Sheffield, Dan. “Seeking an Alternative Narrative for a Secular Age.” Paper presented at the Annual Wesley Studies Symposium, Tyndale University, Toronto, Ontario, April 25, 2023. (MPEG-3, 32 min.) 1 00:00:00.560 --> 00:00:05.460 I remember as a kid growing up in a small evangelical church in Northern, being 2 00:00:05.490 --> 00:00:10.940 reminded in that context regularly that we are the remnants. 3 00:00:10.970 --> 00:00:15.060 There are not many churches teaching the real gospel out there. 4 00:00:15.090 --> 00:00:18.100 I don't ever remember seeing or hearing as 5 00:00:18.130 --> 00:00:21.980 a kid about united churches up there in the north. 6 00:00:22.010 --> 00:00:24.340 Maybe some Anglicans, some mostly 7 00:00:24.370 --> 00:00:30.380 Catholics, Orthodox, the immigrant churches and a few evangelical churches. 8 00:00:30.400 --> 00:00:36.220 We Christians were a minority looked down upon. 9 00:00:36.250 --> 00:00:38.920 Most of our neighbors in the north in the 10 00:00:38.950 --> 00:00:43.620 60s, would prefer to go their own way, living outside of Christ. 11 00:00:43.650 --> 00:00:47.100 And of course, in the 1960s, pierre Fruto 12 00:00:47.130 --> 00:00:55.220 was leading us towards Godless secular human, communist vision of society. 13 00:00:55.250 --> 00:00:59.860 There was literally a little red flag 14 00:00:59.890 --> 00:01:05.850 of the threats of pure food to the Java Christians. 15 00:01:05.880 --> 00:01:09.200 Now, that little paragraph there is a 16 00:01:09.230 --> 00:01:15.410 narrative, a way of crafting information or data that constructs a story of how we 17 00:01:15.440 --> 00:01:20.460 should think and therefore act in regard to. 18 00:01:20.490 --> 00:01:26.930 I can say that narrative was a scarcity narrative. 19 00:01:26.960 --> 00:01:31.540 We just needed to be able to survive the onslaught. 20 00:01:31.570 --> 00:01:36.020 That's not what I remember in the experience. 21 00:01:36.050 --> 00:01:37.930 Church life. 22 00:01:37.960 --> 00:01:41.460 I remember church life as full and vibrant 23 00:01:41.490 --> 00:01:47.850 and warm and welcome, a place where the free teen I wanted to be. 24 00:01:47.880 --> 00:01:53.820 It was a place of life and action and encouragement to my spiritual journey. 25 00:01:53.850 --> 00:01:56.850 The narrative I was being given was of 26 00:01:56.880 --> 00:02:02.560 scarcity the story I inhabited with one fullness. 27 00:02:03.360 --> 00:02:06.620 Now, here's another narrative. 28 00:02:06.650 --> 00:02:09.260 The reality is that our current membership 29 00:02:09.290 --> 00:02:13.720 trajectory, conversion, falling attendance, the number of churches that 30 00:02:13.750 --> 00:02:18.300 are in decline, as well as the churches that are only a few years away from 31 00:02:18.330 --> 00:02:24.520 clothing, are leading us to oblique and unsustainable outcome. 32 00:02:24.840 --> 00:02:27.540 Now, that's a narrative 33 00:02:27.570 --> 00:02:32.300 that many churches in Canada are hearing on a consistent basis. 34 00:02:32.330 --> 00:02:35.610 We are in decline. 35 00:02:35.640 --> 00:02:38.300 I don't need to cite more sources. 36 00:02:38.330 --> 00:02:43.940 That's a narrative that's coming to all of us from stats can, from news media 37 00:02:43.970 --> 00:02:49.180 sources, from the sociologists, from the Undoing Fellowship of Canada, from the now 38 00:02:49.210 --> 00:02:54.880 defunct Way base, and from our denominational offices. 39 00:02:56.120 --> 00:02:59.100 That's not what I'm experiencing in the 40 00:02:59.130 --> 00:03:02.780 church where I serve our local congregation. 41 00:03:02.800 --> 00:03:06.020 St. Catherine's was birthed over 60 years ago. 42 00:03:06.050 --> 00:03:09.020 It has seen its share of good days and bad 43 00:03:09.050 --> 00:03:13.380 days, years of thriving, years of just surviving. 44 00:03:13.410 --> 00:03:17.580 Today we're 70 ish people, and we're full 45 00:03:17.610 --> 00:03:22.540 of politician, university students, young families with children. 46 00:03:22.570 --> 00:03:27.580 The seniors and boomers are a small percentage. 47 00:03:27.610 --> 00:03:30.700 We stayed relatively healthy and connected 48 00:03:30.730 --> 00:03:37.960 through the pandemic, and we're now a larger community than we went into. 49 00:03:38.200 --> 00:03:43.380 Yes, we lost some people, but we also gained people. 50 00:03:43.410 --> 00:03:49.500 Right in the midst of the shutdown, people in our city joined us. 51 00:03:49.530 --> 00:03:53.520 Not just my mother watching himself. 52 00:03:58.560 --> 00:04:02.540 And our finances were never really followed. 53 00:04:02.570 --> 00:04:06.960 One older couple who joined us 54 00:04:07.280 --> 00:04:14.220 and months ago were wandering our city looking for a church after their 55 00:04:14.250 --> 00:04:20.060 large multi psychic church kind of imploded years ago. 56 00:04:20.090 --> 00:04:23.300 They are long time committed, active 57 00:04:23.330 --> 00:04:27.780 Christians over the course of the year, they visited a number of churches in our. 58 00:04:27.800 --> 00:04:31.480 City looking for they essentially come to. 59 00:04:31.510 --> 00:04:33.780 The conclusion there were few churches 60 00:04:33.800 --> 00:04:38.420 they were comfortable with theologically that felt alive. 61 00:04:38.450 --> 00:04:40.780 They were preparing to stop looking for a 62 00:04:40.800 --> 00:04:47.300 church, just have a weekly Bible discussion with other wandering friends. 63 00:04:47.330 --> 00:04:49.700 They've heard that story before. 64 00:04:49.720 --> 00:04:52.460 Then an old woman in their neighborhood 65 00:04:52.480 --> 00:04:57.340 sold them to try to church her 20 something grandson and his family. 66 00:04:57.360 --> 00:05:01.340 It turns out this couple lived just four blocks from our building. 67 00:05:01.360 --> 00:05:06.140 They tell me the reason that they've been with us literally every Sunday since 68 00:05:06.160 --> 00:05:10.860 they've walked through the doors is that this church feels alive. 69 00:05:10.890 --> 00:05:16.500 It's not on palliative care waiting to die. 70 00:05:16.530 --> 00:05:23.540 The narrative that we're being given is of scarcity and decline. 71 00:05:23.570 --> 00:05:28.180 Story I inhabit is one of us. 72 00:05:28.210 --> 00:05:31.380 Last year, James Emery White commented on 73 00:05:31.410 --> 00:05:37.220 the Canadian report from Alpha, Canada Georgian congregation. 74 00:05:37.250 --> 00:05:41.980 White is the former president of Gordon Conwell Seminary. 75 00:05:42.010 --> 00:05:48.900 And White says the church is in decline because we are turned inward. 76 00:05:48.920 --> 00:05:52.620 Instead, our hearts are not breaking for 77 00:05:52.650 --> 00:05:57.780 what breaks the heart of God, which is people facing a crisis of eternity. 78 00:05:57.800 --> 00:06:04.560 And sadly, only a simple invite is all that is often needed. 79 00:06:09.360 --> 00:06:12.500 So that's the antidote that I hear in much 80 00:06:12.530 --> 00:06:18.340 of this narrative of climb, is that we just need to do something. 81 00:06:18.360 --> 00:06:23.460 We just need to do something. 82 00:06:23.480 --> 00:06:26.660 James White says we just need to invite people. 83 00:06:26.690 --> 00:06:30.140 We need to turn outward instead of inward. 84 00:06:30.170 --> 00:06:36.380 Others say we just need to pray more or just modify our orthodox theology, 85 00:06:36.410 --> 00:06:39.380 and then our congregation will be thriving again. 86 00:06:39.410 --> 00:06:44.460 People will love us again, we'll be relevant again, and then we'll return to 87 00:06:44.480 --> 00:06:49.420 the place of privilege and influence in Canadian society. 88 00:06:49.450 --> 00:06:52.620 If that were ever true. 89 00:06:52.650 --> 00:06:59.060 But is that really the goal for this brief reflection? 90 00:06:59.090 --> 00:07:01.720 I want to connect with that Wesley and the 91 00:07:01.750 --> 00:07:05.860 Methodist experience at a time of spiritual decline. 92 00:07:05.890 --> 00:07:13.460 I want to connect with alternative perspectives regarding conclusion. 93 00:07:13.480 --> 00:07:17.780 I want to reflect on an alternative Wesley 94 00:07:17.800 --> 00:07:23.300 narrative, because we're always the alternative. 95 00:07:23.330 --> 00:07:25.080 So. 96 00:07:26.640 --> 00:07:32.640 In a blog post during a recent pandemic, bishop Richard Jackson. 97 00:07:34.640 --> 00:07:37.260 At the. Beginning of the 18th century, thomas 98 00:07:37.290 --> 00:07:44.920 Carlyle described Britain's condition as stock, well alive, soul extent. 99 00:07:46.160 --> 00:07:50.180 The belief that God made the world, set it running, and then went on. 100 00:07:50.210 --> 00:07:53.620 Something else was widespread. 101 00:07:53.650 --> 00:07:56.020 Sir William Blackstone visited the church 102 00:07:56.040 --> 00:08:00.820 of every major clergyman in London and said, I did not hear a single discourse 103 00:08:00.850 --> 00:08:06.160 which had more Christianity in it than the writings of Cicero. 104 00:08:06.360 --> 00:08:09.340 Bishop Berkeley wrote that morality and 105 00:08:09.360 --> 00:08:16.000 religion had collapsed to a degree that was never known in any Christian country. 106 00:08:16.240 --> 00:08:18.720 We might say that the Church of England in 107 00:08:18.750 --> 00:08:23.820 the early 1700s was eight of spiritual decline. 108 00:08:23.850 --> 00:08:28.380 The religious hierarchy was well established as a state church. 109 00:08:28.410 --> 00:08:34.260 What Whitfield and Wesley found in 1739 was that very few of their fellow 110 00:08:34.290 --> 00:08:40.340 citizens, or at least the everyday common folk, were attending their local parishes. 111 00:08:40.370 --> 00:08:45.820 Hence their resorting to field preaching outside the gates of the coal mines 112 00:08:45.850 --> 00:08:53.740 Bristol and we might say that wexley had been attempting to do something about 113 00:08:53.770 --> 00:09:01.420 those conditions for most of his adult life before May 1738. 114 00:09:01.440 --> 00:09:03.740 He was studying, he was praying, he was 115 00:09:03.770 --> 00:09:08.860 fasting, he was caring for the poor, he was accessing the means of grace, he was 116 00:09:08.890 --> 00:09:16.280 preaching, he was exhorting to no avail in his personal life or his congregation. 117 00:09:17.440 --> 00:09:21.040 And then God showed up. 118 00:09:22.400 --> 00:09:26.100 We might say that western life is in a state. 119 00:09:26.130 --> 00:09:29.080 His recent experience in Georgia, first as 120 00:09:29.110 --> 00:09:34.040 a missionary, then as a parish minister did not turn out. 121 00:09:34.120 --> 00:09:38.180 His contact with the Moravians during that 122 00:09:38.200 --> 00:09:46.320 also left him to question his experience of the faith that he says he believes. 123 00:09:46.360 --> 00:09:53.840 So let's think of this crucible point in Wesley's life as three encounters 124 00:09:54.160 --> 00:10:00.280 encounters with God, Christian community world. 125 00:10:04.000 --> 00:10:12.260 The encounter with a God who shows up on God's timing when our hearts. 126 00:10:12.290 --> 00:10:16.700 Are ready to respond has been offered. 127 00:10:16.730 --> 00:10:20.060 When we stop striving 128 00:10:20.080 --> 00:10:25.820 encounter with Christian community which is instrumental in the preparation. 129 00:10:25.850 --> 00:10:28.880 Of hearts open to. 130 00:10:29.720 --> 00:10:33.780 And the encounter with the inhumanity of humans. 131 00:10:33.810 --> 00:10:37.300 The fight of the world that leads. 132 00:10:37.320 --> 00:10:40.380 To gracious hope filled engagement in 133 00:10:40.410 --> 00:10:44.980 concrete terms of state of both the body and soul. 134 00:10:45.010 --> 00:10:48.100 Perhaps these foundational 135 00:10:48.130 --> 00:10:54.100 you might say transcendent encounters that Wesley has have something to offer us with 136 00:10:54.130 --> 00:10:59.260 times in which we are becoming a secular society. 137 00:10:59.290 --> 00:11:04.620 The church is in decline, we are losing our voice in the public space. 138 00:11:04.650 --> 00:11:08.120 And we must something about that. 139 00:11:08.150 --> 00:11:11.020 That's the word caution and concern. 140 00:11:11.050 --> 00:11:19.280 So in his book A Secular Age don't worry, we're not going to do a of review. 141 00:11:20.120 --> 00:11:23.540 In his book, Charles Taylor describes what 142 00:11:23.570 --> 00:11:30.780 this shift looks like by naming three ways of secularization of express. 143 00:11:30.810 --> 00:11:34.120 This more nuanced understanding adds 144 00:11:34.150 --> 00:11:40.020 complexity to the competing narratives of religious decline on the one hand 145 00:11:40.050 --> 00:11:43.540 or the narrative of social progress on the other. 146 00:11:43.570 --> 00:11:48.380 So Taylor's first explanation indicates the religious worldview 147 00:11:48.410 --> 00:11:54.540 from public spaces and spirits making religion a largely private matter. 148 00:11:54.570 --> 00:11:57.580 Put in another way in a secular society 149 00:11:57.610 --> 00:12:02.640 you can engage fully in politics without ever encountering God. 150 00:12:04.200 --> 00:12:10.980 Do you realize how much God talk doesn't happen in Canada compared to self. 151 00:12:11.010 --> 00:12:12.920 Of the border. 152 00:12:15.160 --> 00:12:21.200 Another way or the removal the removal of the Christmas? 153 00:12:28.880 --> 00:12:33.100 The second way of expressing secularization builds on the first 154 00:12:33.130 --> 00:12:38.060 but is described as a reduction in religious involvement 155 00:12:38.080 --> 00:12:43.220 when compared to other activities in an individual's life or importance. 156 00:12:43.250 --> 00:12:49.940 So this is where decline in worship attendance and or discipleship practices 157 00:12:49.970 --> 00:12:57.080 is identified as secularization and the third and formal form of final form of 158 00:12:57.110 --> 00:13:01.900 secularity taylor describes as exclusive humanism. 159 00:13:01.930 --> 00:13:05.140 A concept that defines the idea of good 160 00:13:05.170 --> 00:13:09.660 without God or anything or anyone transcendent. 161 00:13:09.690 --> 00:13:12.380 The first two dimensions of secularization 162 00:13:12.410 --> 00:13:18.000 are the more obvious concerns of the narrative of but. 163 00:13:18.030 --> 00:13:20.460 It's the third more subtle and pervasive 164 00:13:20.490 --> 00:13:28.220 dimension and is perhaps not as likely to be resolved by doing something. 165 00:13:28.250 --> 00:13:32.860 So I'm not going to defend my take on secular age. 166 00:13:32.890 --> 00:13:35.940 That's that's the backdrop. 167 00:13:35.970 --> 00:13:38.540 Now let me take you on a little journey of 168 00:13:38.570 --> 00:13:45.800 my own reflection, that little book here, The End of Prison by Malcolm Mugger to 169 00:13:45.830 --> 00:13:49.940 give a lecture when I was 18 years old at the University of. 170 00:13:49.970 --> 00:13:51.860 I read this book two years later. 171 00:13:51.890 --> 00:13:54.460 As I worked in a Christian British. 172 00:13:54.490 --> 00:13:59.620 Journalist and social analyst 40 years ago delivered a lecture. 173 00:13:59.650 --> 00:14:03.500 He was describing social circumstances 174 00:14:03.530 --> 00:14:10.920 40 years ago that were contributing to the decline of Christendom in Western society. 175 00:14:11.600 --> 00:14:15.900 I remember reading that the time a statement in this little book 176 00:14:15.930 --> 00:14:21.220 in these circumstances, why should anyone expect Christmas to go 177 00:14:21.250 --> 00:14:28.820 on forever or see in its impending collapse of cosmic catastrophe? 178 00:14:28.850 --> 00:14:31.780 For that pessimistic reflection, he 179 00:14:31.810 --> 00:14:38.120 offered this optimistic word amidst the shambles of a fallen Christian I feel a 180 00:14:38.150 --> 00:14:41.780 renewed confidence in the light of the Christian revelation. 181 00:14:41.810 --> 00:14:48.260 With Richard muggage then suggests where his renewed 182 00:14:48.290 --> 00:14:53.860 confidence comes from the thriving of Christian faith and 183 00:14:53.890 --> 00:15:00.220 community in location where it has been most repressed. 184 00:15:00.250 --> 00:15:04.500 Now in his historical context back in the 185 00:15:04.530 --> 00:15:09.260 he was referring specifically to the underground church in communist 186 00:15:09.290 --> 00:15:13.420 my own experience in places like India and Sri Lanka. 187 00:15:13.450 --> 00:15:19.520 I understand what he's getting at the conclusions. 188 00:15:19.560 --> 00:15:23.220 Let us then, as Christians rejoice 189 00:15:23.250 --> 00:15:28.960 that we see around us on every hand that the institution 190 00:15:29.000 --> 00:15:35.060 for it's precisely when every earthly hope has been explored and found wanting, when 191 00:15:35.080 --> 00:15:40.180 every possibility of help from earthly sources has been spotted and is not 192 00:15:40.210 --> 00:15:46.240 forthcoming, it's then that Christ's hand reaches out. 193 00:15:46.520 --> 00:15:49.860 Muckerish was describing the impact of modernity. 194 00:15:49.890 --> 00:15:54.700 On the inherited forms of Christian, suggesting. 195 00:15:54.730 --> 00:16:00.120 That that decline might not be a met there. 196 00:16:00.960 --> 00:16:02.980 That was part of my early formation. 197 00:16:03.010 --> 00:16:05.800 As a young Christian. 198 00:16:06.560 --> 00:16:09.760 Never been too worried. 199 00:16:11.600 --> 00:16:13.580 A couple of years after 200 00:16:13.610 --> 00:16:18.260 mother is brugam and said I believe we're in a season of transition when we're 201 00:16:18.290 --> 00:16:22.020 watching the collapse of the world as we know it. 202 00:16:22.050 --> 00:16:28.780 Speaking to pastors 20 years ago, Roxburg said a bomb of course, had gone off in our 203 00:16:28.810 --> 00:16:33.540 hearts and we've become aware that something is amiss, but practically 204 00:16:33.570 --> 00:16:36.380 speaking, we don't know what to do about it. 205 00:16:36.410 --> 00:16:42.940 A decade earlier he had connected the language of liminality in this experience 206 00:16:42.970 --> 00:16:47.580 being that intermediate or in between state, between one way of constructing 207 00:16:47.610 --> 00:16:52.460 reality and on the threshold of a new, as yet undefined state. 208 00:16:52.490 --> 00:16:56.780 Roxborough helped us to understand that something new is in the process of being 209 00:16:56.810 --> 00:17:02.980 birthed, something over which we limited control. 210 00:17:03.010 --> 00:17:05.380 More recently, he summed up a challenge in 211 00:17:05.410 --> 00:17:10.420 this manner our primary map has been modernity. 212 00:17:10.450 --> 00:17:13.290 And modernity in many ways has profoundly 213 00:17:13.320 --> 00:17:19.770 reshaped and even deformed the Christian imagination in our culture. 214 00:17:19.800 --> 00:17:27.900 And he suggests that one of those inner maps tells us that we have. 215 00:17:27.930 --> 00:17:33.660 To find a way of in order to make things work. 216 00:17:33.690 --> 00:17:35.250 In the midst of this time of. 217 00:17:35.280 --> 00:17:40.250 Deconstruction, Rockford notes the Spirit has continually 218 00:17:40.280 --> 00:17:42.810 disrupted the church throughout its history. 219 00:17:42.840 --> 00:17:48.010 Taking it to places where once accurate maps no longer applies. 220 00:17:48.040 --> 00:17:53.480 This is not a time for fear or dire predictions. 221 00:17:54.360 --> 00:17:56.520 So these reflections speak to the 222 00:17:56.550 --> 00:18:00.140 narrative of decline as expressed in Taylor secular. 223 00:18:00.170 --> 00:18:05.050 One two our present situation is not a surprise. 224 00:18:05.080 --> 00:18:10.010 Anyone paying attention will last 50 or 60 years. 225 00:18:10.040 --> 00:18:13.800 Some of us have been there. 226 00:18:14.840 --> 00:18:16.440 If you've been paying attention for the 227 00:18:16.470 --> 00:18:21.980 last 50 or 60 years, there's nothing surprising about the moment we're in. 228 00:18:22.010 --> 00:18:25.530 Yes, it's happening, but it's not the end of the world. 229 00:18:25.560 --> 00:18:29.330 Perhaps it's even the birth of something new. 230 00:18:29.360 --> 00:18:34.460 What we need to pay attention to, however, is Taylor's secular. 231 00:18:34.490 --> 00:18:38.290 All belief is contested and thus made. 232 00:18:38.320 --> 00:18:40.120 Fragile. 233 00:18:41.720 --> 00:18:44.810 Of Andrew roots was that we live in a 234 00:18:44.840 --> 00:18:48.980 cellular age because we can imagine living. 235 00:18:49.010 --> 00:18:56.040 And at times we do live as though there is no transcendent quality to life at all. 236 00:18:56.280 --> 00:18:58.770 He suggested most of us live as though 237 00:18:58.800 --> 00:19:03.740 there is no living God who enters into persons. 238 00:19:03.770 --> 00:19:11.800 We hold to the idea of God, but a few of us are sure we can encounter this God. 239 00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:18.920 And so it's in this context that Rude declares the church cannot produce. 240 00:19:19.040 --> 00:19:22.380 So here's my big, bold statement the 241 00:19:22.410 --> 00:19:29.600 response to our present moment is not we need to do something. 242 00:19:29.800 --> 00:19:31.320 So this is the point where I'd. 243 00:19:31.320 --> 00:19:33.010 Like to return to Wesley and his three 244 00:19:33.040 --> 00:19:38.760 academics with God who shows up with Christian community. 245 00:19:39.160 --> 00:19:46.500 In our current conversation, we might ask what would John Wesley bring to the team? 246 00:19:46.530 --> 00:19:51.050 And this is just Danny's questions is. 247 00:19:51.080 --> 00:19:55.940 There really something we should be doing? 248 00:19:55.970 --> 00:20:02.530 Encounter with the other God shows up on the ship bound to Georgia, 1735, wesley 249 00:20:02.560 --> 00:20:08.330 experienced fierce storms and waves with the fear of the ship being sun. 250 00:20:08.360 --> 00:20:11.140 He was terrified, revealing to him the 251 00:20:11.170 --> 00:20:15.740 weakness of his faith, producing personal shame. 252 00:20:15.770 --> 00:20:18.900 The German Moravian believers on that 253 00:20:18.930 --> 00:20:24.090 ship, on the other hand, seemed ready to meet their deaths with calm assurance, 254 00:20:24.120 --> 00:20:28.250 continuing with worship and prayer in the midst of the storm. 255 00:20:28.280 --> 00:20:32.940 Wesley writes he had never encountered such personally assured faith. 256 00:20:32.970 --> 00:20:34.900 And he noted in his journal on seeing 257 00:20:34.930 --> 00:20:41.050 their behavior this was the most glorious day which I have ever seen. 258 00:20:41.080 --> 00:20:43.700 They all survived. 259 00:20:43.730 --> 00:20:45.980 Three years later, Wesley's experience 260 00:20:46.010 --> 00:20:51.180 that they all just gave society was in a similar in a personal crisis. 261 00:20:51.210 --> 00:20:53.290 Doubting his own abilities and 262 00:20:53.320 --> 00:20:58.900 spirituality depressed, wesley joins in a simple Bible study 263 00:20:58.930 --> 00:21:04.620 format where believers are reading scripture and a praying for enlightenment. 264 00:21:04.650 --> 00:21:13.960 I'm going to the non scholastic leader together in a simple Bible studying that 265 00:21:13.990 --> 00:21:23.700 with no other efforts on his part, wesley has an encounter with someone who. 266 00:21:23.730 --> 00:21:27.740 Is other than himself and he cannot. 267 00:21:27.770 --> 00:21:32.460 Express it in any other way than that God warmed his heart. 268 00:21:32.490 --> 00:21:34.800 Strangely. 269 00:21:36.720 --> 00:21:43.010 A Wesleyan narrative might suggest that we wait upon God in 270 00:21:43.040 --> 00:21:51.620 worship with prayerful expectation, not presumption spiritual disciplines. 271 00:21:51.650 --> 00:21:54.860 The means of grace, waiting on God to show 272 00:21:54.890 --> 00:22:01.290 up when God will show up in God's timing, allowing the space for the dialectic of 273 00:22:01.320 --> 00:22:07.400 response to God's freely offered prevention, grace. 274 00:22:07.720 --> 00:22:09.320 I wonder if that's how Wesley might. 275 00:22:09.350 --> 00:22:13.040 Have expressed and the encounter with the. 276 00:22:13.070 --> 00:22:15.460 Other, the community of God's people. 277 00:22:15.490 --> 00:22:18.090 Wesley's encounters with God were often 278 00:22:18.120 --> 00:22:21.700 realized within context of a gathering of believers. 279 00:22:21.730 --> 00:22:24.290 As a frightened onlooker aboard that ship 280 00:22:24.320 --> 00:22:29.840 to Georgia, wesley observed something transcendent in the gathered worship of 281 00:22:29.870 --> 00:22:36.090 Ocaravians a few years later, despite his own attempt to assay his soul. 282 00:22:36.120 --> 00:22:38.880 It was in the small gathered community of 283 00:22:38.910 --> 00:22:45.090 believers that always that he had his breaking through moment with God. 284 00:22:45.120 --> 00:22:46.860 And then, shortly following this 285 00:22:46.890 --> 00:22:51.400 experience but he traveled to Germany to explore. 286 00:22:52.040 --> 00:22:54.200 On the way. 287 00:22:55.000 --> 00:22:58.260 To explore the Arabian Model ministry, he 288 00:22:58.290 --> 00:23:04.500 realized that to them, the corporate aspect of conscious religious renewal from 289 00:23:04.530 --> 00:23:09.940 living faith signified, as it were, the recapturing of the life of the faith. 290 00:23:09.970 --> 00:23:12.500 Of the primitive Christian. 291 00:23:12.530 --> 00:23:15.050 Commenting on the class meeting as a 292 00:23:15.080 --> 00:23:20.840 prudential means of grace, wesley argued, there is something not easily explained in 293 00:23:20.870 --> 00:23:27.660 the fellowship of a spirit which we enjoy in a society of living Christians. 294 00:23:27.690 --> 00:23:32.380 Wesley wisely discerned the beginnings of faith in a person's heart could be 295 00:23:32.410 --> 00:23:38.570 incubated into saving faith more effectively in the warm Christian 296 00:23:38.600 --> 00:23:47.860 atmosphere of the society than in the chill of the world, I should say. 297 00:23:47.890 --> 00:23:49.800 But commenting on Carl Bart's 298 00:23:49.830 --> 00:23:55.860 ecclesiology, our Snyder suggests, and I know it's because he's having 299 00:23:55.890 --> 00:24:01.220 conversation the significance of the church is that as 300 00:24:01.250 --> 00:24:07.090 a provisional representation, it is the place of the demonstration of Christ 301 00:24:07.120 --> 00:24:12.540 reconciled work community is the central fact of the Church's being. 302 00:24:12.570 --> 00:24:14.020 It's coming together. 303 00:24:14.050 --> 00:24:17.980 It's gathering together in Christ's name. 304 00:24:18.010 --> 00:24:21.180 So a Wesleyan narrative suggests that the 305 00:24:21.210 --> 00:24:26.540 intentional gathering together in these smaller groupings is a prime 306 00:24:26.570 --> 00:24:33.940 setting counted with God, mediated through the fellowship of the Spirit. 307 00:24:33.970 --> 00:24:41.700 All that one another in the New Testament require intentional fellowship. 308 00:24:41.730 --> 00:24:44.380 So allowing space of the dialect of 309 00:24:44.410 --> 00:24:49.940 response one to another in the fellowship under this framework of Christian love. 310 00:24:49.970 --> 00:24:52.090 Wonder if that's how wealthy might have 311 00:24:52.120 --> 00:24:57.290 expressed this and then encountering the stranger as 312 00:24:57.320 --> 00:25:04.050 other acts of mercy transformative what these encounters with the poor and other 313 00:25:04.080 --> 00:25:07.700 marginalized people were like to transform them. 314 00:25:07.730 --> 00:25:10.660 He connects engagement with the poor and the marginalized. 315 00:25:10.690 --> 00:25:17.620 Whoever is being others as a means of grace, as a practice necessary to 316 00:25:17.650 --> 00:25:23.020 sanctification the transcendent spirit of God, is present 317 00:25:23.050 --> 00:25:29.380 in transforming servants in the act of service. 318 00:25:29.410 --> 00:25:33.140 Jamie Robertson has suggested that this is 319 00:25:33.170 --> 00:25:38.160 one of the new little book there that a distinctive of Canadian Christianity is 320 00:25:38.190 --> 00:25:43.460 the way in which successive ways of immigrants have brought their expressions 321 00:25:43.490 --> 00:25:49.120 of the faith to renew the faith of those who are previously. 322 00:25:49.200 --> 00:25:53.330 This is something that's happening in an unprecedented manner presently. 323 00:25:53.360 --> 00:25:55.920 As Stuart commented on this, and I would 324 00:25:55.950 --> 00:26:01.720 say it's perhaps being overlooked as a source of renewal in the Canadian 325 00:26:02.400 --> 00:26:08.330 is the dynamic faith of newcomers to Canada meaning welcomes? 326 00:26:08.360 --> 00:26:12.960 And are we adjusting our practices in. 327 00:26:13.800 --> 00:26:14.500 So? 328 00:26:14.530 --> 00:26:21.400 A Leslie narrative requires working out our salvation through encounter God. 329 00:26:23.480 --> 00:26:27.260 How we treat our neighbor, both the. 330 00:26:27.290 --> 00:26:31.320 Unbelieving stranger and our fellow believer of another. 331 00:26:32.360 --> 00:26:35.380 In a recent article in Faith Today, 332 00:26:35.410 --> 00:26:40.160 chris Bosh and Long Wong comment that there are negative like the behind the 333 00:26:40.190 --> 00:26:44.960 Christianity the local church can't do nothing about. 334 00:26:45.280 --> 00:26:47.260 Death is a part of human life. 335 00:26:47.290 --> 00:26:49.050 It's part of life of churches. 336 00:26:49.080 --> 00:26:54.860 They go on to say, a healthy church can benefit from asking questions 337 00:26:54.890 --> 00:27:03.480 why it exists, not how to do something, but why do we exist? 338 00:27:04.440 --> 00:27:08.600 Why does this called out immunity? 339 00:27:08.840 --> 00:27:11.780 That's a question I reflect on fairly well. 340 00:27:11.810 --> 00:27:18.180 Not on a sense of despair, but to continually adjust my focus when things 341 00:27:18.210 --> 00:27:25.840 are getting blurred by this narrative of concern or that strategic plan. 342 00:27:25.920 --> 00:27:28.940 Taylor that connects again the importance 343 00:27:28.970 --> 00:27:34.700 of social imaginary, where she says, the articulation of a story, a narrative that 344 00:27:34.730 --> 00:27:40.140 shapes who we are and where we want to go, what we're trying to bring out. 345 00:27:40.170 --> 00:27:42.500 If I was continually reflecting on the 346 00:27:42.530 --> 00:27:49.800 narrative of decline that seems many are, that would probably lead to despair. 347 00:27:49.880 --> 00:27:52.040 If I was to continually reflect on the 348 00:27:52.070 --> 00:27:59.540 narrative of we've got to do something, that would probably lead to burnout 349 00:27:59.570 --> 00:28:06.460 Matthew eleven jesus laments or denounces the towns that were unresponsive to 350 00:28:06.490 --> 00:28:13.000 administer, including Caperni, where he has invested significant time. 351 00:28:13.360 --> 00:28:15.420 And then he carries right on and I praise 352 00:28:15.450 --> 00:28:22.460 you bother because you've hidden these wise and to these guys. 353 00:28:22.490 --> 00:28:25.020 And then he concludes that little parikopy 354 00:28:25.050 --> 00:28:31.440 there come to me all you who are weary and burdens, and I will give you rest. 355 00:28:31.760 --> 00:28:35.330 I hear a narrative in this passage. 356 00:28:35.360 --> 00:28:38.180 All my energy invested there. 357 00:28:38.210 --> 00:28:42.020 Jesus said limited results. 358 00:28:42.050 --> 00:28:44.540 The Father reveals to whom the Father 359 00:28:44.570 --> 00:28:51.700 reveals, and this is who he gave come to me and I'll give you rest. 360 00:28:51.730 --> 00:28:58.180 That's an alternative narrative to you're not being effective. 361 00:28:58.210 --> 00:29:02.220 So you need to speed up and do something. 362 00:29:02.250 --> 00:29:07.500 So here's my Wesley narrative, my alternative narrative, not a formula, but 363 00:29:07.530 --> 00:29:11.180 a story I tell myself the center of my home. 364 00:29:11.210 --> 00:29:15.040 We're living in challenging times 365 00:29:15.520 --> 00:29:22.920 and most people are finding that God seems to be absent, 366 00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:27.960 doesn't really care about the conversation. 367 00:29:29.080 --> 00:29:33.000 Our task is equipped to prepare the. 368 00:29:33.030 --> 00:29:35.860 Congregation for their daily ministry 369 00:29:35.890 --> 00:29:42.320 interface with this set of circumstances in which we find ourselves. 370 00:29:42.600 --> 00:29:45.420 I've got five people in my church. 371 00:29:45.450 --> 00:29:47.760 Who are on strike. 372 00:29:51.080 --> 00:29:54.980 These are people all with master's degrees in one. 373 00:29:55.010 --> 00:29:57.020 They're immigrants. 374 00:29:57.050 --> 00:30:00.900 They've been living here in Canada for a dozen years. 375 00:30:00.930 --> 00:30:06.360 They did a master's degree or a PhD at Rock University. 376 00:30:07.280 --> 00:30:13.560 For five years I wrestled with how do we do something? 377 00:30:14.640 --> 00:30:18.140 And this narrative right here has been 378 00:30:18.170 --> 00:30:26.420 wrapped up around actually I just need to help them be able to 379 00:30:26.450 --> 00:30:29.980 interface with the church in every sphere in. 380 00:30:30.010 --> 00:30:32.880 Which they live their life. 381 00:30:33.880 --> 00:30:42.000 And so my ministry is to encourage, to 382 00:30:44.960 --> 00:30:49.700 we need to experience the living, resurrected Christ present in our lives. 383 00:30:49.730 --> 00:30:51.980 We need to experience the encouraging, 384 00:30:52.010 --> 00:30:57.860 spirit directed promptings of our brothers as life giving as necessary. 385 00:30:57.890 --> 00:31:00.140 And we need to experience opportunities 386 00:31:00.170 --> 00:31:04.660 for engaging, serving those who are different from us. 387 00:31:04.690 --> 00:31:10.600 In short, we exist to affirm the living god is not absent from our. 388 00:31:10.630 --> 00:31:13.660 Society and that the truth of that. 389 00:31:13.690 --> 00:31:15.940 Impacts how we live. 390 00:31:15.970 --> 00:31:20.500 And as we do this, we bear faithful witness. 391 00:31:20.530 --> 00:31:23.500 My literal conclusion is here. 392 00:31:23.530 --> 00:31:29.640 Our task is to simply facilitate the observance of and participation. 393 00:31:29.960 --> 00:31:31.940 And in doing so, it'll have the most 394 00:31:31.970 --> 00:31:39.050 consistent record of God showing powerful ways to convert to sanctifying the news. 395 00:31:39.080 --> 00:31:42.810 That's the narrative that gets me out of the market. 396 00:31:42.840 --> 00:31:45.020 Will the work survive? 397 00:31:45.050 --> 00:31:48.480 That's a question for the God of the ages.