John Wesley is considered the founder
of the United Methodist Church. John was a pastor in the Church of
England. John, like many other pastors
of his time, didn’t have a crowded congregation to preach to on Sundays. So,
like other pastors, he decided to go where the people were, and preach to them
there. He would go out to the mines in the English countryside and preach about
God’s love and how God wanted us to live. He wasn’t known for being an exciting
preacher, but lots of people listened to him and decided to turn their life to
Jesus. The only problem was that they kept all the same company and habits and
by the time John came back the next week to preach, they needed to turn their
life around again.
John
was worried about this. He wanted people to grow in their faith. He didn’t want
them to feel like failures. So he tried something that had worked to help him
grow when he was in college. He started having these people meet together in
small groups each week. These groups were called classes and bands. A class
would start with everyone answering the question: How is it with your soul?
They would share how they saw God working in their lives. They would help each
other to grow closer to God, so they wouldn’t need to turn their life around
each week.
The
groups worked! People would invite their friends to come with them. They would
pool money together to help the poor. People would get used to talking about
God in front of people. God would even call some people to become pastors from
the groups. Most importantly, people would grow in their faith together.
Questions
1.
How is our Junior Group like those first small
groups?
2.
How could we be more like those groups?
3.
Why do you think it was easier for people to
join a small group than come to Sunday worship?
No comments:
Post a Comment