A Mission for a Peculiar Church: On the Global Methodist Church’s Mission Statement

Photo by Patrik Felker

The mission of the Global Methodist Church is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ who worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly.” All four elements of this mission statement are commendable. Making disciples is central to our identity as Christians. Who can argue with passionate worship, extravagant love, and bold witness? 

Nevertheless, I would like to propose a different mission statement for adoption at our first General Conference: The mission of the Global Methodist Church is to spread scriptural holiness across the globe. In what follows I’ll offer several reasons this revised mission statement would be preferable to the current one. I want to clarify one matter before beginning, though. While I am a member of the Transitional Leadership Council (TLC), I am not writing in that capacity, nor do I speak on behalf of the TLC. This piece has no endorsement by the TLC. I am not submitting these ideas to the TLC for adoption. My offerings in this piece are only suggestions for consideration and discussion.

Being Methodists

My first reason for wishing to change the current mission statement is that there is nothing particularly Methodist about it. It could be a mission statement for Roman Catholics, Pentecostals, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, the UCC, or various non-denominational churches. Do we actually care about being Methodists? I should hope so. We are, after all, calling ourselves the Global Methodist Church. That name should mean something, and its meaning should come to bear on the mission of our church.

One of the serious shortcomings of the denomination many of us have left is that it is insufficiently grounded in a particular Methodist identity. Emerging out of the theological pluralism predominant in the Mainline theology of the 1960s and 1970s, the UMC established its core identity not in beliefs or practices, but in a loose theological method, the so-called Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Theologically, to be a United Methodist meant nothing more than a commitment to pluralism facilitated by the use of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience. If you asked John Wesley what made Methodism unique, it certainly would not have been the use of these four resources. In fact, he likely would have accused us of being latitudinarians. Early Methodism was constituted by a commitment to a life of salvation in and through Jesus Christ, characterized by the sanctifying grace of God and facilitated by small-group accountability. The goal of the Methodist movement was “to spread scriptural holiness over the land” ( “Large” Minutes). In other words, it was to bring people to new life in Jesus Christ, helping them to grow in holiness, the sanctifying power of God. 

A successful new Methodist movement will involve a process of recovery. We have neglected many of the treasures that so enriched the Wesleyan revival early on. For example, we need to recover a theological conception of Scripture and read Scripture, as Wesley did, in dialogue with our core faith commitments. We have forgotten or neglected this way of reading under the hegemony of post-Enlightenment biblical scholarship. In many places we are going to have to recover the works of Charles Wesley, and actually sing them in our communities of faith. These are our greatest theological treasures. Additionally, for this new denomination to thrive, it will be crucial for us to enact some modified form of early Methodist discipline: class and band meetings designed to help us watch over one another in love. We have tried Methodism without these elements that were central to the early Methodist movement. The results: ongoing decline and irrelevance. 

A Community of Holiness 

My second reason for proposing a revised mission statement is connected closely to the first: whatever else the Global Methodist Church is, it should be a community committed to sanctification, which we also call holiness. There is nothing more central to the origins of Methodism than Wesley’s insistence that God changes us from the inside out. As children of God we receive the New Birth, and God begins to restore within each of us the divine image that has been tarnished by sin. In fact, it is one of our historic beliefs that God can bring us to a state of perfect love, or entire sanctification. As Kevin Watson has pointed out, Wesley believed that entire sanctification was the grand depositum of Methodism. It was why God had raised up this people in the first place. To be clear, there are many places in the new Transitional Book of Doctrines and Discipline that emphasize sanctification, but this is not enough. Sanctification—holiness—is the sine qua non of true Methodism, and it should be expressed as such in our mission. 

One of the problems with the Mainline traditions is that we encourage people to go out and do works of justice and mercy, but we do not require of them the piety by which God will transform them into people from whom these works will naturally flow. In light of our doctrine of original sin, why should we expect people to be consistently just or merciful? Likewise, why should we expect people to worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly apart from the sanctifying work of God? Holiness is God’s work in our hearts and minds, the changing of our desires, the reshaping of our will, thus transforming the way in which we think, speak, and live. Without holiness, we cannot live as God desires. The current mission statement places second-order concerns (how we behave) above a first-order concern (how God renews our hearts and minds). 

The Missio Trinitatis

Third, the current mission statement is insufficiently rooted in the missio Dei—God’s mission. Rather, it is a description of what we hope that we, as Global Methodists, will do. We hope we will make disciples. We hope we will worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly. A mission statement rooted in the concept of scriptural holiness, however, is not a statement about what we hope to do, but about our participation in the work that God is already doing. The church, in and of itself, has no mission. God has a mission, and we get to participate in it. By spreading scriptural holiness throughout the globe, we are participating in the work of the Father through the Son by the power of the Holy Spirit to draw all people to God so they may have new life through him. 

A Peculiar Church 

Allow me to anticipate what I’m sure will be the primary objection to this proposed mission statement: it is simply too “churchy.” It sounds like Christian jargon. The “unchurched” will not understand it, and thus they will not wish to join our communities. 

In response to this objection, I’ll offer a couple of thoughts. First, mission statements are not for those outside an organization, but those within it. If we form a new Methodist movement and our leaders do not understand what it means to spread scriptural holiness across the globe, then we have lost touch entirely with our roots in Wesley’s movement. 

Second, the peculiarity of this language may in fact be a strength. The church growth movement was predicated on the idea of making church “friendly” to “the unchurched.” Everything was to be accessible, familiar, inviting. We have seen, however, that this movement had some significant liabilities, one of which was that the church was not peculiar enough of an institution consistently to facilitate real change in its worshipers. The message we inadvertently conveyed was that we were a lot like the world outside the walls of the church, rather than a community of radical difference made up of aliens and exiles. Over against those who might wish us to adopt a church-growth philosophy, I suggest we adopt what might be called a “peculiar-church” philosophy. We will invite people into a different way of living, seeing the world, and understanding themselves. We will invite them to speak a new language, think in new categories, and live in a new way. All this will seem strange to outsiders, but it may be the very strangeness of our life together that will draw many to us. There are indeed many who are exhausted by attempts to find meaning amidst the vapid, image-conscious, commercialistic, and unforgiving standards of an unredeemed world. A peculiar church may be exactly what they are seeking, and if it is not what they are seeking, it is nevertheless what they need. 

I am grateful for all those who have been so diligent in making the Global Methodist Church a reality. I respectfully offer this alternative mission statement in a spirit of cooperation, and I realize that this proposal may not win the day. Regardless, I will continue to pray for this new denomination and all those who are helping to make it a reality.

David F. Watson is Lead Editor of Firebrand. He serves as Academic Dean and Professor of New Testament at United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio.