United: From then to Now, inspiring us to live out our faith with purpose and impact in today's world.
The Centrality of Small Groups
August 11, 2024 • Matt Fulmer • Acts 2:42–47
Wesley saw the religion of his time as empty. People “went to church” but that was about it. He once remarked that his greatest fear for the Methodist movement is that we would slip back to this way of understanding church, something Wesley called, “having the form of religion without its power”. To help people put their faith into action in everyday life he formed small groups. The purpose of the groups was prayer, study, accountability, and service to others. Wesley believed that Christians needed small groups in order to live out their faith. In Part 2, we will talk about his time at Oxford College, the beginning of the first small group of “Methodists” and the importance of groups today.
A Sent Church
August 4, 2024 • Matt Fulmer • Matthew 28:19
The model of church in Wesley’s day was ironically similar to ours – we build churches, we hang a shingle, and we expect folks to come. While on a trip to Bristol, George Whitefield invited Wesley to leave the church building and preach to a group of miners that gathered in a nearby field. At first, Wesley found this practice objectionable, but soon discovered that by preaching in the fields, he was able to meet people where they were, reaching a whole group of folks that never would come to the corner cathedral. In part 3 we will talk about what it means for the church to “go” and meet people where they are instead of expecting them to “come”.
United: Social Holiness
July 28, 2024 • Matt Fulmer • Matthew 25:31
As a preacher in London, Wesley began to preach to laborers and workers in the streets. He soon saw the injustices of the life they were living. Impoverished, sick and without opportunities for their children, these laborers made up a lower class of people that the church largely ignored. Soon Wesley began to feed people, tend to the sick, and begin educational programs for children, all out of an old Foundry. Wesley believed that unless the gospel pushed Christians to care for the injustices around them, then it was not being fully lived out. In part 2, we will talk about Wesley’s growing concern with the social dimension of faith and the way that our faith still must take seriously the injustices of the world around us.
