Real Methodism

In the Methodist Church of Haiti, the original form of Methodism is still winning people to Christ and transforming their lives. The Methodist Church here is still based on classes. Lay people, not clergy, provide most of the leadership in the church. A class, of which there are seven at the Methodist Church of Carrefour, meet weekly. If tomorrow, you wanted to become a Methodist. The first thing that you would do is join a class meeting, The class meeting is where you come to Christ and become a Methodist. At your first class meeting, you dedicate your life to Jesus Christ. At the second class meeting, you have begun your studies for baptism. Yes, studies. You take between two to three months to be trained in the ways of the Christian faith. There are no altar call Christians in Haiti. Actually, the revival and altar call are important parts of of the Methodist experience in Haiti. But, in Haiti once you give your life to Christ you are not left as easy prey for Satan. You are trained and strengthened in the Christian faith. After your training, you are then baptized. At your baptism the pastor gives you a Bible and a Book of Discipline. The Discipline in Haiti outlines how a Christian should live and participate in the church. It provides spiritual guidance and reads more like the book of James than Leviticus. The model of catechesis (training in the Christian faith) in Haiti is more similar to early Methodism and early Christianity that United Methodism is.
United Methodism thinks of classes only in terms of Sunday school, this is part of our problem. In Haiti, the class is the primary place in which spiritual formation and accountability occurs. Each class has a leader and a steward. They are empowered to teach Scripture, forgive sins, and hold students accountable during their time in class. The class leaders are continually measuring the spiritual temperature of the church and helping people live transformed lives. The classes teach each other scripture, provide a place of sharing and accountability in their Christian walk, and places of prayer and healing support for one another. The personal nature of Methodism in Haiti and the sense of identity it creates is much stronger than in the United Methodist Church.
The worship service is where the classes join together in weekly praise of God. They are amazing. Each class has responsibilities in the life of the church and the stewards take care of the details. The pastors become involve to help smooth over conflict and attend class meetings to encourage the faithful and be supportive. They are also able to be in the community reaching out beyond the walls of the church, because the lay people are spiritually formed, well organized, and have a high sense of calling to their role in the congregation. By contrast in the UMC, lay people tend to lack formation to such a degree that many pastors are relatively biblically illiterate. A UMC sermon is more likely to talk about a recent movie than the forgiveness of sins. John Wesley is a forgotten after thought instead of an important saint of the church whose calling to faithfulness through obedience is one we should still heed.
Once sin is reduced to a separation from God instead of disobedience. The result is a collapse in the doctrine of sin, If the doctrine of sin collapses, you no longer need class meetings for accountability. Each believer simply relativizes their sin. The sin of those people is bad, but my sin is okay. Then bishops call us, the UMC, to "stay in love with God" instead of Wesley's third general rule "Attend upon all of the ordinances of God." When training in the Christian faith becomes optional. Satan wins.
The semi-literate Methodists of Haiti can articulate the essential doctrines of the Christian faith more articulately than many of the well educated professional Methodists of the UMC because they have been taught the faith, they have studied the faith, and now are striving to live out of that faith. And, this process continues to bring people into a deeper experience of sanctification and yes grows the church better than eroding the doctrine of sin. The American Methodist Church spread this organizational structure back when it was still a growing and vibrant world changing denomination pre-1908.
It would seem to me that if you get lost, you turn around and go back to the place you remember and try to go from there. Today, United Methodism continues its free fall. Can we even remember the place and time that we were successful in making disciples of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the world? I can't but help wonder how the UMC might be different if our Book of Discipline organized the church with less concern about legal liability and more concern about Spiritual Formation and catechesis. What if instead of being afraid of our members thinking the process was too hard, we assumed that they come to church not for a club, but to be formed in Christ. What if we empowered them to be the people of God in a way that would transform their household for generations, the way early Methodism did?
Some fear that this approach is simply a new conservatism. They think that a doctrine of sin will make United Methodism into a holier than thou televangelist sect (I had a colleague at seminary make this claim when I wrote a paper that which asserted that it was better to be a Christian than not to be one). But, I think that this fear is unfounded. Being able to re-claim the language of sin, forgiveness, and grace from the literalists, as Barbara Brown Taylor advocates in her book Speaking of Sin, does not necessitate a particular liberal or conservative view but instead provides a formative experience which would allow the UMC to have a shared life again. This discipleship formation can not happen without intense formation of Christian disciples as Elaine Heath rightly explains in the Mystic Way of Evangelism. The model for such formation, the repeatable and scalable model the UMC lack, remains hear in Haiti in a land where Methodism remains transformative, relevant and real.