The Peculiar Difficulty of the Methodist Pastor

To start with the obvious: pastoring any church is hard. Something being hard is not necessarily a problem, and I do not know anyone who became a pastor because of a desire for an easy life. However, to say that pastoring a church is hard is not only obvious but a drastic understatement. Research by the Barna Group in November 2021 drew attention to the extent of the problem, indicating that almost forty percent of Protestant pastors in the United States had seriously considered quitting in the previous twelve months. Pastoring a church was hard in the years before the Coronavirus pandemic; the unprecedented challenges of the past years have heightened the difficulties.

To add to the obvious: Pastoring a Methodist church is particularly hard. Methodist pastors have had to deal with the same difficult dynamics as their colleagues in other traditions before and since the pandemic began. Additionally, United Methodist pastors have had an intensified list of the often-discussed challenges of navigating a denominational split. My focus, however, is not the adversity of a denominational split nor the strain of pastoring through a pandemic. Instead, in order to describe some hopeful possibilities, I want to identify a more fundamental and underappreciated reason why it has always been and will continue to be very hard to pastor a Methodist church. This reason applies whether the pastor is United Methodist or part of any other group whose lineage is traced to John Wesley. 

Virtually all Methodist pastors I know desire the same kinds of meaningful goals evident in the ministry of John Wesley, such as cultivating the maturity of those under their spiritual care, re-enlivening the Church as a whole, and impacting society in transformational ways. Wesley had a remarkably effective ministerial career toward those ends. The difficulty for pastors of Methodist churches begins to become evident when we consider that Wesley’s effectiveness at such work came when he was not the pastor of a local church.

Some pastors find the range of Wesley’s goals either unrealistic or undesirable. Therefore, rather than aiming for all of Wesley’s goals, these pastors might choose one of Wesley’s emphases that they most like or see as most feasible and are content to minimize or eliminate the others. I see a stark example of this approach displayed on the sign of the Unitarian Universalist Church in my city, which has the permanent inscription, “We need not think alike to love alike. ––John Wesley.” This [almost] quote represents a desire to emulate Wesley’s emphasis on love toward those with whom one disagrees, but there is likely no significant intent of pursuing the early Methodist expressions of doctrine and discipline that Wesley emphasized more frequently.

Many Methodist pastors desire an approach to ministry much more reflective of Wesley’s Methodism than Unitarian Universalism. They may frequently refer to Wesley’s warning in “Thoughts Upon Methodism” that Methodism could continue to exist as a dead sect with the form of religion but without its power. These pastors seek to avoid that result by doing what Wesley urged and holding fast to “the doctrine, spirit, and discipline” of the early Methodists. Such pastors often desire continuity with Wesley’s theology and practice, recognizing that the two were indivisible in early Methodism. This desire has resulted in a renewal of emphasis on Wesley’s doctrine alongside a resurgence of interest in his ministry methods. For example, I firmly believe any future expressions of Methodism will be enriched by today’s interest in the framework of the General Rules and opportunities for watching over one another in love in settings similar to the class and band meetings. However, regardless of where pastors land on this spectrum (from picking and choosing what they like from Wesley to seeking to emulate his ministry as fully as possible), there is still a tension present in every option: pastoring a Methodist church is an inherently different task than Wesley’s work of shepherding the Methodist societies, classes, and bands.

Two Terms That Identify the Tension

The missiologist Ralph D. Winter identified the issue behind this tension a half-century ago with two words that never became Methodist household terms. The terms require some effort to understand, yet the effort is worthwhile because Winter precisely identified the difficulty inherent in pastoring a Methodist church––even though neither Wesley nor Methodism was his focus. In articles in the early 1970s, Winter claimed that Christianity is most effective when it incorporates and relies upon two kinds of structures, which he termed modalities and sodalities. Modalities are open to any who want to be a part of them, while sodalities involve further commitments with further limitations and, therefore, further accountability. Winter characterized first-century synagogues as modalities and Paul’s missionary band as a sodality; the Roman Catholic Church as a modality and its monasteries as sodalities; Protestant denominations as modalities and mission agencies as sodalities. (See Winter’s 1974 article in Missiology journal, “The Two Structures of God’s Redemptive Mission,” and his earlier 1971 chapter, “The Warp and the Woof of the Christian Movement,” in the booklet he co-authored with Pierce Beaver, The Warp and the Woof: Organizing for Mission.)

My friends who pastor Methodist churches are occupied with the leadership of modalities. Appropriately, they work hard to see that their churches are extending invitations to all to enter more fully into the way of salvation. This work is exemplified by the long-standing Methodist practice of the open table at the Lord’s Supper as the center of the life of the church as a modality, based on the conviction that none of us are worthy but all of us are welcome. John Wesley, however, was occupied with the leadership of sodalities. This dynamic of his work was exemplified when he expelled sixty-four members from the society at Newcastle for reasons ranging from selling liquor to “lightness and carelessness.” That made sense for a sodality. Wesley could expel people who exhibited low commitment because to dismiss them from their Methodist sodality was not to excommunicate them from their Anglican modality. Christ’s table remained open to them regardless of whether their commitment level matched the expectations of the sodality.

When Methodism became a church in America under Thomas Coke and Francis Asbury, it ceased to be a sodality and became a modality. Perhaps inevitably, the qualities that gave early Methodism the characteristics of a sodality (most notably the expectations of adherence to the General Rules and participation in class meetings) began their trajectory toward near-disappearance from what it meant to be Methodist. 

Pastors who want a high degree of continuity with the doctrine, spirit, and discipline of early Methodism face the inevitable difficulty of pastoring a modality that they intend to be reflective of a sodality. This is difficult. Even Wesley, with all of his energy and organizational abilities, did not attempt it.

Five Hopeful Possibilities

In light of the above, I offer the following observations and possibilities:

1. You, dear Methodist pastor, need a sodality whose mission is to watch over your soul in love. You need a place where you can be known by others without the layers of expectations that come along with being the leader of a modality. This can take different forms: find a spiritual director, form a band meeting with friends from your seminary years, or join a community specifically intended for your spiritual formation (such as a Transforming Community, Upper Room Academy, or Renovaré Institute). Better yet, urgently explore all of these possibilities. If you are seeking continuity with Wesley, you are unlikely to surpass him in any kind of over-intentionality with your own spiritual formation.

2. The people of the Methodist church you pastor need to be at least somewhat acquainted with the history that brought Methodism from sodalities to modalities. Otherwise, whenever a ministry effort reflective of our history as a sodality is proposed, your people may accurately respond that they did not sign up for such a thing when they joined your church. For example, Methodist leaders have not done their people any favors by creating an environment in which people can be faithful to their vows of membership in a Methodist church for decades with no intention of telling anyone else how it is with their souls––nor having had any idea that doing so was once central to what it meant to be a Methodist.

3. Once you have found one or more long-term enjoyable sodalities for the sake of your own soul and have begun describing the sodality-to-modality history to people in your church, some will express a desire to experience a sodality similar to early Methodism. You can continue pastoring a Methodist modality while being committed to helping those who desire Methodist sodalities to find them. They might occur as programs within your church, multi-church class meetings within your community, or online band meetings that allow safe space for confession and support. Just as creativity is needed in planting churches that can be effective as modalities, when we appropriately value sodalities, they will be available in various creative forms.

4. You can unapologetically shepherd people in your church toward sodalities that reflect the high-commitment lifestyle of early Methodism. Your church can strive to welcome everyone, convinced that everyone is meant to “be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.” If we are attentive to the example of our founder, we will recognize that a reliable path in the direction of such fullness often involves life in both a modality and a sodality.

5. Back to item number one on this list: Don’t forget that this begins with you. An ever-present temptation for ministry leaders––especially for leaders of modalities––is the lure of taking more responsibility for someone else’s soul than for your own. It may well be that the primary thing the people in your modality urgently need today is for you to find the sodality in which your soul can heal from all of the ways that it has always been hard––very hard––to pastor a Methodist church.

Daniel Ethan Harris is a PhD candidate in Spiritual Formation at B. H. Carroll Theological Institute.