How Wesley Organized for Transformation

After retiring last month from military service as an Army chaplain, I was able to attend my first district preachers meeting in 27 years last week. The district superintendent spent most of the meeting reminding us of Methodism's earliest means of making disciples. John Wesley, he recalled, organized Methodists into societies, classes and bands.

Methodism was primarily an activity empowered by lay leaders. It was a movement, not a church. Participation in Methodist activities did not replace ordinary Christian worship, but supplemented it. Wesley also expected Methodists to attend weekly divine worship and receive communion in their local parishes. The purpose of the Methodist organization was to assist members in opening their lives to the transforming power of God.

The society was the "big meeting" level of Methodist organization. Societies met together weekly for prayer, teaching, preaching and singing.  Societies also regularly conducted love feasts, a ritualized common meal (to be distinguished from the sacrament of Holy Communion at which only clergy could preside). And although preaching, singing and love feasts can engage the heart, the mind and the imagination, Methodism never would have worked without the class meetings that supported it.

Classes consisted of about 12 men and women and also met weekly. Classes began as a way of collecting regular contributions for the work of the movement, but evolved into a method of mutual accountability and support. Class participation was a requirement for participation in the society's love feasts. Weekly, each member answered the question, "How is it with your soul?" Specifically, the question was meant to engage members on their Christian walk. Class leaders advised, encouraged and admonished members, all of whom had committed to living by the General Rules. Members "watched over each other in love."

Bands were the smallest and most intense of the three groups, consisting of about 5 members of the same sex and marital status. Participation was voluntary but highly encouraged. At each meeting, members answered five questions.

1. What known sins have you committed since our last meeting?
2. What temptations have you met with?
3. How were you delivered?
4. What have you thought, said, or done, of which you doubt whether it be sin or not?
5. Have you nothing you desire to keep secret?

To me, bands resemble something like a meeting of Alcoholics Anonymous, where the purpose is to support others in overcoming a form of enslavement through honesty and encouragement. The purpose of confession is not shame and embarrassment, but freedom and empowerment.

All of this activity was meant to support Christians who had begun the journey to perfection in love. God's grace both pardoned and sanctified. Through Jesus Christ, God sets the sinner free from both the guilt and the power of sin. The Methodist forms of conferencing together became a means through which God brought about real transformation in the individual soul.

This is what Methodism looked like in the beginning.