A discipleship movement shaped for mission: forming a new ecclesial identity for British Methodism?

In 2011 the Methodist Conference received a report from its General Secretary under the title Contemporary Methodism: A Discipleship Movement Shaped for Mission. Within a year this identity slogan was widely used; and now, three years later, these are the first words that greet you when you tap into Methodism’s daily Bible readings and prayers, they regularly appear as the introduction to and justification for reports and projects of the Methodist Church, they adorn the bottom of emails from connexional officers and can be found at over 300 places on the Methodist Church website. They can be recalled and recited by many Methodists, lay and ordained, and feature in numerous circuit and local church mission statements. As an exercise in corporate identity-building it is a remarkable achievement, which might be the envy of any organisation with considerably less than the 250,000 members and almost 5,000 centres of operation that comprise Methodism in Britain.

My paper explores this phenomenon. In it I trace the forming of this phrase through the work of its General Secretary of the last six years, the Revd Dr Martyn Atkins; examine the concept for its faithfulness to Methodist theology and spirituality as seen in its founders; assess the impact on the Church, especially its effects on education and ecumenism; and make some suggestions about what is lacking in this new identity and how it may be addressed.

The paper is thus structured in four sections:

The contribution of Martyn Atkins.

The role of Martyn Atkins cannot be overestimated in the process of forming a new identity for Methodism. While it would be severely mistaken to imagine that ‘a discipleship movement shaped for mission’ was a ready-made phrase in the mind of the General Secretary waiting to be revealed, it is clear from careful reading that the church identity slogan has been arrived at by the drive of Atkins to secure an expression that can encapsulate and enable a renewal of the sense of calling for the Methodist Church. This can be seen as early as 2007 in his book Resourcing Renewal,

Atkins 2007.

This core idea was repeated in his presidential address in June 2007. Again Atkins cites Vatican II as his ‘favourite model of renewal’ and goes on to urge the Church towards a rediscovery of its calling by visiting its founding charisms and reconnecting with its core DNA. He outlines the cost of the change that might ensue and ends with a modern parable about an organisation running orphanages which by the end of the twentieth century had become moribund and was renewed by examining afresh why it was originally set up in the nineteenth century. Being clear about the significant challenges of renewal, he suggests that the time is ripe for this exercise. Interestingly, the opening story about his own period of time in hospital in 2001 when faced with an unknown illness, causing him to wonder whether his own time of ministry and perhaps life was at an end before seeing a sign through a digital clock face, is portrayed as a divine revelation and calling. His epiphany moment in hospital is connected strongly with Methodist renewal and, it might not be unfair to say, he sensed a personal calling to this task.

The text of the speech appeared in The Methodist Recorder on 12 July 2007.

Atkins had an unparalleled opportunity in Methodism to press his vision further by being appointed General Secretary

The post of General Secretary of the British Methodist Church was created in 2003 to integrate the work of the Conference Office and the Connexional Team and to be convening officer for Connexional Leaders’ Forum. The intention was to offer a visionary and strategic leadership role. Martyn Atkins was only the second person to hold this post. Both he and his predecessor were appointed to be Secretary of the Conference and General Secretary of the Methodist Church. The Conference in 2014 agreed to the post being abolished or rather to be reintegrated into that of the Secretary of the Conference, as Atkins steps down in 2015. For the purpose and tasks, see The Constitutional Practice and Discipline of the Methodist Church, 2013, SO 300, p. 372.

By the time of his first General Secretary’s report to Conference in 2009 the agenda was, however, shifting towards the motif of discipleship.

General Secretary’s report, Section 2, The Methodist Church Annual Conference 2009 Agenda, vol. 1, London: Methodist Publishing.

There is no denying that a discourse wider than British Methodism was underway around the theme of discipleship. The Church of England’s Hind Report of 2005 championed a strand of training for lay Christians called ‘Education for discipleship’,

Named after the Bishop of Chelmsford, the Rt Revd John Hind. See Formation for Ministry within a Learning Church (2005). See also Shaping the Future: New Patterns of Training for Lay and Ordained (2006).

Throughout his reports, over the five years, Atkins repeatedly appeals for British Methodism to be more strongly connected to world Methodism, in which the UMC continues to be the lead player. There can be little doubt that the focus on making disciples advocated by the UMC exerted some influence on his thinking. The expression of this discipleship theme in British Methodism, however, for Atkins was to find a particular and distinctive shape.

The following year (2010) there was a brief General Secretary’s report, but in it the notion of discipleship is expanded and coupled with the idea of mission.

General Secretary’s report, The Methodist Church Annual Conference 2010 Agenda, vol. 1, London: Methodist Publishing.

The concept of discipleship is now articulated as ‘life long, encompassing the whole of life and . . . world transforming’,

General Secretary’s report, 2010, #2.

The theme of discipleship, now established, is given a particular form because of Conference’s plan to celebrate 2011 as the ‘Year of the Bible’. Linking the commitments together, Atkins argued, would allow the Year of the Bible to become ‘a focus for deepening Christian discipleship throughout the Connexion’ and, what is more, this theme of discipleship would enable ‘priorities to be identified and choices to be made by the Connexional Team and other connexional bodies’ with budgetary implications.

General Secretary’s report, 2010, #4.

The report was accompanied by the production and wide distribution of a booklet entitled Discipleship and the People Called Methodist.

Atkins 2010.

The introduction of ‘Mission’ as a second major category in the 2010 report

General Secretary’s report, 2010, #6–9.

In these two reports, 2009 and 2010, it is possible to trace the build-up and the emergence of the key components for a new identity statement. The scene is thus set for the 2011 report, which came to the Methodist Conference as a tour de force.

The General Secretary’s report to the Conference of 2011

General Secretary’s report, Section 2, The Methodist Church Annual Conference 2011 Agenda, vol. 1, London: Methodist Publishing.

The General Secretary’s 2012 report suggests that the Church has confirmed the new identity in that the response to the 2011 report has been overwhelmingly positive or at least deeply engaged. This settles and sanctions the discerning and articulating of the concept and programme and further authorises the structural revisions and development set out in the ‘first grouping of decisive intentions’. Atkins argues that the direction of travel is now set and thus it is legitimate and necessary to revisit and refine these intentions. Some of the programme items are expanded, drawing on the feedback to the report; other parts of the 2011 report are nuanced. In particular, he reflects further on the nature of connexionalism; illustrates how a focus on mission can be translated into reviewing our life and work; emphasises the need to find an apologetic for ‘apt evangelism’ as a priority; and reflects back some of the comments on worship that have been expressed. He acknowledges that the word ‘movement’ is contentious, especially in relation to ecclesiology where some fear that ministry and sacraments may be downgraded, but he defends the notion of movement as resonating strongly with Fresh Expressions and pioneer minister initiatives. The important thing for Atkins is ‘not to permit our commitment to discipleship and mission to falter’ (#17).

The subsequent reports of 2013 and 2014 are appropriately more concerned with consolidation and the progress of various ‘decisive intentions’. More on that later.

For now we must turn to a brief evaluation of the new identity statement and explore some of its implications and effects.

There can be little doubt that the use of the word ‘movement’ has a clear affinity with John Wesley’s view that he was not founding a church but spearheading or facilitating a renewal of both church and nation. The notion of movement as a leveller of lay and ordained also resonates. However, in terms of founding charisms there are some significant problems with identifying ‘a discipleship movement shaped for mission’ with the theology and practice of the Wesleys, at least on the surface. None of the words ‘disciple’, ‘discipleship’ or ‘mission’ feature much in the extensive writings of John and Charles Wesley. As Randy Maddox has carefully recorded, John Wesley studiously avoided using the term disciple, believing that the common usage of the word disciple in the eighteenth century was to indicate someone who accepts the teaching of another without question, or to designate an ‘adherent’ or ‘pupil’. Wesley’s desire was for people to become ‘real Christians’ of passion and commitment rather than nominal believers and for Methodists to be participants in ongoing transformation of life through faith, on the journey towards holiness or Christian perfection. For him the term disciple was not adequate for the enterprise to which he was committed and thus the terms discipleship and making disciples are never used.

R. Maddox, ‘Wesley’s Prescription for Making Disciples of Jesus Christ: Insights for the 21st Century Church’, www.pulpitandpew.org/other-publications.

Likewise, the term mission in Wesley’s day had different connotations, its main reference being overseas missions or missionary work, and was never used of the work of the Methodist Societies or Methodist people in Britain. The modern use of the word as an umbrella term for the range of activities such as evangelism, loving service to others in need, transforming unjust structures of society and ecological responsibility, as, for example, in the Anglican Five Marks of Mission

(1) To proclaim the Good News of the Kingdom; (2) To teach, baptise and nurture new believers; (3) To respond to human need by loving service; (4) To seek to transform unjust structures of society, to challenge violence of every kind and to pursue peace and reconciliation; (5) To strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and sustain and renew the life of the earth. See www.anglicanwitness.org/five-marks-of-mission/.

However, both these criticisms are unfair in the sense that the mapping of words in an isomorphic fashion is hardly an adequate test of faithfulness. We need to ask whether what lies behind the words, in terms of convictions and practices, can be mapped onto the modern use of these key words.

Here the resonance is much stronger. In terms of mission, the Wesleys were deeply committed to calling people to conversion to the way of Christ, and although their preaching and hymnody were soteriologically driven, it is clear that their commitment to the poor, their opposition to public evils such as alcoholism and slavery, their writings on war and science, as well as their health clinics and other experiments in medicine, are suggestive of a broad understanding of mission. The fact that involvement in politics and trade unionism grew rapidly among Methodists in the nineteenth century further confirms this sense of mission encompassing the whole of life, as set in train by the Wesleys.

Similarly, when discipleship is defined as ‘life long, encompassing the whole of life and world transforming’ it lies close to the testimonies of many early Methodists who, through the Wesleys’ eighteenth-century fresh expression of church, found the motivation and means for living holy lives in the midst of turbulent times. As Ken Howcroft has argued, holiness for Wesley is not withdrawal or separation from the world but deep engagement with it as we are transformed in the love God.

[Wesley] says that scriptural holiness ‘. . . is no less than the image of God stamped upon the heart; it is no other than the whole mind which was in Christ Jesus . . .’ He goes on to say that that involves all of what we would call our instincts, feelings, emotional dispositions, ways of thinking and spiritual sensitivities being brought together, made whole and made holy. It makes us respond to God thankfully and lovingly in turn. And, says Wesley, if we start to love God, we shall naturally end up loving the rest of the world as well. We will not be able to help it. God’s love will not let us.

Kenneth Howcroft, Presidential Address to the Methodist Conference, 2014. For the full text, see www.methodist.org.uk/news-and-events/news-releases/back-to-the-bible-forward-to-the-world-inaugural-address-of-the-methodist-president.

Like mission, then, the term discipleship can be seen as an appropriate category into which we may map much of the early Methodist enterprise. There are, however, two weaknesses of this mapping and both are to do with holiness.

The first is to do with the teleological orientation of early Methodism. The structure of the first Methodist societies with their classes, bands and select bands was for the goal of Christian perfection. Whether perfection is defined in terms of a patient journey of growing into holiness or the more contentious idea of the instant gift of God, the end is the same: personal as well as social holiness defined in the practice of perfect love. This was the purpose and end of all that the Wesleys did in forming their Connexion, and, while Howcroft’s exposition of Wesley’s sermon on The New Birth

‘The New Birth’, Sermon 45, The Works of John Wesley, vol. II, ed. Albert Outler, Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1985, pp. 185–201.

The second weakness is in relation to the nature of Methodist society membership as embedded in a set of rules and values. The analogy of Methodism as a monastic order has been made several times.

Townsend compares closely early Methodism with the Franciscans, and John Wesley with Francis: Townsend, Worksman and Eayrs 1909, pp. 43–50. Wainwright (1995) draws a parallel between Benedictine and Methodist Spirituality.

Take, for example:

Do no harm. Do good. Love God.

These were popular versions of the society’s rules which were also enshrined in the 12 rules for a helper, the rules of the bands and other set-out structures for nurturing the spiritual life.

For John Wesley, the creation of rules, which was a regular feature – perhaps a congenital disposition – of his life, was a way of catching gospel values and engaging with practices for godly living. And these rules were to be monitored and policed in the societies. Indeed he could be ruthless in expelling people from the societies for failing to live by them, in order to preserve the commitment to the end of holiness. Atkins acknowledges the role of rules in Discipleship and the People Called Methodist and illustrates the three rules of The General Rules of the Society of the People Called Methodist with the way Wesley himself expounded them.

Atkins 2010, pp. 32–34.

These two together highlight the essential concern with holiness, vital to early Methodism, that is not obvious in the new identity slogan. Missing are the sharpness, severity and accountability that would have characterised early Methodism.

See John Lawson, ‘The People Called Methodist: 2. Our Discipline’ in Davies and Rupp 1965, pp. 183–209.

It may be in that in postmodern culture with its dislike of ultimate or exclusive visions of human being and its concept of freedom as expressed in unfettered, individualised choice, these two aspects of holiness, central to the founding charisms, are the hardest to map. Nevertheless, by attempting to map holiness into a loosely defined form of Christian discipleship, there is something vital missing which limits the renewing power of the expressed identity. This weakness becomes acute when issues of ecclesiology in relation to ecumenism come into play. With that in mind let us turn to our third section.

After only three years there is no way of making any realistic evaluation of this initiative. That is for the future. There has been ample time, however, to observe a number of following decisions and actions taken in the light of the newly articulated identity. I will concentrate on two areas: education and ecumenism, as these are major areas to be impacted by the new identity as it has begun to shape Methodist Church life.

We could discuss other effects on Methodism of the new strapline. I am conscious, for example, that in all the accompanying discourse little or nothing has been said about Christian faith in the multifaith context of Britain today. A discipleship movement shaped for mission for our age might have had much to say about this but in reality next to nothing has been articulated and as a consequence inter-faith work struggles to find a place in the new Methodism. Suffice to say, accepting a ‘discipleship movement shaped for mission’ as an identity has already had significant implications for Methodism. It has led into a major reconfiguration of ministerial formation, training and Christian education and as such has set in motion a set of structures that will shape Methodism’s pedagogical ethos and focus for ten to twenty years at least. At the same time it has relocated the site and self-understanding from which the Methodist Church will enter into ecumenical conversation, cooperation and partnership.

Within both these areas there are hopeful as well as worrying signals. The radical switch to a new approach to learning and formation may provide the opportunity for Methodism to consolidate and concentrate its limited resources into focused education and development for effective mission, but the desire to enact the new identity in this area quickly, which appears to have been the effect of Fruitful Field following on so closely after the 2011 General Secretary’s Report, may have unintended but now embedded weaknesses that will be difficult to rectify. On the other hand, the seeming retreat from the established language of ecclesiology within ecumenical dialogue, which a ‘discipleship movement shaped for mission’ implies, may have an advantage. While appearing to undermine much of the progress made in inter-church relations, it may herald a new way of strengthening the internal identity of Methodism (behind the wall) so as to enable a critique and rich contribution to the conversations with other Christian denominations (at the wall). Methodism’s root identity as a society for the pursuit of holiness, as well as its development into a mature form of church, is a contributory factor to the particular gifts it brings to the ecumenical table. The recovery of Methodism’s monastic dynamism, which being a discipleship movement it seeks to recapture, may signal an advance rather than a retreat. Moreover, the shift from blueprint theologies of church to those that are shaped by the empirical context of mission, for which Nicholas Healy has argued,

Healy 2000.

Meanwhile, the General Secretary has announced his resignation from post in august 2015. This means that, as I write, there is one more report to Conference in the summer of 2015. All the signs are that this will highlight the issues of (too many) buildings and apt evangelism, two of the ‘decisive intentions’ identified in the 2011 report. It will be interesting to see how the project fares after that point, as his successor takes up office. The next few years will to some extent test the longevity of the new identity and its implications. At this moment the resilience of ‘a discipleship movement shaped for mission’ is an open question.

I hope that the basic idea is retained, refined and extended, especially in relation to holiness. As identified above, the teleological and monastic dimensions of early Methodism need to be recovered within this movement. Discipleship requires more definition in terms of personal and social goals and should be embedded within a more intentional Christian community. Elsewhere I have argued that disciples are formed by engagement with mission, by worship and by participation within a community of practice that is intentionally attending to Christian values and gospel practices.

Walton 2014.