Methodist Theology
In Methodism, the means of grace are ways in which God works invisibly in disciples, quickening, strengthening and confirming faith. So, believers use them to open their hearts and lives to God's work in them. According to John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, the means of grace can be divided into two broad categories, with individual and communal components:
- Works of Piety, such as:
- Individual Practices--
- Prayer
- Fasting
- Searching the Scriptures
- Healthy Living
- Communal Practices--
- Holy Communion
- Baptism
- Christian Conferencing (or "community")
- Individual Practices--
- Works of Mercy, such as:
- Service focused toward individual needs--
- Doing Good (Good works)
- Visiting the Sick
- Visiting the Imprisoned
- Feeding & Clothing those in need
- Earning, Saving, & Giving all one can
- Service focused toward communal/societal needs--
- the Seeking of Justice; Opposition to Slavery
- Service focused toward individual needs--
Careful attention to the means of grace are, for Methodists, important in the process of sanctification as one is moved on toward Christian Perfection through the work of the Holy Spirit.
Read more about this topic: Means Of Grace
Famous quotes containing the words methodist and/or theology:
“When Methodist preachers come down
A-preaching that drinking is sinful,
I’ll wager the rascals a crown
They always preach best with a skinful.”
—Oliver Goldsmith (1730?–1774)
“... the generation of the 20’s was truly secular in that it still knew its theology and its varieties of religious experience. We are post-secular, inventing new faiths, without any sense of organizing truths. The truths we accept are so multiple that honesty becomes little more than a strategy by which you manage your tendencies toward duplicity.”
—Ann Douglas (b. 1942)