Discipleship and the people called Methodists - BEH District

to discern what God was saying to them as Methodist Christians in Britain, both
as a Church and as individual disciples. But they also gathered to test out together
what they felt God was already making clear; after all God had not been silent to
that point. The statements below are the main aspirations, desires and intentions
of that gathering, which consciously built upon Our Calling, The Priorities and
Regrouping for Mission. They serve to ‘flesh out’ the nature of Methodist Christian
discipleship listed earlier.
We share a desire to be bolder and more courageous about being Methodist
disciples in today’s challenging contexts. ‘Let’s give up apologising for being
Methodists!’
The bolder witness we seek must be characterised by grace and humility rather
than arrogance. This will arise from a greater acknowledged reliance upon and
confidence in the love of God in Christ and the promise of the Holy Spirit.
There is a general awareness and grateful acceptance that God is not finished
with us yet. But as a consequence of this, the challenge of continuing change
and openness to change lie before us.
We are increasingly ready to take ‘Godly’ and ‘holy’ risks, and give permission
to each other to do so. This will inevitably involve some failure, which, in the
context of the proper accountability of being Methodists must be permitted as
a necessary part of Godly risk-taking.
We recognise the need to create ‘space’ of various kinds in which listening to
God, each other and our wider context can take place, for our common benefit
and renewal.
We are aware that the struggle to change our own Church culture further
away from despair and increasingly towards God-given hope, and from often
purposeless, goal-less processes towards purposeful kingdom thinking and
action is going to be long and tough. But we are resolved to continue to engage
in that struggle, believing it to be necessary, possible and God’s desire for us.
We are increasingly ready to ‘remember our roots’ and live more comfortably
in them, allowing ourselves to let some things die while at the same time
identifying and keeping the jewels or seeds of our tradition, and so ‘remembering
our future’ as well as our past.
We are willing to engage with the challenge of seeking a new narrative, those
stories that articulate who we are and what we seek to be, and thereby
increasingly shape our life as Methodist Christians. This story must not be