Doctrine, Spirit, and Discipline: A Holistic Vision for Church Renewal
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As someone who leads a ministry focused on church renewal I spend a fair amount of time asking questions like, “What leads a church to experience new life?” or, “What key ingredients predictably lead a congregation toward greater vitality?” I find myself thinking even more about these questions in the midst of this formational time within my own denomination, the Global Methodist Church. Without delving into the reasons for its formation in the first place, it is clear that the GMC has a massive need for both church planting and existing church renewal efforts as it begins. No one is under the delusion that thousands of churches changing the name on their sign will instantly cause a reversal in the well-documented church decline we have witnessed in North American Christianity.
To start we must all acknowledge that only the Lord sustains and grows his church. There are no silver bullets or one-size-fits-all strategies. The Holy Spirit animates his people, and ultimately the church does not belong to us. That said, I do believe there are reliable markers throughout church history that point to how we might partner with the Spirit in the renewal of Christ’s church.
Quite a few years ago I became enamored with the following John Wesley quote from 1786, which unfortunately proved prophetic: “I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.” Embedded within this quote is a historic framework for church renewal. In discussions of this quotation I most often hear an emphasis on the warning about becoming a dead sect, but the part that catches my attention is the medicine Wesley offers to avoid that disease. Why did Wesley specifically name doctrine, spirit, and discipline as the keys to preventing Methodism from becoming a dead sect?
In naming these three aspects of church life Wesley has illuminated a brilliant, simple, and historically verifiable framework for church renewal. Each of these concepts is nothing particularly new from Wesley. Their combined force, however, represents the very best of Methodism and the fuel that drove the Methodist revival of the 1700s which had a sweeping impact on global Christianity. Moreover, as in other revivals and great moves of God in history, one can see a retrieval in these three areas whenever and wherever the church is revived.
Doctrine
Wesley’s first deterrent to spiritual death in the church is doctrine. He insists that for Methodism to remain Methodist we must hold fast to our doctrine. This insistence gets at the heart of what we believe and teach. A.W. Tozer famously said, “What comes into a man’s mind when he thinks about God is the most important thing about him.” What we believe matters. Belief drives practice. Who is Jesus and why did he come? What is salvation and how is it attained? What is the Bible? What is the church? What is the church’s role in the world? These sort of questions, alongside many others, have vast practical implications for how we live and function. Historically, the church has always wrestled with doctrine, but as humans we are prone to drift from even the most central treasure that has been handed down to us. New life in the church always comes as people are called back to the truth. Doctrine matters.
I witnessed this in my recent experience at my GMC annual conference. We lifted up Scripture as authoritative. We taught doctrines of salvation and sanctification with boldness. We named and celebrated Wesleyan distinctives. And my sense was that people were enlivened by the clarity around central doctrine. This gives me great hope for the Global Methodist Church, but we should not let our guard down. Every church and every generation has their own doctrinal temptations.
Church renewal begins with coming back to the basic truths of Scripture and making central the doctrines that call us to repentance and salvation through Jesus Christ. There is no fully-alive Christianity without sound teaching.
Spirit
The second named aspect of Methodism Wesley names is “spirit.” I have asked multiple Wesleyan scholars what exactly he is referring to here and there is some ambiguity. It seems most likely Wesley uses the word “spirit” here in a more general sense, as in “ethos.” If that is the case, then what was the spirit of early Methodism? The easiest way to express this is to point directly to the person and work of the Holy Spirit. Methodists were Spirit-filled. Their radical tendencies, their exuberant worship, their insistence on evangelism, and their well-documented experiences of God’s manifest power all point to a spirit of Methodism that was characterized by the work of the Holy Spirit.
Why was the “spirit” of Methodists so crucial to Wesley? Because Methodists have never been about mere methods. We believe God is still actively at work in the world. Methodism is the grandfather to modern global Pentecostalism, the fastest growing religious movement in the world. Our methods have always been means by which we place ourselves in the environments where we can be filled and sent with the power of the Holy Spirit.
The Spirit’s power remains central for church renewal today. No great move of God has ever been absent of encounters with the divine power of God made manifest through the Holy Spirit. What started at Pentecost continues to this day. It is no coincidence that wherever the church is growing, one finds unashamed openness to the supernatural power of God.
Discipline
Finally Wesley mentions discipline. Discipline relates to the practical ways we order our lives. How do we structure our lives individually and corporately to live in sync with the doctrines we profess and the Spirit who animates our being? Methodists choose to place themselves in intentional accountable relationships and other diligent practices with the expectation of transformation. Attending to the means of grace like regular communion, searching the Scriptures, and private and corporate prayer can reshape our lives.
In the modern church it is more popular to talk about prayer than to pray. It is easier to sit through a study about sin than to meet with another brother or sister to confess sin. And it is more likely for church folks to talk about the need for evangelism than to engage in regular Gospel conversations outside the safety of the church. It is not enough just to believe certain things to be true; our belief must take shape in the way we go about our lives. Real discipline, in this regard, is essential to church renewal.
A Holistic Framework
In naming these three areas Wesley highlights that which has been central to the church across time and space. This holistic vision for Christian living takes us right back to Jesus himself. I am reminded of Jesus’ conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well in John 4. He tells us the kind of people God desires to fill his church. “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (John 4:23). A worshiping believer who lives in Spirit and truth is one who takes seriously doctrine (truth), Spirit, and discipline.
What do we believe and teach? How do we partner with the Spirit? What are the practical ways we order our lives in light of those two realities? Doctrine, spirit, and discipline…each is essential. At Spirit & Truth, the equipping ministry I founded and lead, we say it this way: We long to see the church fully alive by becoming empowered by the Spirit, rooted in the truth, and mobilized for the mission!
Currently and historically, many renewal movements have majored in one or two of these three areas but neglected the whole. It is possible to have orthodox belief and even disciplined living, but still be dead because you have made no room for the Holy Spirit. Or perhaps you have encountered movements that are all about the Spirit and practical ministry, but have veered into heresy because they were not anchored in sound doctrine. To see the church flourish you always need all three. In surveying revival history, these three essentials are always at play when God breathes new life into his people.The very best of Methodism, and in fact the gift that I believe we are called to offer the whole church, is a vibrant Christianity that emphasizes this holistic framework.
No Gimmicks
Notice that neither doctrine, spirit, nor discipline is flashy or new. The church is not revived through ingenuity or better strategy, but a recognition that God still works in the ways he always has if we are humble enough to make room for it. Notice also that these strategies for renewal do not depend on church size or budget. Every church can focus on doctrinal renewal, making room for the Holy Spirit, and teaching people to practice transformational disciplines.
What we need in the church is not something new. We just need to do what has always worked! As G.K. Chesterton famously said, “The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult and left untried.” The original Methodist movement was not dynamic because it somehow discovered a fresh new way to follow Jesus. John Wesley, on the contrary, was obsessed with “the primitive church” and recovering that which had been lost in the Church of England at the time. Methodists are, since our inception, a back-to-the-basics people.
As I travel the country to work with congregations, and even as I attended my first GMC annual conference last week, the hunger I see for these basic things gives me hope. All across this land I find people who are desperate to get back to these essentials. People are tired of tips and tricks and realize they need something more than the latest cute idea, cool curriculum, or new tactic from a church guru. I continue to meet people who are humble and hungry. Perhaps the challenges of church life in recent years have finally broken us to the point that we are willing to admit we are out of answers—and what a beautiful place that is to be. In my life and ministry I have observed a basic principle: God goes where he is wanted. Within movements that are built upon humble and hungry people, who recognize they cannot fix themselves, but are desperate for God to show up and move…in those places anything is possible. This is the recipe for real renewal.
Many are clearly acknowledging that the Global Methodist Church will not rise or fall based on our strategy or savvy. It will not succeed because we come up with better tricks to reach young people or better marketing campaigns. It will not flourish based on our crusades of human ingenuity. The GMC will serve its purpose in God’s kingdom work only in as much as we maintain our commitments to doctrine, Spirit, and discipline. This is our heritage and it has been the basic recipe for church renewal in all times and places.
As we approach the convening general conference in 2024, my longing and prayer for the Global Methodist Church is that we would again focus on these essentials that Wesley identified so many years ago. In the holistic renewal of doctrine, spirit, and discipline we may yet see a church in our lifetime that is anything but a dead sect and indeed has not only the form of religion, but the power.
Matt Reynolds is the founder and president of Spirit & Truth, a church equipping, resourcing, and missions ministry based out of Dayton, Ohio. Firebrand is a ministry of Spirit & Truth. Matt is an ordained elder in the Global Methodist Church.