Discipleship and the people called Methodists - BEH District

individually and corporately. Its roots shaped a movement that simply didn’t feel
comfortable when ‘religious’ bits of discipleship were separated from ‘secular’ or
‘social’ bits. Methodist discipleship has therefore always meshed together morning
devotions, visiting folk, witnessing clearly to Christ at work and home through lives
and lips, joining a campaign to cancel developing nations’ debt, before attending
a time of worship with a fine supper afterwards!
What works of mercy are most pressing and required by Christian disciples
today?
Constancy and change
The ‘three simple rules’ are a real gift of God to Methodists because they continue
to provide a contextual and helpful way of being better disciples today. Do no
harm, do good and love God are guiding lights applicable in all times and places.
How these are lived out involves both constancy and change. Some things
remain constant. For example not stealing or murdering, and praying and sharing
in the Lord’s Supper are as right now as they were 0 years ago. We should
note though that when something is constant it doesn’t mean it’s unchanged.
The ways of praying and sharing Holy Communion today are various and hugely
nourishing and it may be that the spiritual staleness some of us experience
lies in mistaking constancy for things remaining unchanged. Constancy is about
receiving from God so as to be nourished, not thinking that ‘it’s just bread and
wine again’!
Other expressions of the rules change more profoundly over time. But very
much alive is whether as Christian disciples we should be counter cultural and
believe in honesty as an absolute virtue (‘Your “Yes” shall be Yes‘ as Jesus said)
or join in the pervading assumption that dishonesty is acceptable provided you are
not found out. ‘Doing no harm’ and ‘doing good’ today almost certainly includes
actions and commitments that couldn’t be known by early Methodists. Email
etiquette perhaps, or the use of the internet, ending world poverty, or a lifestyle
that signals the seriousness with which we want to care for God’s planet and its
fragile climate. In every time and place there will be apt expressions of Christian
faith, and these will be measures of our commitment to being better disciples
of Christ. Identifying what these ‘apt expressions’ are in the early twenty first
9