I sometimes get despondent about the petty politicking that passes for much of modern day British Methodism.
I've been behind a firewall all week and away from home most of the time. All I get when I use my client's computer to look up several Methodist blogs is the firewall's promise that I can't proceed as the site "may contain material of an adult nature", if only! (but I think my definition of "adult" may be different from the firewall's!). Fat Prophet, Olive, Pam, and TC, yours are accessible!
One thing that did get through though is a message that there is a Methodist blogger in Argentina. So pop over and practice your Spanish. Just as much of British Methodism has lost the plot and we seek a new narrative, its a reminder that the fresh expression that Wesley brought into 18th Century English Christianity has travelled a long way since.
Last Sunday I went to a wonderful meeting of Chinese Christians in Birmingham who have now built up a congregation in the city. (It includes, incidentally. the family that run the Chop Suey Takeaway on Three Shires Oak road).
With us as visitors in the congregation was a Cuban Minister studying at Queens. Apparently the Methodist Church in Cuba is one of the fastest growing Christian witnesses in the world.
What the Anglo-Saxon world is now discarding, others are taking up with a new enthusiasm.
Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, 47praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.
Why are so many Methodists in the UK so terrified of growth?
Thursday, 20 November 2008
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1 comments:
We have a similar firewall on our computers at work if you try to look at some websites and yet I get regular emails in my inbox which are not sent to me and are either advertising Viagra or other drugs or some young lady asking if I have a minute.
I think the apparent growth of Methodism in other places is a good thing but can not help wondering whether part of our problem here in Britain is that we are stuck in a rut.
Having read Mr Wesleys sermons I could imagine that he was an extremely gifted communicator who preached in the power of and under the conviction of the Holy Spirit. Sadly I do not hear many preachers who do either and perhaps this is part of the problem - perhaps too that people in Cuba and China have the fervour that would seem to have accompanied the Wesley's, George Whitefield and people like Evan Roberts and George Jeffreys.
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