Rethinking Church II: Class Meetings

The Class Meeting was a feature of Methodism for its first hundred years or so. Then the practice died out in the United States, apparently because of a more permanent arrangement for pastors and the desire to become "respectable;" that is, like everyone else. In other words, we pretty much sold out to the culture (and the world).

Wesley's Class Meetings actually started with a need for money: the Methodist Society-- it was not then a church-- needed funds to pay for a larger meeting place, since they had bought an old factory. The group was divided into "classes" of a class leader and 11 other individuals. The class leader was to visit everyone in his class once a week to collect a penny toward the debt. If somone could not afford a penny that week, the leader would make up the difference.

It soon became apparent that it was more practical for the class to meet together once a week, and that there was a need for people to pray together and help each other in their Christian walk by being responsible to each other. There was GRACE, which saved us, but there was also SANCTIFICATION, which is our response to God, to 'grow into his likeness.'

Or to quote John Wesley: "There is only one condition previously required of those who desire admission into these societies: 'a desire to flee from the wrath to come, and to be saved from their sins.' But wherever this is really fixed in the soul it will be shown by its fruits."

In order to do this, classes met to pray and each person was asked to answer the question, "How is it with your soul?", that is, How have you done this week on your journey to grow as a Christian? This question was to be answered specifically and in light of Wesley's General Rules, which are:

1. Avoid evil and do no harm.
2. Do good, as much as you can to as many as you can, as you are able and have the opportunity.
3. Practice the "means of grace," that is, attending worship and the Lord's Supper; public and private prayer; reading & studying the scriptures; and fasting or abstinence.

Our particular culture has always emphasized the individual, but the fact is, we have always depended on each other. We also have an unfortunate tendency to blame individuals for things that are not necessarily their fault. If you are poor, you must have made bad decisions or be morally deficient; our economic system or system of justice could not possibly be at fault.

So church is not "just me and Jesus." We are a community, the Body of Christ; we are all in this together.

Discipline is not one of our favorite words. Yet all the literature says that as Christians we are supposed to be disciples, and make disciples. If we undertook the discipline of the class meeting, undertook to be servants in the likeness of Christ, what do you suppose might happen?

Read the full text of Wesley's General Rules.