An intriguing commonality between those who follow the Jesus way and non believers is a general distaste for evangelism. Certainly this dislike doesn’t apply to everyone, believer or not; nor does it stem from an accurate understanding of what evangelism is all about. But the dislike is there…The negative image of the televangelist looms large in all our consciences.
The first verse of “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing” is an invitation to join the angels who announced Christ’s birth. In fact, Wesley wants all nations to rise and “join the triumph of the skies” in the tumultuous news, “Christ is born in Bethlehem!” Notice the exclamation point. Wesley was inclined that way. It’s hard to end all your sentences
There aren’t many times in the life of the church where people sit down and say, “Please teach me doctrine.” As a theology nerd, I wish it would happen more. But it just doesn’t happen that much.
Advent is primarily about looking through the baby in the manger to see Christ the King coming on the clouds in glory. The problem for Methodists is that, for decades, we did not have a single hymn in the Methodist hymnal that explicitly referenced the Lord’s physical return.
When I was in 8th grade, my family lived for a bit in some low income apartments. The apartment complex was formed in a square with a decent sized courtyard in the middle. In the courtyard was where all the dramatic action was – this is where kids got in fistfights with each other, where drug deals happened after dark,
Wesleyan Accent is excited to welcome Ellsworth Kalas who will be contributing regular reflections on Wesleyan hymns. His first highlights Charles Wesley’s wonderful Advent hymn, “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus.”
Familiarity sometimes breeds dullness. It’s true in the whole of life; it is especially true in the way we hear things and reflect on what we hear. The hymns we sing are a great example of this. If we have sung them often, we are so familiar with the tunes that we sing the words by rote. Not only do
How should we “read” John Wesley? And why is he important for people today? These are important questions for Methodists, most of whom consider themselves to be Wesleyans in some sense. Focusing on the actual theology of John Wesley has not always been emphasized in American Methodism. For much of the 19th and 20th centuries, Wesley was treated in “hagiographic”
One of our big failures as Christians is our continual refusal to discipline ourselves in living with the word of God. We need to study the Bible. It is the shaping source of our Christian faith and way. In it we find the revelation of God which God provided through God’s Son, Jesus. It is food for our souls, direction
Though Wesleyans are most committed to offering Christ, not to being distinct from other Christian traditions, there are differences in Christian traditions because various parts of the body of Christ articulate their faith with differing emphases or nuances. And although Wesley was primary focused on offering Christ, he was not indifferent to Christian beliefs or practice. The next three posts,
The intercessory life is a pattern for our interior growth in prayer that is abiding in Christ, and the outward expression of a missional Christ life in the world. It is a dynamic balance of paying attention to our personal spiritual maturity, and the call of Christ to minister as servants in the world.
Today’s post is a compelling piece written anonymously by a successful pastor. The Ideology of a Cancer Cell I rarely have those moments I would unquestioningly call, “divine.” I’ve never been one to see the fingerprints of God on everything around me. So when something happens in my life that just seems divinely orchestrated, I have to latch on
On the day when we had the least amount of time to tend to the needs of others, we boldly said come join us.
I suspect sometimes that I live more out of a sense of obligation than awe — more aware that I’ve signed onto a system than that I am a servant of a holy God who has actually sapped the power out of death and sin. I need to be reminded that systems are not living, breathing things, but Jesus is.
Evangelicals are often defined by what they are against instead of what they are for. I am a part of a sub-section of the larger Evangelical church that is more broadly called “Wesleyan.” This would include people like The Free Methodists, The Church of the Nazarene, The Salvation Army, more conservative United Methodists, and about a dozen other groups including my
Over the past few months, having been to the cross, visited the empty tomb, and celebrated the Resurrection, let us now live in awareness of the sin for which we will never be crucified.
Baseball has seen its ups and downs recently While the ownership groups seem to be having their largest years of fiscal success, the sport’s popularity is fading. To respond to the changing tide of culture, Major League Baseball has tried to address their need.
This Easter truth is as mind-boggling and subversive today as it has been in every age; because rather than looking forward to a day when the things that make us different from others disappear, the resurrection proclaims that we look forward to an eternity in which those differences remain, but no longer divide.
It is in God’s very nature to seek out relationship, and it is this divine seeking that provides the roots for evangelism and grounds all the directives that Jesus gives us.
Jesus told Zacchaeus to come down from the tree for dinner before Zacchaeus ever had the good idea to give half of what he had to the poor and give back any tax money he’d unfairly kept for himself. Jesus reached out to the Samaritan woman before she had all her questions answered, before she truly understood what the coming
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