I’ve been pondering who we are, and what we stand for into the 3rd decade of the 21st century. I’ve started meeting with a small group of like-ish-minded, similar aged colleagues, and we ‘chew the fat’ on where we are. It started with one other, and over the weeks has grown to five.

As I’ve been reflecting on some of John Wesley’s peccadillos, at least to our modern sensibilities, I’m left wondering if we’ve thrown out the baby with the bath water.

For example, the concept of spiritual perfection. Perhaps we’ve been too quick to dismiss that call upon our lives as being unrealistic and abandoning the project before we start. Yet, as I look back over those that have really made a difference, those who have impacted my life for good, it’s consistently those who seriously seek to live the Jesus life. Those who give themselves consistently to spiritual disciplines - significant commitments to prayer, to Bible study and reflection, to fasting, to taking regular personal inventory of their attitudes and behaviours toward others, toward their use of time, to their thought and habit lives. It’s those who seek to live surrendered lives to the Spirit of grace, who live in obedience to the gentle promptings of the still small voice.

We’re coming up to the 24th of May, that day we celebrate John Wesley’s ‘Aldersgate experience’.

Because we share a basically common conviction that this is the seedbed for Methodist spirituality, I have asked a few of my friends to prepare a homily on their ‘take’ on Wesley’s 24th of May encounter with the Spirit of grace. These will be rolled out both in video and written form during May.

I have not asked others who may be equally qualified, simply because I’m seeking to amplify those whose hearts in this I am confident are one with my heart. Experience tells me that though we share a common concern, we will each convey our heart, hopes, and convictions quite differently, and thus express both a richness of difference, and oneness of intent.

I’ve also been wondering about the basic role of Presbyters. To quote my own presentation, There was a time when clergy were regarded as the ‘healers of souls’. We’ve since surrendered that to the ‘mind doctor’ professionals, and effectively assumed the territory that may be left to us of glorified social workers, diversional therapists (i.e. activities officers) or social activists. It sounds harsh, I know.

Is it time to reclaim the preaching/teaching role as central? This could require a whole new re-allocation of time priorities for many of us as, I’ve suggested above, spiritual disciplines and the pursuit of holiness, may figure more prominently in our daily regimen. My hunch is that as we immerse ourselves more intentionally in seeking the way and mind of Christ, that the change in us would be noticeable.

I suspect that many of my colleagues would likely find such a suggestion laughable, yet I’m seriously in earnest about it. The faith as proclaimed was to be experienced and demonstrated, not simply intellectualised and expounded. And experiencing it is something that needs to be evident in us. That others may observe us and acclaim, in the words of a well-known television advertisement, “I want what he’s / she’s got!”

If we don’t change, our future looks bleak. In spite of that magnificent call of our Mission Statement to ‘reflect and proclaim the transforming love of God as revealed in Jesus Christ and declared in the Scriptures’ if the fire has gone out, and that transforming love is no longer evident in us, the world ‘out there’ will continue to look elsewhere for the source of hope and meaning for which it so desperately craves.