[Reflections on The Discipline] Lessons From Wesleyan History, Pt 1: The Mission of The Wesleyan Church

If all goes according to plan, 2026 will mark the fifteenth General Conference of The Wesleyan Church. This gathering of leaders will consider myriad questions and memorials as they seek to establish the policies and procedures that will steer our denomination into the second quarter of the twenty-first century. This is no small task. The increasing number and prominence of megachurches has many wondering about the relevance of denominations. Seismic shifts in culture and technology strain the structures and strategies that have undergirded our movement for more than a half century, and the reality of ministering in a wildly pluralistic culture challenges our convictions.

Because of all these things and more, I believe this General Conference will be remembered as a watershed moment in the history of The Wesleyan Church. More specifically, this will be the conference where we decided whether our denomination would thrive as an impactful movement or wither into irrelevance during the middle half of the century.

Please do not misunderstand me. I love The Wesleyan Church. I have been a part of it since childhood. I was saved in The Wesleyan Church, called into ministry in The Wesleyan Church, educated in The Wesleyan Church, spiritually formed in The Wesleyan Church, and appointed to pastor in The Wesleyan Church. Like any such relationship, there are pain points, but I am unswervingly committed to the well-being of the denomination.

To that end, I have begun a review of The Discipline of The Wesleyan Church 2022, which serves as the seminal definition of Wesleyan belief and polity. My objective in this is to remind myself of the timeless things which have driven our denomination since its inception and to consider how to best pursue them in the next fifty years. Moreover, I intend to document this journey by sharing thoughts, experiences, and dreams along the way, and in so doing, I hope to encourage and even inspire those who will be elected in 2025 to be present at General Conference in 2026 to imagine what could and should be.

When I first began as a pastor in The Wesleyan Church, I was young and thought I knew everything. I gave little attention to history because it seemed dusty, stuffy, and irrelevant as I endeavored to drag the church I lead headlong into the future. However, I was advised by several wise people that the key to the future is quite often in the past, and I was challenged to familiarize myself with the history of my congregation. Buried within the accounts of how the church was started (i.e., its methods), I discovered why the church was started (i.e. its mission, values, and vision), and that why became the springboard which would catapult our congregation into the future.

It is therefore fitting that The Discipline begins with an account of the history of The Wesleyan Church. To be certain, there are other, far more detailed accounts available. Caldwell’s Reformers and Revivalists, for example, was the text we used during my undergraduate studies. McLeister’s and Nicholson’s Conscience and Commitment dives deeper in the history of the Wesleyan Methodist Church, and Thomas’ Days of Our Pilgrimage is a more comprehensive consideration of The Pilgrim Holiness Church. More recently, Black’s and Drury’s Story of The Wesleyan Church is a fantastic concise history of our movement, and in fact, even older versions of The Discipline have offered more detailed accounts. For example, the 1968 edition included thirteen pages compared to the 2022 edition’s eight.

As I read the history of The Wesleyan Church, as recorded in The Discipline 2022, I was not nearly as concerned with how things were done as I was with why. More specifically, I was searching for clues concerning what the founders of our denomination thought were to be our timeless mission and our enduring values. The distinction here is critical because the methods we employ to fulfill our mission and values may change periodically, but the mission and values should remain fairly consistent from generation to generation.

Without doubt, the original mission of The Wesleyan Church was to see people receive the grace of Jesus and be discipled into a state of entire sanctification. We can debate the merits of that term another time, but this was the first Wesleyans’ constant refrain. John Wesley, the denomination’s namesake, preached it incessantly. Although one could argue it was overshadowed for a time by abolition, entire sanctification was always at the root of Wesleyans’ resistance to slavery and resurged to the forefront in the wake of the Civil War. Moreover, the Pilgrim Holiness Church “came into being as a result of the revival of scriptural holiness” during the latter half of the nineteenth century.

This, of course, raises the question: what is entire sanctification? The earliest Wesleyans no doubt defined it as John Wesley, who wrote, “It is `perfect love.’ (1 John 4:18.) This is the essence of it; its properties, or inseparable fruits, are, rejoicing evermore, praying without ceasing, and in everything giving thanks. (1 Thess. 5:16, &c.)”^[1] It is loving God with every fiber of your being, loving your neighbor as yourself, and therefore endeavoring to align every desire and behavior with the character and command of the Lord.

The gateway by which Wesleyans invited people into grace and discipleship was social reform. For instance, John Wesley and his followers opened hospitals, orphanages, schools, pharmacies (called dispensaries) across England. So also, early Wesleyans worked tirelessly to end slavery and overcome the effects of injustice. They ministered to people and families broken by alcoholism, and they decried the backroom dealings and corruption fostered by secret societies. In short, they worked to reform the things in their communities that were hurting and oppressing people, preventing them from living the life God designed for them, and that opened the door for them to share the gospel.

Recognizing the original mission of our movement is important, but are we still faithful to that purpose? Certainly, we could cite instances where people and churches remain unswervingly committed to these ideals. Conversely, we could cite instances where people and churches have strayed far afield. After more than two decades of ministry on the periphery of the denomination (i.e., I have never been on a district or denominational leadership team), here are some observations I would make:

• The desire to see people receive the grace of Jesus remains strong. Certainly, there are local churches that do this better than others, but I do not know of any church or pastor who would admit they do not want to see people saved. Moreover, when we submit annual reports and such, salvations and baptisms remain the most celebrated (and coveted) statistics.
• The effort to see people discipled into a state of entire sanctification is confused. We have forgotten that the first Wesleyans were called Methodists because of their methodical pursuit of holiness. There are several factors at work here. First, many modern leaders have been heavily influenced by the prolific ideas of Calvinism. Namely, they have leaned into the depravity of mankind and the saving grace of Jesus to the point that salvation has become the primary goal, and once people have prayed the sinners prayer and been baptized, we are not nearly as concerned about their continued spiritual formation. Second, many modern Wesleyans struggle to communicate the essence and importance of holiness to this generation. We use words like “eternal sanctification” and “personal holiness” among people who have never heard such things, and the whole thing becomes mere behavior modification rather than a transformation of one’s inward desires. This is why modern expositions of sanctifications such as Kevin Watson’s Perfect Love are so essential! Third, we reduced discipleship to attending church once a week and maybe Sunday School or a small group. In many cases, this reduced the notion of discipleship to memorizing a few Scripture verses over the course of a couple of hours per week, and there is simply no way this can overcome the influence of modern news and social media.
• The commitment to social reform as a gateway for the gospel is weak. Do not misunderstand me here. Wesleyans are still doing wonderful things. For instance, subsidiary organizations such as World Hope International and Immigrant Connection are significant examples of our ongoing social concern. So also, many Wesleyans continue to decry abortion and other social evils. Yet, we fail to use social reform as a gateway for the gospel in two ways. First, there are many Wesleyan churches who lean on sparkling facilities, bouncing children’s programs, and rocking worship bands as the primary way they draw people to the gospel. It is telling that, despite our roots in the abolition movement, the vast majority of our churches are monoethnic (primarily white), our pastors are predominantly male (at last count, 89% of Wesleyan lead pastors were male despite our expressed commitment to women in ministry), and our fastest growing and most celebrated congregations generally follow a similar suburban attractional church model. How many Wesleyans actually support a crisis pregnancy center or partner with a school to curb problematic behavior before it starts? Second, those of us who are engaged in social reform struggle to convert the people to whom they minister into disciples. There are a variety of reasons for this, but the fact is that we have not figured out how to share the gospel with those we are helping in other ways.

All of this leads me to believe that The Wesleyan Church is at an inflection point, and General Conference 2026 could send us in a variety of different directions. I would submit that, if we are going to be faithful to our original mission, then we must prioritize three things.

• Become more effective at leading people to the grace of Jesus. At the denominational level, this should include at least three main things.
  • We must plant more churches in more places and in more ways. We should be planting churches in cities of 500,000 and villages of 500, but those churches will look radically different from each other. To do this, we will need to raise up a wide variety of church planters. We will need to become more comfortable with different styles of church plants and outcomes (i.e., not all plants will be suburban white attractional church model that explode overnight into megachurches). And we will need to encourage churches and districts to work together rather than compete with each other.
  • We must ramp up our efforts to revitalize struggling churches. If a church is committed to work toward effectiveness, let us help them figure out what resources they need and then equip them appropriately. Do they need cash to fix a dilapidated building or free up the pastor to do more ministry? Let us reduce their USF burden or even offer them a grant. Do they need an infusion of people to create a critical mass of able-bodied people in the community? Let us encourage our larger churches to commission people to go. Do they need coaching, patience, and encouragement from district leadership? Let us touch base with them regularly to help them clarify the path forward and give them the space and stamina to get there.
  • We must strengthen and broaden our ministry training pipelines. This means developing new evangelism training materials to be used by local churches to better train the lay people who are leading children’s programs and youth groups, involved in their community schools, or just witnessing to their neighbors. It means making ministry training courses accessible in more places and languages. It means finding ways to keep the cost of ministerial training down while simultaneously increasing the funding available through the Wesleyan ministerial loan-grant.
• Develop new resources to explain and teach the Wesleyan concept of sanctification to a new generation, and make them absolutely ubiquitous. Encourage pastors to get involved in discipleship and coaching groups focusing on their own spiritual growth. Develop Sunday School and small group curricula that push people beyond reading and giving the “right” answers. Develop resources to help pastors understand and preach Wesleyan sanctification in a way this generation will understand and desire.
• Challenge Wesleyans to change the world. Most people recognize that this world falls short of the ideals of God’s kingdom. Far fewer do anything about it. We must help Wesleyans understand that they have a role to play in the renewal of the world and then equip them to get it done.

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[1] Wesley, John. 2014. A Plain Account of Christian Perfection. N.p.: Seedbed Publishing, 109