Dear ______: Glad to hear you are enjoying orientation and the ramp-up to the new semester. I remember how exciting and important registration always felt. You want to know how to get the most out of seminary. As you put it so well, Seminary life seems like a smorgasbord. I almost have too many choices. […]
John Wesley’s Small Group Agenda
Every small group has its own to-do list. When I was a university student I would work up questions for inductive Bible study. We would try to guide our groups from details of the day’s text, to its meaning, and onward to ways to live it. Since then some of the richest small groups I’ve […]
How John Wesley Marketed His Small Group Program
Try to start a program in your church and I bet some of these ideas will be in the conversation: Tell people it will be fun. Let them know it won’t be too demanding — we’re busy people. Make sure they see it is going to make their lives happier. Emphasize that they will meet […]
Want to Join John Wesley’s Small Group?
The pastor had decided to start a small group. Everyone says it is the way to grow your church, or to grow a deeper sense of community. Thursday night a dozen people showed up. They met. They left in frustration. What went wrong? They all brought conflicting expectations. Some wanted the group to be a […]
John Wesley’s “Plain, Old Christianity,” or “The Marks of a True Methodist”
I recently posted on John Wesley’s “Basic Christianity,” looking at the rock-bottom standards he insisted on for members of the early Methodist movement. True enough, Wesley’s baseline was to avoid obvious sin, do a lot of good, and practice basic Christian spiritual disciplines. However, Wesley was very clear that toeing the mark on these things […]