INTRODUCTION

The first word I really learned in Spanish was “mano.” (“hand.”) I was playing

soccer, touched the ball, and suddenly a chorus of “Mano! Mano! Mano!” rained down

on me from the other team. Penalty kick. Over the next three years, as the pastor of an

Anglo church with a thriving Hispanic ministry, I would learn a lot more. I would learn

what it means to be in community, what it means to be a non-citizen, what it means to be

a non-citizen who has just been in a serious accident, what it means to be destitute and

without food stamps or welfare benefits. And I would learn a lot about myself. The

church I served, Chapel Hill UMC in Riddleton TN, would learn these things as well.

Additionally, we would also learn what it means to be transformed. We would learn what

it means to be carried by God’s Spirit into the future in a powerful way.

This is the story of Chapel Hill UMC, a small, rural Anglo congregation that

shares a pastor with a larger church, Hartsville UMC. Both Hartsville and Chapel Hill are

located in small towns about fifty miles northwest of Nashville. In 1999, Chapel Hill was

very much like thousands of other rural United Methodist Churches throughout the

United States: barely able to keep the doors open, the next generation uninterested,

worship dwindling, service to the community nonexistent and frustrating its pastors by its

lack of vitality and initiative. It was a church just waiting for a few more saints to receive

their eternal reward before closing the doors forever. Some might say it was a microcosm

of the entire United Methodist Church. But then something happened. God began to

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move. Though it seemed that Chapel Hill was almost finished, God was not finished with

Chapel Hill. And over the next seven years, not only would the Anglo church recover its

former vitality, it would do so by becoming not just multi-cultural, but also multi-ethnic,

multi-lingual and even multi-national. Though it is still a small church in a very small

town, things have changed. Average attendance has gone from five to sixty five, the

church is ministering in ways and places it could not have dreamed ten years ago. In

2006, nine Hispanic members of the church became certified lay speakers, bringing the

total number of certified lay speakers in the church to eleven, and the church is even

working towards second and third campuses for Hispanic ministry in other towns. This

Doctor of Ministry (D.Min.) project is the story of how God saved Chapel Hill not for

multi-ethnic ministry by and through multi-ethnic ministry.

Desmond Tutu writes of the kind of multi-ethnic experience that has happened at

Chapel Hill;

God has made us in such a way that we need each other. We are made for
companionship and relationship. It is not good for us to be alone. In our African
idiom, we say; ‘A person is a person through other persons.’1

This process, which Tutu calls Ubuntu, is tremendously magnified when the

persons we find companionship and relationship with are culturally different from us.

When we encounter those who are not like us in some significant way(s), we discover

who we ourselves are both independent of our culture and within our culture because we

are able to see “the water we swim in” in new ways. We discover our true humanity by

seeing ourselves and our culture vis-à-vis other people and their culture. This is both an

individual process and also a process that is engaged in by groups of people. When

enough individuals within a movement, institution or church come to a realization of their

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true humanity, the organization the people help make up will change and become more

truly human, and thus more truly what God would have it to be. And when this happens,

even more individuals will be transformed. This is one of the great values of multi-

culturalism. It shows us, individually and corporately, who we are and thus changes us

into someone or something better. This is what happened in dramatic fashion at Chapel

Hill.

And this happened at Chapel Hill not just once, but several times. First, God

opened the hearts of those in the congregation to the movement of the Holy Spirit by

causing the church to reflect on its mission and purpose through the actions of the Annual

Conference in the persons of the pastor and District Superintendent, who, between 1997

and 1999, entered into serious conversation about closing the church. There had been

some small progress in strengthening the church in 1998 and 1999, but in June of 1999,

two members of the church died in three days, shrinking Chapel Hill to two resident

members. The pastor, Norman Weber, worn down by years of effort to revive the church,

pushed the District Superintendent, Dr. Lynn Hill, to finally go ahead and close the

church and thus allow him to focus his energies on more productive fields.2 Dr. Hill

agreed, and met with the pastor and the one remaining truly active member3, Herman

Henry, a meeting that Weber left assuming the church would be closed. However, God

softened Weber’s heart, hardened by several years of the congregation rejecting his calls

for greater activity. He decided to visit all the persons who would be affected by closing

the church one last time. At the same time, God strengthened the resolve of those who

wanted to preserve the church and, between hardening and softening, the church rallied to

the cause. A scant three months later, on October 3rd, 1999, Weber received into the

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membership every person listed on the constituent roll: five persons by baptism, two

persons by transfer of their letter, one person as an affiliate member. Additionally he also

baptized two children. He called it “Holy Sunday.”4 1999 could have seen the end of

Chapel Hill, but it was saved and a new day dawned.

The church, revived by the Holy Spirit, continued to grow and expand in its

worship, study and community involvement. Pastor Weber left the following June, and

under the leadership of the new pastor, Stephen Sanders, Chapel Hill would take

community involvement to a new level.

Early on the morning of Wednesday, September 28th, 2000, Sanders got a call

from Martha Dawson, a member of the Hartsville church, who had heard that the Chapel

Hill church had burned down overnight. Pastor Sanders shuddered, got dressed and drove

to the church. On his way saw a smoking pile of embers where Williams (sic) Chapel

AME had been the day before. Members of Williams Chapel were milling around the

ashes. Pastor Sanders pulled into the parking lot, got out of his car, introduced himself,

and, after some conversation, offered to let Williams Chapel meet at Chapel Hill as long

as was needed. He had been the pastor at Chapel Hill for three months. In the back of his

mind he wondered how the members of the historically white Chapel Hill UMC would

react.

Though Pastor Sanders was encouraged that the church, as part of its community

outreach, had engaged with another African-American congregation in the area, Lily Hill

Missionary Baptist, he was nervous. To his great relief, Williams Chapel was met with

open arms. Herman Henry would proclaim “This is what we have been saved for.”5 It

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would take Williams Chapel eleven months to rebuild; eleven months of joyous and

intense cultural exchange. Chapel Hill would meet for worship at 9:00am, Chapel Hill

and Williams Chapel would meet together for Sunday School, then Williams Chapel

would continue with worship at 11:00am.

While the doors of the church were opened for the benefit of another church and

for the Kingdom, doing so greatly benefited Chapel Hill as well. Several new members

would join the church because of its openness to helping others, especially openness

across ethnic lines. It was a period of exuberance and vitality, a golden age in the life of

both churches, two congregations that had existed nearby one another but in separate

universes were brought together and both greatly profited. Both experienced ubuntu and

then revival out of the ashes. Thus, when Williams Chapel moved into their new building,

there was both celebration and sadness at Chapel Hill; an unexpected sense of loss

pervaded the Chapel Hill congregation. As they came down off the mountaintop of

revival, double revival, in fact, “What now?” became the question of the day at Chapel

Hill.

About a year later, in the fall of 2002, First UMC in Carthage, Tennessee, a fairly

typical small town First Church about six miles down the road from Riddleton, decided to

explore Hispanic ministry. Members of Chapel Hill decided that they would go to a

couple of the classes because the area was starting to see Hispanic families move in after

about fifteen years of Hispanic workers coming through at harvest time. The plans for

ministry faded in Carthage, but the answer to the “What now?” question at Chapel Hill

began to look like Hispanic ministry. The classes, led by the Annual Conference’s

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Directors of Hispanic Ministry, supported by the National Plan for Hispanic Ministry,

would continue for nine months and focused on the Anglos learning both culture and

language. Additionally, the Anglo pastor, Stephen Sanders, who, in God’s providence,

was fluent in Spanish, began a Spanish Bible study. This Bible study was attended by

exactly one Hispanic brother, Pablo Amor, for four months, but was not abandoned by

pastor or parishioner. They became brothers, and the Bible study finally grew, due not to

the efforts of the pastor, but because the layman reached out to his community to bring

others in. And in they came. One of the first persons to come with Pablo was a Mexican

national who had been a pastor in Mexico. His name is Francisco Bienvenido. It took

some convincing for Francisco to come with Pablo not because he had had a bad

experience with an Anglo church, but because the relationship between Anglo churches

generally and Hispanic undocumented workers was, in Bienvenido’s view, fraught with

trouble. Finally, however, Pablo prevailed upon him to come. And Pastor Francisco was

welcomed, so he began to bring his family, and after a few months, Pastor Sanders passed

the leadership of the Bible Study to him. At about the same time, the Hispanic

Coordinators decided to go back to Puerto Rico. They passed the language class they

were teaching to the Anglos to Felix Beinvenido, Pastor Francisco’s son. In Pastor

Sanders, God provided a pastor for Pablo and Francisco, and through Pastor Francisco,

God would provide a pastor for many others.

Over the next six months, the Bible Study would grow into a church service,

attended by both Hispanics and Anglos. Three months later, I, John Purdue, would come

as the new pastor at Hartsville and Chapel Hill, English classes would continue, soccer

would be played, and perhaps most important, a huge dinner would be prepared with

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Hispanic and Anglo foods Sunday after Sunday after Sunday. There would be significant

cultural exchange; significant building of relationships that crossed previously uncrossed

boundaries, significant change in the life of both Hispanics and Anglos, significant

ubuntu, (transformation through interethnic sharing) and the church would continue to

experience revival, strong revival. From 2 members with an average worship attendance

of four persons in 1999 and no other programming, Chapel Hill grew to a membership of

thirty two and a worship attendance of sixty five by 2006, with very significant

community involvement, Bible studies, Sunday School and a holistic and strong church.

And while there were more than a few bumps along the road, the movement of God

within the institution that was Chapel Hill UMC has been exciting and powerful for all

who have been privileged to share the ride.

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 CHAPTER ONE

WHEELS WITHIN WHEELS:

AN ANALYSIS OF PROVIDENCE,
MOVEMENTS AND INSTITUTIONS IN HISTORY

There is significant conversation in the church today, especially the United

Methodist Church, around the concepts of “movement” and “institution.” While many in

the church, including Bishop Janet Huie, president of the Council of Bishops, seem to be

calling for a return to Methodism’s roots as a movement of the Spirit6, others seem to call

for Methodism to realize that it is an (institutional) church and to quit fooling around with

the idea that we are just a movement.7 Of course, different voices seem to define both

movement and institution in different, radically different, ways.

This D.Min. project is the story of a movement of God in a local church. One

small but beautiful movement that the author believes illustrates how United Methodism

can recover its wavering sense of vitality. It is this sense of vitality that persons seem to

be referring to when they call for “movement thinking.” Further, it seems that those who

look askance at the idea that a movement of the Spirit is essential for the re-invigoration

of the church often place heavy emphasis on the local church. This is the story of seven

years in the life of a local church. Seven years in which a church, a local institution,

recovered its vitality, overcoming many obstacles and rediscovering its mission in the

face of need, opportunity and demographic change through reliance of Providence for

both sustenance and deliverance.

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 Providence, which John Wesley described as “wheels within wheels” drawing on

Ezekiel,8 is not a linear, clear or easily understood thing, even in what appears to be

retrospect, at least in part because Providence never finishes writing the story. What

appears to be an end turns out to be but another beginning. The story, and no part of the

story, is really ever finished until all things are finished. Frank Tupper writes of

Providence: “The providence of God always has a history and a geography, a geography

and a history forged together into a narrative. Providence is not a precept to be explained,

but a story to be told.”9

This can be seen in the pages of the Book of Discipline, which does not begin with

constitution or preamble, does not begin with theology or doctrine, does not begin with

mission or ministry, does not begin with organization or administration, but begins with

story. The story of Bishops, from Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury “elected in 1784”

and Phillip William Otterbein “elected in 1800,”10 to Marjorie S. Matthews “elected in

1980,” Leontine T. Kelley “elected in 1984,” and Minerva G. Carcano “elected in

2004.”11 The story of roots, growth, schism, uniting and “Developments and Changes

Since 1968.”12 The story of God’s providential care for the people called Methodist.

The story of the church found in this project will include the story of the early

church, early American Methodism, current American Methodism and then move into the

story of Chapel Hill UMC. From there it will offer a set of recommendations and

conclusions that may help guide the church in the future. Of principal concern in the

telling of the story will be the interplay between movements and institutions in the

church.

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 Wheels Within Wheels: Movement and Institution in the Early Church

The interplay between the church as movement and the church as institution is

older than the establishment of the church itself; having its Christian roots in the tension

between Jesus and the religious institution of his day, which this D.Min. project will refer

to as the “House of Israel.” The House of Israel itself included various movements, most

prominently the Pharisees and the Sadducees. These movements disagreed about exactly

what it meant to be faithful to Torah and other points of Judaic life, but defined

themselves as organically Hebrew rather than Gentile. The House of Israel includes those

persons, institutions, and movements who saw themselves as people of the Abrahamic

Covenant: the circumcised. As much of the Jesus story, the tension between Jesus and the

House of Israel was anticipated in the life of John the Baptist.

But when (John) saw many Pharisees and Sadducees coming for baptism, he said
to them, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? 8
Bear fruit worthy of repentance. 9 Do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have
Abraham as our ancestor’; for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raise up
children to Abraham. 10 Even now the ax is lying at the root of the trees; every tree
therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.
Matthew 3:7-10 (NRSV)

Here John the baptizer, the charismatic leader of a reform movement, is calling

for institutional reformation and laying forth the challenge that we shall see throughout

the history of movement – institutional relations in the church: to bear good fruit or be

thrown in the fire. That the Pharisees and Sadducees first came to John the Baptizer and

that he then challenged them to bear fruit is evidence that though his movement was to

some extent outside the specific religious institutions he was challenging, John did not

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see them as so corrupt as to be beyond redemption. John’s baptism was of repentance, not

revolution against the House of Israel.

As Jesus picks up John’s refrain, the tension in his life between a desire to be

faithful to the House of Israel and call the same to repentance by word and deed develops

and eventually brings him the same fate as John. One can see this in the first chapter of

Mark as Jesus gathers a small group around himself, thus inaugurating a movement of

some sort, but he also teaches in the Synagogue at Capernaum and then goes “throughout

Galilee, proclaiming the message in their synagogues.” (Mark 1:39) Jesus is thus

participating in the religious life of the House of Israel, but at its margins. Though his

teaching was “as one having authority,” (Mark 1:22) he had no official authority.

We see Jesus moving further beyond the established traditions in Mark 2:5, where

he heals a paralytic and explicitly forgives his sin. Then in Mark 2:15 he eats with “tax

collectors and sinners.” In Mark 2:18 questions are raised about his disciples failing to

fast. In Mark 2:23 his disciples pluck and eat grain on the Sabbath. All of these actions,

the four of which make up the entire second chapter, bring Jesus into direct conflict with

the established teachings of the House of Israel. And though the Jesus movement is

coming into conflict with the institution, it still embraces the heart of that institution.

Things get a little stickier as the Markan text progresses. In 3:1-6, Jesus is in the

synagogue on the Sabbath and while there, he heals a man with a withered hand. His

being in the synagogue on the Sabbath is completely within the Rabbinic norms and

expectations. However his healing of the man is clearly in violation of those same norms.

It is clear from the text that Jesus fully understood the norms and violated them

nonetheless. In verse four, Jesus calls the Pharisees to task, asking them if it is

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permissible to heal on the Sabbath. They are silent, hoping to avoid the obvious cruelty of

denying healing on the Sabbath, but also knowing that their tradition did not allow for

such a healing. Verse 5 records Jesus’ reaction to their silence: “He looked around at them

with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart…” This seems to be a typical

reaction of a person to their “home tradition” when they see its deficiencies and need for

reform. Unfortunately, the reaction of those squarely within the House of Israel also

seems to be normative: “The Pharisees went out and immediately conspired with the

Herodians against him, how to destroy him.” (Mark 3:6)

That the Pharisees joined together with the Herodians shows that the institution

was closing ranks against Jesus' reforms. Pharisees and Herodians had opposing

understandings of what it meant to be the House of Israel. The two were conflicting

schools, but joined together against the Jesus movement to preserve the status quo. Most

of the rest of the Gospel narrative is essentially the playing out of this tension to its

logical end; the silencing of the prophetic voice calling for reform. What neither the Jesus

Movement nor the House of Israel could have anticipated was the surprise twist at the

end of the Jesus Movement - the launching of the Church.

While there is often conflict in the interplay between movement and institution,

it seems generally that both institutions and movements are providential gifts of God for

the furtherance of the Kingdom. God grows institutions out of movements and then

provides movements that seek to turn institutions in new directions, often even providing

plural movements that seek to move (single) institutions in different, and often opposite,

directions. Wesley writes of this peculiarity in Sermon 131, commenting on the “wheel in

the middle of a wheel” text from Ezekiel 1:16:

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 (M)any serious Christians, in all ages, have applied (the text) … to the manner
wherein the adorable providence of God usually works in governing the world.
(Through) the complicated wheels of his providence, adapting one event to
another, and working one thing by means of another. In the whole process of this,
there is an endless variety of wheels within wheels. But they are frequently so
disposed and complicated, that we cannot understand them at first sight; nay, we
can seldom fully comprehend them, till they are explained by the event.
…each of these wheels relates to, and answers, the other; how the wise and
gracious providence of God uses one to check the course of the other, and even
employs (if so strong an expression may be allowed) Satan to cast out Satan.13

Wesley here suggests two reactions of an institution to a movement: either the

reform of the institution (“check the course”) or the departure of the movement (“cast

out”). In this second case, if a movement has failed to reinvigorate, refocus, reform or in

some way redeem the institution from which it springs, the movement might die, but it

might also become its own institution in order to carry out the mission that it sees the

original institution as having abandoned. In fact, it seems to be the case that a great many

institutions are birthed out of failed movements to reform other institutions. The Christian

church may be interpreted as being one such institution.

Mark 7:1-30 deals with this process and breaks easily into three sections. The first

(7:1-13) is a call for reformation. Jesus claims that the Pharisee's are "rejecting the

commandments of God to establish your own traditions.” (7:9) This is a very simple call

for reform, one that echoes through not just the prophets but through almost the entire

Bible: the calling back to God. The second section (7:14-23) calls for a deeper, more

radical and more challenging reform. In it, Jesus challenges not just the application of

the God's commandments by the particular generation, but challenges the entire belief

system of the House of Israel by denying the importance of dietary restrictions. Jesus

asks "Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him,

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since it enters not his heart but his stomach and is expelled?" and thus questions not just

the application of the law, but the law itself, or at the very least, the application of the law

throughout the history of the nation as understood by the generation that Jesus

confronted. The third section (7:24-30, the story of the Syrophoenician woman) makes it

plain that while Jesus saw his primary mission as toward the “lost sheep of the house of

Israel.” (Matthew 15:24) he was also here on earth to bring healing/salvation to those

outside the House of Israel.

We can take from the story of the Syrophoenician woman that at least early in his

ministry, Jesus saw his mission as being toward a very specific people group:

disenfranchised Israelites, including those disenfranchised by their association with

Rome. The Jesus Movement, early on, was built around this mission. However, the scope

of the mission increased. Rather than simply being to one segment of one particular

population, we see in the Syrophoenician text the welcoming, with some reservation, of a

person dramatically outside the original parameter. The genesis of the Jesus Movement’s

experience of multi-ethnicity could be located here, but it certainly does not end here.

Jesus’ commitment to Judaism can be seen through Pilate’s eyes in the Passion

narrative. Jesus is found not guilty by Pilate because Jesus’ actions were related to Judaic,

not Roman, law. Pilate, who then washes his hands of the matter, publicly proclaims to

the crowd his own innocence as a civil official in the death of Jesus (Matthew 27:24).

Jesus is not crucified because of offenses against Rome, but against Jerusalem, against

the House of Israel. Further, when Jesus is crucified, Pilate has inscribed over the cross

“The King of the Jews,” to which the chief priests object. (John 19:21) Thus we can see

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that at the end of Jesus’ earthly life, his movement is highly focused on, but has in fact

failed to, reform the House of Israel. However, the movement does not die. Rather it is

transformed and lives on, highly energized by the Resurrection and Pentecost, from

which it gains an overwhelming sense of vitality. Wheels within inexplicable wheels.

These events, the Resurrection and Pentecost, transform the Jesus movement into

a new thing. It does not yet become an institution, it remains a movement, but it takes on

a new focus centered in its newly realized understanding of who Jesus is. This realization

takes time and many different incidents to really take hold. We see it progress from the

empty tomb to the garden, to the road to Emmaus, to the disciples as a group, both with

and without Thomas, to Christ’s ascension into heaven. All these events are prior to

Pentecost, when this new understanding of Jesus is made the center of the “church” and

the movement gains definition and takes on new life. At Pentecost, things change within

the movement substantially, but the tension between the Jesus Movement and the House

of Israel remains. It comes to a head in Acts 5, where the Apostles are brought before the

leadership of the gathered House of Israel (both Pharisees and Sadducees) and, perhaps

playing on tensions between the Sadducees and Pharisees, a leader of the institution,

Gamaliel, wisely instructs the leadership of the House of Israel on the nature of

providential movements and their relationships to spiritual institutions, saying:

Fellow Israelites, consider carefully what you propose to do to these men. For
some time ago Theudas rose up, claiming to be somebody, and a number of men,
about four hundred, joined him; but he was killed, and all who followed him were
dispersed and disappeared. After him Judas the Galilean rose up at the time of the
census and got people to follow him; he also perished, and all who followed him
were scattered. So in the present case, I tell you, keep away from these men and
let them alone; because if this plan or this undertaking is of human origin, it will
fail; but if it is of God, you will not be able to overthrow them—in that case you
may even be found fighting against God! Acts 5:35-39 (NRSV)

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 Gamaliel here recognizes that both movements and institutions have spiritual

validity and leaves the door open for the work of God to continue within the House of

Israel through the Jesus Movement. If this were to have happened, one might conjecture

that the church might still be seen as, essentially, a movement within the House of Israel.

Further, and more gloriously, had Gamaliel’s wisdom been truly heeded, Jesus, through

the church, would have grafted the wild Gentile branches onto the cultivated Judaic Olive

tree and perhaps all the children of Abraham would live today in harmony.

However this did not happen. Rather, and almost immediately, to judge from the

text, the church was cast off from the House of Israel by being given an institutional edict

“not to speak in the name of Jesus.” (Acts 5:40) Thus the Jesus movement was forced to

choose between truth and unity.14 This moment of decision is one that many movements

face. It recurs in the story of the church over and over.

While the Jesus Movement’s self definition takes additional time, and is found

throughout the Book of Acts, it seems to begin almost immediately in the text when the

Jesus movement further separates itself from the traditions of the House if Israel by

appointing Hellenists as officers of the church (Acts 6:5.) But perhaps the pivotal

moment in the separation of the House of Israel and the early church is found in the

stoning of Stephen, who, after recounting the history of the House of Israel, and after

setting the Jesus Movement within the context of the House of Israel, ends with these

fierce words:

You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever
opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do. Which of the prophets
did your ancestors not persecute? They killed those who foretold the coming of
the Righteous One, and now you have become his betrayers and murderers. You

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 are the ones that received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not
kept it. Acts 7:51-53 (NRSV)

Stephen, in stark contrast to Gamaliel’s steady counsel, was saying, “you are our

parent institution, but we see that your rejection of our movement is complete, and thus,

with Pilate, we wash our hands of you.” His words not only condemned the institution of

the House of Israel for its need for but rejection of Jesus and sealed his own fate, but may

have even redirected the life of the church15 forever away from the House of Israel and

toward the Gentile world.

It is worth noting that at this point, “a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58) is

watching the coats of those so dedicated to the institution that they were willing to kill for

it. This same man would continue to represent the House of Israel as it strove to destroy

its child, the Jesus Movement. And this same man, so transformed that he is renamed

Paul, would, along with a host of others, carry the Jesus movement into its next phase:

that of geographic dispersion and radical inclusion.

If Gamaliel had been better heeded and the House of Israel had allowed the

Apostles to speak the name of Jesus, the world might be entirely different. If Stephen had

been more conciliatory and had not inflamed the passions of the mob gathered around

him, again, the world might be entirely different. A world in which priest and rabbi are

fully interchangeable terms. A world in which the body of Christ was not divorced from

House of Israel.16 One cannot know whether how the church evolved was God’s

providence for the world or whether God’s providence continues to operate despite how

the church evolved. One can see, however, that institutions and movements often find

themselves in this same dilemma, asking themselves about their understanding of truth as

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opposed to unity. Asking themselves “Do we change to accommodate this or that reality

or do we remain rooted in the traditions that have been passed to us?” And this question

is closely related to deeper questions that movements and institutions both have to

answer: Who are we? What is our context? What is our mission? What is our vision?

What are our goals? And how best can we be true to our place, our mission, our vision,

our goals and ourselves?

The Jerusalem Council (Acts 15) was a watershed moment for the church that

strongly confirmed the diversity and ubuntu experienced at Pentecost by the further

inclusion of the Gentiles, but it was not the moment the movement became an institution.

Rather it was a moment of self-definition for the movement. Institutions know who they

are; movements have to decide. The Council was a moment of clarification about who the

church was and where it was going. There were likely many other such moments, but this

one was important enough to the church to be included in the Biblical text. Periods

(rather than moments) of definition occur for every movement. For British Methodism, it

was around 1744, for American Methodism about 1784. While this process within a

movement in some ways clearly represents institutional thought, answering questions

like: “Who is in? Who is out? Who is in charge? What are the rules?” and so is thus at

least a step toward institutionalism, what results from the process of self-definition is a

more focused movement and not (yet) an institution. Rules are clearly part of every

movement. Order is a part of every movement. Boundaries are a part of every movement,

indeed, knowing where boundaries lie is essential to pushing those same boundaries.

Movements that endure have periods of definition.

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 What is a movement as opposed to institution? Dictionary definitions of the two

words are of little help. While there is a sense that movements and institutions are

opposites, the two things, defined objectively, are nearly identically.

movement: An organized effort by supporters of a common goal17

institution: an organization, establishment, foundation, society, or the like,

devoted to the promotion of a particular cause or program, esp. one of a public,
educational, or charitable character and the building or buildings housing such an
organization. 18

The main difference seems to be that an institution has been around longer and

has thus become established and gained some measure of property independent of its

members. Movements do not own buildings, people within the movements do.

Institutions themselves own buildings by having the power to appoint trustees. Further,

institutions are largely accepted, or at least tolerated, by the general culture while

movements typically challenge the culture. Movements have energy. Institutions have

transformed that energy into traditions.19 Institutions are movements that have taken on a

life of their own, for better and for worse.

One essential difference between movements and institutions seems to be related

to goals. As long as institutions remain focused on agreed upon goals, there is

institutional unity. Truth and unity are both served by knowing goals and missions.

However it seems inevitable that, over time, institutions loose focus. Truth and unity both

suffer. If a movement loses focus for too long a period, it will simply cease to be. If an

institution looses focus for too long, rather than simply ceasing to be (immediately, at

least), it will often degenerate into a centralized bureaucracy more interested in self-

19
preservation than mission. It can exist in this state for quite some time, but will

eventually perish if it is unable to agree and act upon a vision.

Since institutions emerge from sustained movements, it is worth considering the

evolution of movements. If an institution is defined as “an organization” and a movement

as “an organized effort,” it seems logical that at some point these have emerged from an

unorganized effort. The evolution of an institution would be thus: an irregular pattern of

events formalizing into a regular pattern of events formalizing into an infrastructure

dedicated to creating that particular series of structured events. An example common to

the human experience can be found in the progression from dating to engagement to

marriage. A specific example can be found in the establishment of the government of the

United States. The initial meeting of the Continental Congress (in 1774) marked an

evolution by the Colonies from a period of unorganized effort (unorganized across

colonial lines) to one of more organized effort. The establishment of the national

government in 1789 through the replacement of the Articles of Confederation with the

Constitution marks the evolution of the movement to an institutional stage through the

creation of an enduring organization (the United States government).

This D.Min. project will call the first cycle of such evolutions the “proto-

movement.” The great majority of proto-movements dissolve before they are of any

consequence. Movements themselves have more substance, but can dissolve easily as

well. Institutions require lawyers to dissolve.

Over time, every proto-movement, movement or institution will either achieve or

not achieve its original goals. At that point, something has to be done with its human and

material resources. Jesus’ Movement to the “lost sheep of the House of Israel” (Matthew

20
10:6, 15:24) succeeded in reaching some of those sheep, but it certainly did not succeed

in becoming a general reformation of the House of Israel, much less doing so along the

Christological lines. The depth of this failure or transition can be seen in texts like

Galatians 5:

Listen! I, Paul, am telling you that if you let yourselves be circumcised, Christ
will be of no benefit to you. … For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor
uncircumcision counts for anything; the only thing that counts is faith working
through love… But my friends, why am I still being persecuted if I am still
preaching circumcision? In that case the offense of the cross has been removed. I
wish those who unsettle you would castrate themselves!
Galatians 5:2,6,11&12 (NRSV)

At this point the focus of the Jesus movement is clearly shifting both focus and

context towards the Gentile world. After some time moving uncertainly between the

House of Israel and the Gentile world, evidenced in Paul’s experience recorded in 1

Corinthians 1: “For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, but we proclaim

Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles.” (NRSV) The

Jesus Movement would move fully beyond the House of Israel. Perhaps it is a sign of

God’s great sense of humor that the Church would find its headquarters not in Jerusalem

but in Rome – the “Babylonian” capitol of the Gentile world that St. John rails against in

Revelation. By then, the church had embraced the goal of reaching and transforming the

entire world, a goal it has neither reached nor given up. This illustrates that movements

and institutions can change goals; they just need clarity about the new goals. Perhaps the

Christian proto-movement is best understood as the Jesus Movement up to the

resurrection and its immediate aftermath, represented by the Jerusalem Council. The

movement stage occurs sometime after the resurrection / Jerusalem Council and closes at

21
the end of the Apostolic Age, perhaps as late as 150 A.D. At this point, the church had

become a global institution.

While it is generally difficult to clearly delineate the passage of a proto-movement

to a movement and then into an institution, one can see in the growth of the Jesus

Movement a familiar pattern. Institutionalization happened in minute degrees, one little

step at a time, but the movement eventually reached both a (critical and sustaining) mass

and also a chronological turning point at the end of a generation. This point in time for

the church has been christened the close of the Apostolic Age. The passing of a

generation always impacts the way a movement understands itself, for the passions that

fired proto-movement and movement are necessarily transformed when a generation

changes.

This evolution in the life of the church was also normative in that it was hastened

along by the various crises; for example, the execution of Jesus essentially ended the

proto-movement. Another crisis was the interplay between Christianity and Gnosticism.20

Both of these crises had dramatic affects on the maturation of the movement. Eventually,

this evolution from movement toward institution can be seen in the canon. The Pauline

corpus, written earlier, was largely about the dissemination of the Gospel. It is pure

movement. The Four Evangelists, writing later, were interested in preservation of the

Gospel. Institutions are almost always interested in preservation. Paul is a movement

person. The writers of Matthew, Mark and Luke/Acts were more institutional in nature.

Two interesting theological crises that shed light on the process of change are that

of Marcionism (150 A.D.)21 and Montanism (170 A.D.) 22 Both were movements within

the church. That they are within the church is significant in and of itself. Movements

22
often contain interior movements (i.e. the Apostles arguing about who was the greatest)

but institutions are more apt to create and nurture enduring movements. Gnosticism was a

wave of the general culture that beat against the church. Marcionism and Montanism,

however, flowed out of the church.

The Marcion controversy was a rejection of the Judaic roots of Christianity23 and

thus shows us that the movement/institution is still gaining clarity about its role vis-à-vis

the House of Israel, its own originating institution. Montanism, on the other hand, was an

apocalyptic movement of the church that sounds very much like other such movements

throughout Christian history. It would not have sounded too out of place on the American

Frontier24. Thus one can assume that somewhere between 65 A.D. (the close of the

Apostolic age) and 170 A.D. the Jesus Movement had become institutionalized, with

perhaps a good dating for the institutionalization of the church being closer to 150 A.D.

than 65 A.D., though by 65 A.D. something has clearly happened. That the church was so

widely distributed across the world accounts in some part for such an uneven and

approximate dating.

There are some interesting parallels between the early church (proto-movement

and movement) and early Methodism. John Wesley evidenced a great number of the same

type tensions with his mother church, the Church of England that Jesus and the Apostles

had with the House of Israel. Both Jesus and Wesley are thought of as founders of

movements that they inherited to some extent from previous leaders, interestingly, from

kinsmen. Both created movements aimed at personal holiness and the disenfranchised.

Jesus, Paul and Wesley worked hard to maintain continuity between their received

23
tradition and their evolving movements, at times failing but never forsaking the cause of

unity. And they created movements that turned into institutions: institutions that both

honor and in ways dishonor the expressed desires of their founders.

However there were also significant differences. While Jesus remains the

spiritual head of the church, he never acted as the temporal head of the institution of the

church. The church arose after his death and resurrection. Paul, likewise, was in no sense

the head of the church he helped found: he was on the front lines, not guiding the action

from the rear. Wesley, however, guided Methodism from (near) inception through

movement to institution. His long life, astounding energy and the rapid transition25 of

Methodism and British culture allowed him to see and influence Methodism from proto-

movement to institution.

The nature of the relationships between the government of Jerusalem and the

House of Israel and the government of England and the Church of England were also

radically different. The Jesus Movement was at odds with its parent institution, the House

of Israel, which was at odds with the civil government. Though the Church of England

was also subject to the civil government, at least during Wesley’s time this relationship

was benign. Thus there were layers of tension and pressure on the House of Israel that did

not exist for the Church of England. If the Methodist movement had emerged at a time of

great tension between church and state, its story would undoubtedly been different. While

institutions are more stable than movements, institutions are also quite subject to powers

beyond themselves in interesting and complex ways that affect the movements within

them. If there had not been such tension between Herodians and Pharisees, there seems

little doubt that the Jesus Movement, and hence the church, would have evolved

24
differently. The complexity of providence is at times quite striking. Wheels within wheels

within wheels, all upon a track understood only by God.

Another difference is that Wesley was not the first Methodist and at times was not

the most influential Methodist. In this sense, Wesley is much more of a figure akin to

Paul than to Christ. His work was with the details and the spreading of the message, not

the message itself. Further, due to his diligence in writing, we know a great more about

the details of Wesley’s work. These details help us understand the interplay between

movement and institution and it is to those details about the workings of “wheels within

wheels” that we know turn.

Wheels within Wheels: Movement and Institution in Early British Methodism

The genesis of Methodism predates John Wesley. Wesley himself was very clear

that there were two “rises” of Methodism prior to the formation of the Methodist

movement between 1738 and 1744. The first rise being the Holy Club inaugurated by

Charles Wesley at Oxford in 1729 and the second being Wesley’s experience of small

groups in Savannah during his tenure in America.26 Neither of these movements (or

proto-movements) were substantial enough to attract the attention of the wider world and

thus passed quietly into the night, seemingly having made no impact besides what impact

Providence designed for them to have upon the young Wesley’s understanding of

ministry.27

It is often the case that movements remain quite small: small wheels within small

wheels that themselves attract little notice or concern. Nonetheless they remain important

25
for the ongoing life of the church. While it is hard to imagine that an observer at the time

would have looked directly on Wesley’s work in Georgia and seen anything important for

the future of the Christian faith, the eyes of history have judged otherwise. Without

Georgia, Wesley may not have preached at Moorfields or gone to Aldersgate. Georgia

demonstrated the truth that it is often the missionary who is most blessed by the mission.

It is further worth noting that the first two rises (proto-movements) of Methodism

were wholly and completely within the institution of the Church of England. Both rises

were in every way children of the Church because their context and leadership was of the

Church. Leaders who emerge early on in a movement help define it, and most such

leaders have roots that are in some ways related to institutions, thus even a movement

with little formal connection with some institution has some ties to it along with often

sharing a context with it. Jesus was of the House of Israel and his mission was to that

House. Paul studied with Gamaliel and was from Tarsus. His mission was geographically

more diverse. Wesley and Methodism were strongly of the Church and the people of

England, even those across the Atlantic. And while leaders and movements stretch,

challenge, openly defy and at times even supersede their parent institutions, they cannot

change the reality that they were shaped by them. This shaping is the providential work

of God influencing, in this case, ecclesiology. Movement and institution find themselves

in both conflict and cooperation.

A short example of the interplay between movement and institution from the main

body of this D.Min. project will help to illustrate how movements emerge. The strong

majority of Protestant Hispanics in the United States who have come from Mexico,

especially southern Mexico, exhibit a strong bias against the Roman Catholicism, a topic

26
we will deal with in more detail later. Yet their worship style tends to be a blend of the

worship styles of the Pentecostal missionary movement that brought many to faith in

Mexico and the Roman Catholic traditions common in that nation. Thus worship in the

Hispanic context tends to be charismatic: boisterous with loud music, “hallelujahs” and

“amens” and testimonies and group prayers. At the same time, in the same service, there

will be persons kneeling to pray silently for extended periods of time. The author was

recently at a Spanish language service and watched a Hispanic brother enter the service a

few minutes after it had started, kneel to the ground with his back to the pulpit. With his

head and arms supported by his chair, he prayed through the entire initial musical portion

of the service – about forty minutes. This was in no way unusual or drew the attention of

anyone there.28 It is simply part of the tradition: boisterous and quiet, shouting and

kneeling, in the same service. Wheels within wheels. Undeniably beyond and opposed to

the Roman Catholic institution, but also undeniably influenced by it. Much of the

interplay between movement and institution bear this exact same pattern.

Wesley’s Aldersgate experience is forever tied to the third rise of Methodism.

Scholarly opinion is divided as regards to exactly how important to the growth of the

movement the Aldersgate experience actually was,29 but clearly Aldersgate mattered to

Wesley and Methodist would have evolved differently without it. Wesley himself,

however, more clearly tied the growth of the movement to the 1739 field preaching and

the resultant house meetings that would grow into Methodist societies30. Wesley wrote

Not daring to be silent, after a short struggle between honour and conscience, I
made a virtue of necessity, and preached in the middle of Moorfields. …More and
more of (the listeners) were cut to the heart, and came to me all in tears, inquiring,
with the utmost eagerness, what they must do to be saved. I said, "If all of you
will meet on Thursday evening, I will advise you as well as I can." The first
evening about twelve persons came; the next week, thirty or forty. When they

27
 were increased to about an hundred, I took down their names and places of abode,
intending, as often as it was convenient, to call upon them at their own houses.
Thus, without any previous plan or design, began the Methodist society in
England, — a company of people associating together, to help each other to work
out their own salvation.31

Whether the pivotal moments were in the heart and mind of John Wesley or in his

actions is not the real issue. What is important is to note that these moments were both

spontaneous and unplanned, which is to say they were purely of the movement, and yet

were also still squarely within Wesley’s understanding of the institutional Church. The

movement, a proto-movement as Wesley began field-preaching, was not intended to be

separate from the institution of the church. Wesley would write in the same sermon

quoted at length above that Methodism “is the religion of the Bible… the religion of the

primitive Church, … and the religion of the Church of England…”32 Clearly the

Methodist movement, for Wesley, was a wheel within the larger wheel of Church of

England, which in turn is within the larger wheel of the catholic church. And clearly, at

that time, Methodism was still an evolving movement, traveling “from the least to the

greatest”33 but with significant tension within itself related to institutional thinking

versus movement thinking and between itself and the institution of the Church of

England. These tensions would not soon abate.

Between 1738 and 1744 there was a great upsurge in the Methodist movement.

Fredrick Norwood writes: “between 1738 and 1744, most of the features of the United

Societies… came into being; bands, classes, societies, select bands, love feasts, watch

nights and the British Conference.”34

Additionally, the nucleus of Methodism, which Wesley pulled together between

1738 and 1744, was his core leadership group of lay preachers. After 1744, there would

28
be little change in the structure of Methodism as reflected in meetings and the leadership,

for about 40 years.35 The Methodist movement was thusly defined, with 1744 being

Methodism’s Council of Jerusalem. Almost immediately it would come into conflict with

the Church of England.

Between 1744, the first year of the British Conference – the, establishment of an

annual conference being sure sign of a developing movement, and circa 1784, a year of

great systemic change with the incorporation of the Methodist Conference and the

ordaining of preachers for the work in America,36 there was both continuity and

fragmentation between Methodism and the Church of England. This generational period,

bounded by John Wesley’s adult life, represents what could be seen as the best of all

worlds: a developed movement that exhibited some of the strengths of an institution but

without the redundant bureaucracy that seems to cripple the best meaning institutions and

without, perhaps more importantly, powerful and enduring counter movements within the

movement that were able to take it off course. Early Methodism was absolutely bursting

with movements that at least Wesley saw as counter movements, but he controlled them

by “beating down opposition and expelling dissidents.”37 Henry Rack writes: “there can

be little doubt that much of the success of Methodism did depend on (Wesley) keeping it

in relative unity by holding the threads of control in his own hands to the end.”38

Thus, with Wesley as the centering force, Methodism stayed on task, staying

focused on its goals and purpose. However the movement in 1744 also lacked many of

the strengths of an established institution, which it enjoyed by 1784: funding, authority,

centering traditions, experienced teachers and learning centers. During these forty years,

both the movement and the emerging institution of Methodism had relatively clear vision

29
and goals that were pursued vigorously. This had two results: rapid growth of the

movement, and also the distancing of the movement from its home institution, the Church

of England.

1784, the year British Methodism was incorporated39, was an important year in

the process of British Methodism coalescing as its own institution outside the Church of

England, though no exact date for “institutionalizing” can be given. It was a slow, long

process that could be dated as beginning as early as 1739, with Wesley’s acceptance of

field preaching and his concomitant rejection from pulpits in the Church of England,40 or

from Wesley’s 1740 acceptance of “Sons in the Gospel:”41 lay preachers he organized

outside the Church of England. Or it could be dated as late as the 1795 Plan of

Pacification42. The lack of clarity in dating this transition mirrors difficulty in dating the

same transition in the life of the early church and the vast majority of such transitions in

all organizations. It is a messy thing that can really only been seen at all in retrospect.

One could read the history of Methodism at this time as being a parallel course:

growing acceptance within the British population at large, which would lead Wesley

himself to be considered an “English institution”43 by the time of his death as well as

Methodism as a whole clearly having become an institution. At the same time, there is

growing dissatisfaction within Methodism towards the Church of England and growing

hostility within the Church of England towards Methodists. As the movement gained

strength, it loosened and was loosened from, its original institutional mooring.

This process can be seen in the Methodist administration of the sacraments. The

1755 Large Minutes call for no administration of the sacraments by Methodist preachers:

the sacraments were the purview of the Church of England.44 In 1786, the Large Minutes

30
cracked opened the doors, allowing for administration of the sacraments under “special

conditions.”45 By 1793, the Large Minutes showed a complete reversal from the 1755

position: allowing for the administration of the sacraments.46 Not a sudden change, but a

gradual, eventual and total change.

Early on, Wesley saw the non-separation of the movement from the institution as

non-negotiable. Even if the Church of England’s “Ministers were unholy”47 Wesley could

not condone the wheel moving out of the wheel. It was to remain within the founding

institution. This was built into the structure of the church from the very beginning. The

Large Minutes of 1744, 1745, 1752, 1753, 1756, 1758, 1763 and 1766 all reaffirm the

Methodist movement’s commitment to the Church of England.48 However it can be

assumed from this frequent reassertion of the movement’s ties to the church, that there

was consistent pressure to, in fact, separate from the Church, even as early as the 1744

Conference.

Wesley’s 1744 definition of what he believed the Church of England to be,

writing in response to the assertion that the movement was hindering the work of the

institution, undoubtedly gave heart to those looking to separate from the Church of

England: “the Church, in the proper sense, the congregation of English believers, we do

not weaken at all.49”

Here Wesley acknowledges that the Methodist movement may have harmed the

institutional church, but his assertion is that the movement is serving the mission of the

institution, even if it is not serving the churches’ bureaucracy. As Christ served the true

mission of the House of Israel, Wesley saw Methodism as serving the true mission of the

Church of England. This seems eerily modern because it is an eternal tension. Once

31
institutions and movements are arguing about their true mission, they are reaching serious

points of disagreement even as they remain organically related. Truth and unity can easily

come into conflict within an institution.50 Indeed, they seem to be the flashpoints that God

uses to reshape institutional thought or to move movements beyond institutions.

By the 1760’s, the institution of the church and the Methodist movement were

coming to blows. Wesley had to deal not only with pressure from within the movement to

separate, but also with rejection from the Church of England. After having written to

“fifty or sixty”51 of the ordained clergy of the Church of England asking for community

and connexion and only receiving an answer from three pastors, he wrote: “So I give this

up. I can do no more. They are a rope of sand, and such they will continue… (therefore

we shall) devote ourselves to God… preach the old Methodist doctrine… and enforce the

whole Methodist discipline.”52

It is tempting to read this as Wesley giving up on the institutional Church of

England. But even in this, even with an explicit overture for unity being denied, Wesley

did not see the Methodist wheel moving completely out of the Church of England’s

wheel. Rather, he wanted Methodism to organize itself as an order within the wheel of the

Church of England and to “do all in its power to win acceptance by the Church.”53

However it should be noted that Methodism was to organize itself, not be organized. The

movement was asserting itself, hoping at least in part, to cause the reformation of the

institution. Self-organization itself, however, is an institutional task. Leaders organize

movements, while institutions are generally guided by traditions, such as “the old

Methodist doctrine and … discipline.”54

32
 Whether in or out of the original wheel, whether intentionally or not, Wesley

clearly moves forward with the institutionalization of the movement in the years leading

up to 1784.55 He effectively moves Methodism out of the Church of England, though this

does not seem to be his strong desire. He had written in 1744, as the movement was

inching toward institutionalization: “We believe notwithstanding, either that (the body of

our hearers) will be thrust out, or that they will leaven the whole Church.”56 By 1784 it

was clear that while Methodism had been a leaven to the church in England, it had not

leavened the Church of England. Thus with the incorporation of the Methodist

Conference (the Deed of Declaration) and the ordinations of preachers for the America,

the Methodist movement finally broke with its mother church and became an institution

distinct from the (institutional) Church of England.

For Wesley, this seems to have been a painful separation, but one that had to

happen for the movement to stay true to the Gospel. Truth had come to blows with unity,

and though he worked for most of his life for unity and truth to be of one cloth, it was not

to be.57 Methodism, as the primitive church, had called for reform both within and beyond

the institution. There had been change in society, but not in the institution. Thus the

movement opted to morph into its own wheel more or less independent of the parent

institution.

It is instructive that as the movement turned into an institution, as history’s wheel

turned, Wesley did not cheer the new institution he helped create and support. Rather he

called it to task. In an important sense, Wesley’s movement was failing. Though it was

stronger and stronger almost by the day, it was slipping into being an institution itself and

had failed in ways in its two cardinal points: “to revive the nation and especially the

33
church and to spread Scriptural holiness throughout the land.”58 Wesley’s place in history

was ensured, but as the founder of an institution he never meant to found.59 Thus Wesley

called for the emerging institution to focus on its mission rather than itself. He saw, even

at this exceptionally early stage in the life of institutional Methodism, a vexing problem

developing: the movement was becoming an institution that was unfaithful to the

movement’s goals. And while he saw the problem, he was only able to suggest a solution,

not implement it.

The solution he advanced, found in Wesley’s sermons “Causes of the Inefficacy of

Christianity” and “On the Danger of Increasing Riches,” suggest that his greatest

difficulty with what his movement was becoming was not simply that it was an institution

outside the Church of England. Wesley’s real problem was that the emerging Methodist

Church was becoming an institution that was disinterested in the poor, having itself

grown wealthy.60 Wesley’s mission had been to the lost sheep of England. He perceived

that the Methodist Church had forsaken this mission for the selfish desires of its

members, writing “The Methodists grow more and more self-indulgent, because they

grow rich.”61 The process of having become an institution robbed the movement of what

made it powerful: focus on the vision. Further, this robbery was accomplished by one of

the greatest of the powers of evil – slavery to wealth. “On the Danger of Increasing

Riches,” puts it this way:

It is true, riches, and the increase of them, are the gift of God. Yet great care is to
be taken, that what is intended for a blessing, do not turn into a curse… "What do
all thy riches profit thee?" Will they purchase a pillow for thy head, in the lake of
fire burning with brimstone?…
Perhaps you say you can now afford the expense (of “ornamental” clothing). This
is the quintessence of nonsense. Who gave you this addition to your fortune; or
(to speak properly) lent it to you? To speak more properly still, who lodged it for a
time in your hands as his stewards; informing you at the same time for what

34
 purposes he entrusted you with it? And can you afford to waste your Lord's goods,
for every part of which you are to give an account; or to expend them in any other
way than that which he hath expressly appointed? Away with this vile, diabolical
cant! Let it never more come out of your lips. This affording to rob God is the
very cant of hell. Do not you know that God entrusted you with that money (all
above what buys necessaries for your families) to feed the hungry, to clothe the
naked, to help the stranger, the widow, the fatherless; and, indeed, as far as it will
go, to relieve the wants of all mankind? How can you, how dare you, defraud your
Lord, by applying it to any other purpose?
Ye angels of God, ye servants of his, that continually do his pleasure! Our
common Lord hath entrusted you also with talents far more precious than gold
and silver, that you may minister in your various offices to the heirs of salvation.62

Here we see both the blessing and curse of wealth, which Wesley ties to the

blessing and curse of institutions. God provides wealth to movements that endure. Thus

has God designed the world. Thus does providence operate. Successful movements begat

institutions. Otherwise churches could not found hospitals, schools, orphanages, and do a

myriad of other good works. However the process of moving from movement to

institution is fraught with difficulty. Of particular difficulty is the failure to remember that

those within movements and institutions are called to be stewards, not owners, of what

God has given. Movements seem less susceptible to this sin of pride, perhaps because

they have less gathered wealth. Institutions themselves seem to turn into things persons

mistakenly believe they own and control. This is the mindset of wealth. Focus on control

(of wealth and other things) seems to be a critical difference between both movements

and institutions that remain “on task” and those that lose focus and drift. As Methodism

seeks to recover a movement spirit, it must open itself to where God is moving that it

might align its stewardship of God’s institution with the desires of the Lord. It must do

the difficult work of truly and deeply opening itself to the poor. The church cannot focus

35
on its (institutional) self and its mission at the same time. One or the other will be the

master. One cannot know which will predominate.

Wesley writes: “The Church is called holy, because it is holy, because every

member thereof is holy, though in different degrees, as He that called them is holy.”63 The

church, the institution, can be holy. There is nothing inherently corrupt about the church

or any institution. In fact, since “He that called them”64 is at the heart of the church, the

church is essentially holy. What corruption there is within the church can be washed

away. How is this to be done? For Wesley, writing in response to the crisis of wealth that

he saw in the emerging Methodist Church, the task seemed fairly simple in theory. In

practical terms it was and is quite challenging. Addressing both the specific issue of

wealth and the larger issue of movements and institutions, he wrote:

(H)ow astonishing a thing is this! How can we understand it? Does it not seem
(and yet this cannot be) that Christianity, true scriptural Christianity, has a
tendency, in process of time, to undermine and destroy itself? For wherever true
Christianity spreads, it must cause diligence and frugality, which, in the natural
course of things, must beget riches! and riches naturally beget pride, love of the
world, and every temper that is destructive of Christianity. Now, if there be no
way to prevent this, Christianity is inconsistent with itself, and, of consequence,
cannot stand, cannot continue long among any people; since, wherever it
generally prevails, it saps its own foundation.

18. But is there no way to prevent this? — to continue Christianity among a

people? Allowing that diligence and frugality must produce riches, is there no
means to hinder riches from destroying the religion of those that possess them? I
can see only one possible way; find out another who can. Do you gain all you can,
and save all you can? Then you must, in the nature of things, grow rich. Then if
you have any desire to escape the damnation of hell, give all you can; otherwise I
can have no more hope of your salvation, than of that of Judas Iscariot.65

The hope of the institutional church is the same as that of the individuals within

the church. We must recognize that what God has given to us through the accretion of

wealth and wisdom, power and influence, is not to be squandered on trifles but used for

36
the glory of God; the building up of God’s Kingdom and the binding up of the wounded.

We are to build the church at the convergence of wealth and poverty, as the church was

originally built at the convergence of wealth and poverty and of Greek and Hebrew.

Has the church failed to follow Wesley’s injunction against “ornamental”

clothing?66 Of course. Not only has it failed in regards to clothing, but it has failed in

deep and systemic ways, too often giving itself over to what Wesley called: “pleasures

and diversions that can give… no solid happiness (being) poor, empty, insignificant

trifles.”67 Trifles such as fleeting political power, economic gain, prestige, pension funds,

health insurance and bishoprics. Does this mean we cannot recapture the power of the

movement – that of hope – within the institution? No, but it does mean that to do so will

require sacrifice. This D.Min. project will suggest one way this can be done: a strong

focus on building Christian community between Hispanics and Non-Hispanics in

American Methodism not at the general church level but at the local church level. This is,

in the emerging context of North American Hispanic life, quite often not only a

convergence of differing ethnic groups (Greek and Hebrew) but also a convergence of

differing economic groups.

Having looked at the transitions of both the Early Church and Early Methodism

from movements into institutions, a few conclusions are in order:

• Institutions and movements spawn one another.

• Institutions and movements are able to function with a very high level of
effectiveness.
• Institutions and movements tend to clash.

It is the writer’s theological conviction that God uses both movements and

institutions to move forward the Kingdom. And at times it seems that God does so by

37
placing the two in opposition to one another. Why movements and institutions in

opposition? Proverbs 27:17 contains this answer: “Iron sharpens iron, and one person

sharpens the wits of another.” (NRSV) Perhaps there is something within the hearts of

people that requires one to test oneself against another. Or perhaps God is simply

working in diverse ways upon the earth and thus needs to use a diverse set of groups to

reach the whole world. Certainly Paul going to the Gentiles while Peter remains in the

House of Israel would seem to suggest this. It seems to be the case that God’s

providential care for the world often involves not just the interplay of but also conflict

between movements and institutions.

While the story of American Methodism begins not just with conflict within the

Methodist movement, but with conflict between the nations of Britain and America, there

are striking similarities between early British Methodism and early American Methodism.

Perhaps the most basic of these was that both came into existence at a time when their

respective nations were in periods of incredible change. For Britain, this was the

Industrial Revolution. The time period was seen as a revolution not just because of

industrial and technological change, but also because of the dramatically reordered

society that was resultant from the switch from agriculture to industry. This included not

only a huge shift in the population from country to city and a huge growth in the

population as a whole, but a wholesale reordering of life. Likewise, the American

Revolution allowed for the general reinvention of American life in the years following

the war. In the years surrounding the 1783 Christmas Conference, American culture

underwent “fundamental changes in (its) social structure.”68 And these changes were

multiplied by the great Westward Expansion that would begin almost immediately and

38
not cease for 100 years. The fundamental energy of Methodism, the energy of an

emerging church in a transitional culture, crossed the sea from Britain to America. Thus

the same forces that God raised up in Bristol, God also raised in New York.

Wheels within Wheels: Movement and Institution in Early American Methodism

God uses movements and institutions in innumerable ways for innumerable

purposes in innumerable contexts. However, there does seem to be a fairly normative

process of evolution from trend/feeling (proto-movement) to movement and then to

institution. This process was followed in such a normative pattern by Early American

Methodism that Norwood calls it “apparently inevitable.”69 At some point, all movements

that do not die become institutions. But while the early church and British Methodism

transitioned out of their mother institutions, American Methodism was flung from the

cradle of the Church of England by the Revolutionary War, a fact that continues to

influence its story to this day.

The early American Methodist Movement could be said to have had three parent

institutions; John Wesley, British Methodism and the Church of England. In the early

1760’s, Irish immigrants including Robert Strawbridge, Barbara Heck and Philip Embury

arrived in America and began as laity to create and sustain Methodism.70 They launched

the American proto-movement across the ocean from the founding British institutions.

Seeking greater regularity and order, seeking the things that characterize institutions, they

asked Wesley to aid them by sending preachers, and the late 1760’s saw the arrival of

preachers commissioned (not ordained) for this work by Wesley.71 In 1773, the first

39
Conference of American Preachers met. However, with a lack of clarity, unity and

direction before the Revolutionary War and confusion during the revolution, Methodists

in America were still in the proto-movement stage up until 1784.

American Methodism up to 1784 was a lightening bolt: powerful, dramatic,

shocking and transformative, but also highly irregular, lacking guiding structures,

unsustainable and without apparent endurance or direction. Unsurprisingly, it almost

imploded by burning its leadership out between 1773 and 1778. In this period there were

60 traveling preachers, but by 1778 only 18 were left.72 Such rapid turnover demonstrates

a cardinal difference between proto-movements and movements: proto-movements lack

structure73. Making the situation even more tenuous was that while some organizations

are designed to function despite a high turnover rate, the church cannot. The

Revolutionary War, especially the lack of sacramental support from the Church of

England, formally disestablished in 1776 and completely nonfunctioning by 1778,74

dramatically heightened this irregularity. The movement was on the brink of flaming out

as its parent, the Church of England, was flickering out.

Energy needs direction; else it will dissipate and cease to power forward progress.

The most basic level at which energy is given direction is through a movement’s

leadership. By 1778, only one preacher Wesley had sent to America remained: Francis

Asbury.75 Thus Providence put Asbury at the head of the American church in a way that

could never have happened without the Revolutionary War. While he was not officially a

bishop in 1778, he was effectively The Bishop from 1778 until his death in 1816.

Norwood writes “The episcopacy did not make Asbury. Asbury made the episcopacy.”76

However, in 1778, his leadership was in a very early stage. Generally, in 1778, things

40
looked bleak for Methodism: Methodists were divided over the war. Ties to the Church

of England divided Methodists from other Americans. The annual conference did not

meet and North–South tensions within the church were visibly charged.77 In fact, things

were so bleak that Asbury had to hide in a swamp.78 But, through Providence’s guidance,

the movement survived serious challenges within and without the church during the war

and as the war wound down, “men could see that a new day was at hand for a new

nation”79 and the church was able to recover.

This recovery entailed a complete reorganization, or more correctly, an initial

organization. In a sense, Methodism had to entirely skip from proto-movement, irregular

and untested, over the movement phase of its life, a phase which had lasted 40 years in

Britain, straight into institutional life. Due to disappearance of sacramental and other

authority that in Britain had flowed from the Church of England, early American

Methodism had to almost immediately become an institution in order to survive. Thus,

though it was far younger than the British Methodist movement, it established itself as a

church at roughly the same time as British Methodism, and did so in a far more distinct

manner. It became a new institution for a new nation in a “new” land. This was formally

accomplished at the 1784 Christmas Conference, which established the Methodist

Episcopal Church, adopted the Articles of Religion and Sunday Service as recommended

by Wesley, formally acknowledged Wesley’s authority80, and ordained Asbury three

times: as deacon then elder then superintendent.81 This triple ordination – a resounding

verification of Asbury’s leadership, is probably unprecedented in all the history of

Christianity. When else has someone gone from layperson to bishop in a few days? His

41
ordination points to the extremely unusual nature of the American Methodist beginnings

as an institution.

What to make of this? Was the disestablishment of the Church of England God’s

plan for the development of his church in America? If so, the wild olive branch of

American Methodism was certainly grafted into the cultivated tree of Apostolic

Succession in an unusual way. If not, God must have moved despite the sin of the closure

of the Church of England by the provision of able and capable leadership for the people

called Methodist in the USA.

Perhaps God desired American Methodism to be born in what many in the Church

of England (Charles Wesley included) saw as scandalous circumstance. Certainly it

would not be the first time that religious authorities were scandalized by God’s chosen

mode of action upon the earth. An inescapable issue in the narrative section of this work

is the reality that some of the Hispanic pastors and most of the Hispanic parishioners who

are in Methodist churches in Tennessee came to the USA in what many would see as a

scandalous manner, crossing into the States without official documentation. The

scandalous nature of Wesley’s ordinations and the greater scandal of the cross are of

comfort for those who work in Hispanic ministry.

Regardless of the legal and theological circumstance, it is clear that American

Methodism lacked 40 years of maturation while in connection to its parenting institution.

Thus “Asbury’s” new institution was steeped in a movement mentality. Perhaps this is

best seen in the great acceptance and propagation of revivalism and camp meetings that

was endemic on the frontier and within Methodism. By jumping straight to institutional

status, Methodism was able to retain an incredible amount of movement energy, spirit and

42
flexibility. Rather than slowly settling down, as the general motion of movement to

institution would suggest it would, early American Methodism gained institutional

strength while retaining its lightening bolt spirit. It was able to become, to twist Frederick

Norwood’s words, an “unsettled institution.”82

Norwood describes the transition from proto-movement to institution as follows:

The church (in 1784) had been created, but it was almost without form. Its great
need was to be raised up in the ways of being a church, not a “society.” (But) One
is amazed to discover how very little Methodism in America after the organizing
conference differed from its former state. … Almost everything remained as it had
been…. And yet there was now the Methodist Episcopal Church. That was the
rub! The shaping of this institution was a long process. In some ways Methodists
have not yet decided whether to be a church or a society.83

Thus from the very roots of American Methodism, God has given Methodists an

unsettled institution. This blend of institution and movement has been one of God’s great

provisions for American Christianity. In 1783, Ezra Stiles, then President of Yale,

believed that the America would be split between Congregationalists, Episcopals and

Presbyterians.84 He would be quite incorrect. Baptists and Methodists, both with ample

ability to bend and flex, would be able to deal with the religious pluralism that was and is

America far better than those denominations with their stronger received traditions. The

depth of the difference between traditions can be seen in that while seventy one percent

of Congregationalist ministers would spend their entire careers in one church, following

the norms of the Church of England; Methodist pastors would move every year. They

were tied not to a congregation or piece of land, but instead only to God, one another and

the Methodist Episcopal Church. Thus they were essentially rootless, as were a great

many of other Americans as they spread across the nation.85

43
 An important feature of the developing institution that allowed for bending and

flexing was the establishment of the General Conference system in 179286. The General

Conference system, which balances geographic decentralization with theological and

ecclesiological unity, allowed not only for the advantages of decentralized decision

making, critical in a widespread frontier nation, but also gave Methodism an institutional

way to do that one thing that movements do much better than institutions: change, for

Methodism could not remain unsettled forever.

Defining when the Methodism became a settled institution rather than an

unsettled one is tricky business. As the church (MEC alone) grew from 650,000 in 1850

to 3 million in 1900, the new Methodists, and as a result the denomination, were

“becoming an expression of the middle class”87 and slowly but surely the church was

transformed from unsettled to settled institution by the same blessing/curse that

transformed British Methodism: wealth. Norwood allows for the move to “settled” to

have occurred prior to 185088. It seems likely that a great part of this settling came with

the end of the first generation of circuit riders, which was concomitant with the growth of

non-traveling pastors, between 1810 and 1820.89 These changes are a strong indicator of

“institutional’ status. However the church continued to grow, even growing radically after

1850, an entire full generation later. Clearly Methodism remain in many ways unsettled,

for it retained a great deal of vitality for a very long time.

Has the United Methodist Church, the clearest descendent denomination of the

Methodist Episcopal Church, managed to retain a sense of both movement and

institution? The next section of this D.Min. project will address this question. While it

44
deals specifically with the story of the UMC, it is a case study on the providential

interaction of movement and institution generally.

Contemporary United Methodism has many movements. This is not at all unusual

for any movement or institution, for both movements and institutions have other

movements within them at all times. For example, the environmental movement fosters

within itself the organic local farming movement, an emphasis on mass transit, “creation

stewardship” and goddess worship. The beginnings of American Methodism reflected this

plurality of purpose, personality and practice. Did Asbury lay the foundation of American

Methodism? Or did Heck and Embury? Or was it Strawbridge? Can we discount William

Otterbein or Jacob Albright? Yet each had a different vision, some nearly consonant but

others quite dissonant. Each also operated in a slightly different context. Further, each

individual had a different personality. All of these things led to the creation of differing

structures. Only Asbury could be seen as trying to pull these movements together. And, at

least in part because he largely succeeded, his vision for the movement became the norm

within the unsettled institution of Methodism, an institution so flexible it would not just

survive the Civil War, but prosper wildly after the end of that great conflict.

However, there seems to be a sense in United Methodism today that the church

has lost its movement energy and become just another institution, a “dead sect” fulfilling

the worst nightmares of its founder. The following section will tell the story of the UMC

today in light of the relationship between movements and institutions that God has, is and

will use to move forward the Kingdom.

NOTES

45
 1
Desmond Tutu, God Has A Dream (EBook: Doubleday, 2004), 74.

2
Norman Weber, Hartsville, TN, to Dr. Lynn Hill, District Superintendent, July 6, 1999.

3
The other member had begun to suffer from the onset of dementia.

4
Norman Weber, "Report of the Pastor, Charge Conference" (Hartsville TN: Chapel Hill UMC,
1999, typewritten).

5
Stephen Sanders, "Report of the Pastor, Charge Conference" (Hartsville, TN: Chapel Hill
UMC, 2002, typewritten).

6
Linda Green, "Bishops' President Calls for New Church Movement," United Methodist
Reporter, May 2 2007, 1.

7
Dr. James B. Scott and Dr. Molly Davis Scott, Restoring Methodism (Dallas: Provident
Publishing, 2006), 13-18.

8
John Wesley, "Sermon 131, Some Account of the Late Work of God in North America."

9
Frank E. Tupper, A Scandalous Providence (Macon, Georgia: Mercer University Press, 1995),
177.

10
The United Methodist Publishing House, The Book of Discipline of the United Methodist
Church (Nashville, Tennessee: Abingdon Press, 2004), 1.

11
The Book of Discipline, 7.

12
Ibid., 19.

13
Sermon 131.

14
Colin Williams, John Wesley's Theology Today (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1960), 207.

15
At the very least, Stephen illustrates the motion of the movement away from the House of
Israel.

16
It is even possible, though fully beyond the range of this discussion, that the divisions
between all three Abrahamic faiths could have been avoided.

17
movement. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/movement
(accessed: October 29, 2007).

18
institution. Dictionary.com. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language,
Fourth Edition. Houghton Mifflin Company, 2004. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/institution
(accessed: October 29, 2007).

19
Thomas A. Langford, Practical Divinity (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1983), 15.

20
Williston Walker et al., A History of the Christian Church (New York: Scribners and Sons,
1985), 61.

21
Walker, History, 67.

22
Ibid., 69.

23
Ibid., 68.

24
Walker, History, 70. I can picture a small group of Montanists, maybe wearing “Bible
clothes” somewhere out in the pioneer country of, say, Illinois in the 1830’s. They have given their
covered wagons away, eaten all their food, allowed their horses to run off onto the plains and are
looking east in giddy anticipation for the return of the King of Glory all of one dark, dark night. About
daybreak they begin to get really bad headaches.

25
Rapid, at least, when compared with the development of the early church into an institution.

26
Fredrick Norwood, The Story of American Methodism (Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 1974), 31-
32.

27
Though one could argue that Wesley paved the way for Whitefield in Georgia.

28
The author noted the time simply to be able to give a concrete example. The service in
question was in no way abnormal.

29
Williams, John Wesley’s Theology Today, 218-19.

30
Rex D. Matthews, Timetables of History for Students of Methodism (Nashville, TN:
Abingdon, 2007), 17.

31
John Wesley, "Sermon 132, On Laying the Foundation of the New Chapel near City Road,
London."

32
Wesley, Sermon 132.

33
John Wesley, "Sermon 63, The General Spread of the Gospel".

34
Norwood, The Story of American Methodism, 29.

35
Ibid., 37.

36
Ibid., 34.
 37
Henry D. Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast (London: Epworth Press, 2002), 538.

38
Ibid., 539.

39
Matthews, Timetables, 17.

40
Wesley, Sermon 132.

41
Matthews, Timetables, 17.

42
Ibid., 50.

43
Norwood, The Story of American Methodism, 30.

44
Matthews, Timetables, 25

45
Ibid., 43

46
Ibid., 49

47
John Wesley, "Sermon 104, On Attending Church Service."

48
Williams, John Wesley’s Theology Today, 208-212.

49
John Wesley, "Minutes of Some Late Conversations between the Rev. Mr. Wesley and Others,
Conversation I", p. 280. The Works of John Wesley, [CD-ROM] (Franklin, TN: Providence house
Publishers, 1995).

50
Williams, John Wesley’s Theology Today, 153.

51
John Wesley, "Letter to the Clergy, 1763," p 239. The Works of John Wesley, [CD-ROM]
(Franklin, TN: Providence house Publishers, 1995).

52
Ibid., 240.

53
Williams, John Wesley’s Theology Today, 215.

54
Ibid., 215.

55
Ibid., 218.

56
Wesley, "Minutes of Some Late Conversations, 281.

57
Williams, John Wesley’s Theology Today, 153.
 58
Rack, Reasonable Enthusiast, 551.

59
Ibid., 551.

60
John Wesley, "Sermon 126, On the Danger of Increasing Riches."

61
John Wesley, "Sermon 116 Causes of Inefficacy of Christianity."

62
Wesley, Sermon 126.

63
John Wesley, "Sermon 74, Of the Church."

64
Wesley, Sermon 74.

65
Wesley, Sermon 116.

66
Wesley, Sermon 126.

67
John Wesley, "DCCLXIV -To Miss C-," p. 68. The Works of John Wesley, [CD-ROM]
(Franklin, TN: Providence house Publishers, 1995).

68
Norwood, The Story of American Methodism, 95

69
Ibid., 294

70
Matthews, Timetables, 27,29.

71
Ibid., 31.

72
Norwood, The Story of American Methodism, 79

73
Institutions, in turn, transform the structure of a movement into a form that can endure
through leadership and other changes, trading energy for norms, traditions and acceptance by the larger
culture.

74
Matthews, Timetables, 35.

75
Ibid., 37.

76
Norwood, The Story of American Methodism, 142.

77
Ibid., 85-93.

78
Ibid., 87.
 79
Ibid., 92.

80
Matthews, Timetables, 41.

81
Norwood, The Story of American Methodism, 100

82
Norwood titles the third division of The Story of American Methodism “Settled Institution.”
Page 239.

83
Norwood, The Story of American Methodism, 101-102

84
Ibid., 94.

85
Nathan O. Hatch and John H. Wigger, Methodism and the Shaping of American Culture
(Nashville, TN: Abingdon, 2001), 91.

86
Matthews, Timetables, 49

87
Norwood, The Story of American Methodism, 254

88
Ibid., 239.

89
Hatch, Methodism and the Shaping of American Culture, 116-117.