Happy New Year!

As we enter 2024, we begin to fully live into a new identity as Christ Church of Gastonia, a Global Methodist Congregation.  So, how is being a Global Methodist different from what we were as United Methodists?   On the one hand, not much has changed. We have mostly the same constituency and much of the same organizational structure as before, but our tribe has changed.  And with our tribe, our identity has changed.  With that new identity, we must relearn who we are in this new denomination.

It's like marrying into a new family; you take who you have been, but you create with your new family a new way of living together and a new way of loving each other, loving the world, and, therefore, a new yet similar way of living out the Christian faith. 

We are still Methodist, descendants in the faith of John and Charles Wesley, but something has changed. For myself, it feels as if the shackles have come off, and I can live out my Wesleyan faith free from some of the constraints of the political correctness that The UMC imposed.  Many of my clergy friends will laugh at that because I was known for rebelling against such restraint and ignoring much of the gender-neutral language that had become part of the denomination anyway. 

But The Global Methodist Church will seek to find a distinct voice in the world of Wesleyan Methodism that harkens back to the late 1700s and early 1800s when Methodism was sweeping the continent.  At that time Methodism was a movement more than an institution. 

So what was different about Methodism at that time that we, as Global Methodists, want to recapture?  First is Enthusiasm; Methodists were excited about living and sharing their faith.  One of the reasons for their enthusiasm was that Methodists honored and encouraged lay leadership.  Methodists spent time in lay-led small groups called classes or bans.  They shared their faith in these groups and held each other accountable for reading scripture, turning away from sin and temptation, sharing the faith, loving their family, and being genuinely Christian.

They were focused on personal and social holiness.  The Methodist movement sparked another movement in America that moved beyond Methodism called the Great Awakening. That moved masses of people into faith in Jesus Christ and into the Church.  There have been three generally agreed-upon Awakenings in the United States and a fourth that is debated.  But we wait upon another, and it is more than possible that the shake-up in the Methodist world and the creation of the Global Methodist Church could spur a new Great Awakening that moves across the continent and beyond.

As a local GMC church, we have the opportunity and responsibility to catch that enthusiasm for meeting together, for mutual accountability, for sharing the faith, and for being uncontainable in our love for Christ and His people. 

I hope you are excited about Christ Church’s future; I know I am, and I am honored to be a part of it.

Come Sunday to renew your baptismal vows and membership in Christ’s Holy Church, and establish your membership in Christ Church, a Global Methodist Congregation.

See you at 10:30 on Sunday!