denomination should too. This topic really is that essential for succeeding in the 21^st century church.)

Can I take this course if I am not an Asbury Theological Seminary student?

Yes! The easiest way to do this would be to apply now to become an Asbury Theological Seminary student. We have a variety of degree programs, and I would be thrilled to talk to you about any of them! There is time to apply now and start this January.

If you are interested in applying to Asbury Theological Seminary or for this course in particular, reach out to me here (scroll down to the bottom of the page) and I will get back to you soon. Be sure to include your email so I know how to reach you.

Not ready to apply to one of our Master’s degree programs? You may be able to apply to take the course as a non-degree seeking student. You also may be able to audit the course. Both require an application and auditing requires permission from the instructor. For either of these, reach out to me at the link immediately above.

I am open to considering some auditors. Auditors do not receive any academic credit for the course and do not turn in any assignments. They are given permission to sit in on the in-person part of the class and participate in class discussions and activities. However, I will only open the class up to auditors if there are open seats after the registration period closes. (I would assume auditing the course would not satisfy denominational ordination requirements, but you should check with your own denominational leaders.)

What is the official title of the course?

The course is cross listed as a Spiritual Formation course and a Theology course. So you can sign up for either TH650 Wesleyan Discipleship or SF650 Wesleyan Discipleship.

What are the assigned readings in the course?

Students will read a few short essays from John Wesley. And they will read these three books (affiliate links):

The Class Meeting: Reclaiming a Forgotten (and Essential) Small Group Experience, Kevin M. Watson

The Band Meeting: Rediscovering Relational Discipleship in Transformational Community, Kevin M. Watson and Scott T. Kisker

Real-Life Discipleship: Building Churches that Make Disciples, Jim Putman

I cannot wait for this class! I hope to see you here in Tulsa January 16-18, 2025.

Powerful Moments at West Plains Annual Conference: A Reflection

21 Friday Jun 2024

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Christian Living, Class Meetings, Life, Ministry

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book announcement, Christian formation, class meeting, Methodism, small groups, speaking

When Rev. Mike Schafer, President pro tem, of the West Plains GMC Annual Conference reached out to me last fall and asked me to preach and teach at the upcoming conference, I was thrilled! And the West Plains Annual Conference exceeded my expectations.

One of my favorite moments of the conference was when Mike described something he had never had happen in his entire ministry: an Annual Conference attendee asked if they could bring a friend! That gives an idea of the atmosphere and spiritual environment in West Plains.

I showed up planning to preach one message, and instead spoke on Matthew 13:44:

The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which someone found and hid; then in his joy he goes and sees all that he has and buys that field. [NRSV]

I shifted because the Spirit did something when Mike prayed for me right before my sermon. I don’t remember exactly what he prayed, but it had something to do with the Spirit opening me up to receive what he wanted to say, even if it was different than what I’d planned. I had been wrestling with a sense that what I had prepared was not quite right and Mike’s prayer brought clarity that I was supposed to change courses and trust the Lord.

The truth is that I don’t really remember most of what I said because it was so unscripted. That is not a comfortable place for me. And I didn’t think I did a great job. When Mike gave an altar call after my sermon, I went to the altar and repented and apologized to the Lord because I just felt like I missed it with my message.

I am grateful for the exceptionally gracious feedback I received from many people in West Plains about how the Lord had used the sermon for them.

God is good!

The ordination service was powerful as well. A few things really stood out to me. First, the unity in the room, not only among the ordinands, but also among the clergy and laity in attendance was palpable and a joy. When Bishop Jones went through the Historic Questions, it was the first time in my ministry I wasn’t wondering if people meant “No” even though they were saying “Yes.”

Bishop Jones led in a way that kept the focus on the main thing and the seriousness of what was happening. That was a gift to experience.

Two other things happened in the ordination service that were beautiful. First, immediately after ordination, Bishop Jones celebrated Communion and the newly ordained served the rest of the congregation. It was so well done! Second, after Communion, Bishop Jones gave an invitation to receive a call to ministry during the final song. I saw at least three people from the congregation respond to that invitation! I don’t think I’ve ever witnessed that before. It was so hopeful and encouraging to just have a strong focus on the significance of ordination and even more so on the Triune God who speaks and calls us to serve.

Rev. Schafer asked me to speak on Wesleyan discipleship, focusing on class and band meetings on Saturday morning. If you know me, it is pretty easy to convince me to do that! I have been thinking quite a bit about the old(er) Barna survey that is outlined in the book Maximum Faith (you can find a summary of the ten stops of the Christian life here). I summarized those findings and the way they point to the need for relational connection and deeper discipleship across the church in the United States. This, in my view, only increases the importance of returning to our Wesleyan heritage of intentional discipleship through small groups.

I had a blast teaching that material!

Finally, I got to experience two of the three TED-style talks given by folks in West Plains. Wow! The first talk was about a fire ministry after the massive fires in Texas last year. Even more than that, it was a powerful testimony about God’s work in one woman’s life. The second talk was by a rancher and a lawyer who felt called to co-pastor the GMC church in their town. The commitment to the local church and the authority of Scripture was powerful! I wish I’d been able to stay for the final one and the rest of the afternoon!

Preaching and teaching at a place like the West Plains Conference is an enormous privilege. It still surprises me to be asked to speak in places like this. I love doing it and it is a blessing to me. Every time, I think, I can’t believe I get to do this! God has been so kind to me and I am thankful.

One final thing about my time at this conference. Mike Schafer will become the first Connectional Operations Officer for the Global Methodist Church, starting August 15, 2024. Leadership in West Plains recognized Mike for his service as the first President of the West Plains Conference and gave thanks for this new role. One of the people who praised Schafer’s leadership in West Plains commented that he was exactly the right person to serve in this new key leadership role in the GMC because he had not spent his entire career trying to receive this kind of position. I loved the way that was put! And it rings true of my experience with Mike. His selection for this role is encouraging to me and a hopeful sign of things to come for the Global Methodist Church. (You can read more about Rev. Schafer and his new role here.)

Thank you, West Plains, for having me! And special thanks to Emma Stonum for sharing the photos I’ve used in this post.

Reminder: My new book releases next Tuesday, June 25^th

My new book Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline: A History of the Wesleyan Tradition in the United States releases on Tuesday, June 25^th. I wrote a post about the book here. Please check it out. This is the first book I’ve directly asked folks to pre-order. Doing so helps the long-term success of the book in a variety of ways. It would really help me out if you would take a moment to head to Amazon (affiliate link) or Zondervan and order the book now. I am really encouraged by the early interest in this book! Thank you so much to all of you who have already pre-ordered it.

In this time of rapid change and chaos, it is imperative that we reground ourselves in our identity. This book explains the core identity of the Wesleyan theological tradition and points to lessons from the past that will help us be more faithful in the present and future.

Thank you!