Wesley Outdoors
John Wesley's use of Early Christian theology and practices brought the gospel to many not reached by the Church of England. Hayden Mussi believes harking back to Wesley's methods can revitalize The United Methodist Church. (Image courtesy of Michael Airgood)
“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.” – John Wesley
I grew up in the United Methodist Church and have been a professing member of my congregation since my sixth-grade confirmation on Pentecost, 2013. The UMC is home to me, a place and an institution I love dearly, not just because of the relationships I’ve built with God and with my brethren in Christ, but also because of its history which has grown to become part of my identity.
My dad was first drawn to the United Methodist Church because of its uniting nature: the vision of one day bringing together all Christians under one roof. I grew up learning that service was one of the greatest expressions of our faith in the world, participating in charity and missions in the name of Christ. And I knew about John and Charles Wesley’s emphasis on God’s grace, Christian rebirth, and the continual work of sanctification in our lives. The more I learn about the early Methodist movement, however, the more sadness I feel for the state of our Church.
The early Methodists were workhorses for the Gospel – not just the Wesleys, but William Grimshaw, Henry Venn, Thomas Haweis, and countless others. They cared deeply about living a Christian life, in line with the will of God to the death and denial of our own. The amount of time Methodist preachers would spend just teaching the Bible and praying with congregants throughout the week seems preposterous today. Wesley fasted regularly and exhorted believers to take Holy Communion as often as possible. Those preachers and pastors would look at our Church today and say their work needed to begin anew.
The United Methodist Church, along with every other mainline Protestant church in America, has been shrinking for decades. From a high of 10,824,010 members in 1969, the year after our formation, we’ve cratered to 5,424,043 members in 2022. A nearly 50% decline in 53 years. This is nothing new, and many solutions have been suggested and given trial runs in local and national contexts. None seem to work.
My whole life, the discussion has always been about how the Church can attract new members, especially young ones. The trend has seemed to always be towards a more "liberal" direction – by which I mean loosening doctrines, leaving behind liturgy, becoming more "affirming," and all in the name of putting on a friendlier face to the world. I’d like to offer an alternative as a young person raised in the United Methodist Church, who loves it dearly and wants to see it return from the precipice we all feel like we’re at the edge of.
I believe it’s telling to look at where the UMC isn’t experiencing this catastrophic loss of members. In West Africa, between 2000 and 2010 alone, the United Methodist Church grew by nearly 300%, from 379,425 members to over 1.5 million. During that same time, the UMC in the Philippines grew by 88,000 members; Central Africa by 284,000; the Congo by a whopping 1.6 million. Meanwhile, our Church faced contraction everywhere in North America and Europe.
It should be clear to anyone that these regions are (or were) the most traditional, theologically conservative of our denomination. I don’t believe this is a coincidence. It seems to me that the trends we see in the United States – away from the things our Church has taught since 1784 – are one reason we have experienced such massive decline. Attempts to "modernize" the UMC seem not to be the answer.
The first Methodists lived in an age of a dying Church, trying to revitalize it. They did this ultimately by encouraging individual Christian formation and holiness, but at the beginning, they needed to rediscover what seemed to have been lost – what they called “primitive Christianity.” The Wesley brothers became students of the Early Church, bringing forth its wisdom to their time. This is what I believe must be done: we must reach back to our forefathers in the Methodist tradition, and, through them, reunite with the Apostles. In this vision, I’ve been blessed to be joined by many other young, faithful United Methodists calling for reform, revitalization, and renewal in our Church, and we have come together to form the Young Methodists for Tradition.
When we discuss science, math, history, or philosophy, we don’t start from scratch and try to recreate the entire discipline on our own. We rely on the discoveries and explanations of experts who came before us, often long before we were ever born. We refer to people who dedicated their lives and specialized their knowledge in a certain field so that we don’t have to do the heavy lifting ourselves. This is exactly what Young Methodists for Tradition proposes when we say we must return to traditional Christian teachings.
There have been thousands of great scholars, theologians, preachers, and pastors before us that dedicated their lives to the study of the Bible and Our Lord. We must rely on what they passed down to us, if only so that our knowledge isn’t reliant on our limited, individual experiences. Too often, modern Christians read the Bible and try to make sense of it on their own, which is entirely possible and a laudable, virtuous act; but it’s like looking at falling apples and trying to be the next Isaac Newton when his Principia is lying on the coffee table waiting to be picked up.
I love the United Methodist Church and so does everyone in YMFT. Because we love our Church, we don’t want it to remain where it is. We want the United Methodist Church to pick up the torch of our forefathers and continue striving for perfect love, devotion to God, radical Christian living.
"God…raised up the Methodists on purpose to reclaim and preach up [the Kingdom and Gospel of Our Savior]; to restore the Church to her primitive purity and revive her Homilies and Articles out of the dust; and to purge her of that epidemical vice and wickedness which…has most shamefully abounded." - William Grimshaw, Anglican divine and Methodist leader, 1749
Hayden Mussi
Courtesy Photo
Hayden Mussi is a lifelong United Methodist and professing member of Schertz UMC in Texas. He serves as a Council Leader within Young Methodists for Tradition, on whose website this article first appeared. Hayden is pursuing a music education degree at Texas State University in San Marcos, Texas.