Decision #3

Decision #3

Redefining the Laity

FOCUS

The role of the laos, 

the “people of God,” 

in biblical Christianity

 and in historic Methodism

Scriptures:  Matthew 4:18-19; Ephesians 4:11-13;

John Wesley

By Methodists I mean a people who profess to pursue (in whatever measure they have attained) holiness of heart and life, inward and outward conformity to all things to the revealed will of God; who place religion in an uniform resemblance of the great object of it; in a steady imitation of Him they worship in all His imitable perfections; more particularly  in justice, mercy, an truth, or universal love filling the heart, and governing the life. 

Give me one hundred preachers who fear nothing but sin and desire nothing but God, and I care not a straw whether they be clergymen or laymen, such alone will shake the gates of hell and set up the Kingdom of God on earth. 

Wesley Innovations:  (1)  Field preaching;  (2)  Extemporaneous prayer;  (3)  Lay preachers

Lay Preachers

“This was revolutionary in actual social fact.  It was the Methodist laypeople  - and lay pastors –  who, more than any other group in Britain, reversed the trend toward anarchy and corruption in eighteenth-century England – chiefly because of their newfound dignity (sense of worth), their assurance of God's gracious and concerned evaluation of them in Christ.  They emerged a new class in English society, and they provided the moral, economic, and political muscle needed for social reform in the nineteenth century. . . -  social reforms that made nineteenth-century England relatively Christian and humane, as compared to any  previous age, or any since then, for that matter.”  Dr. Outler [98]

Outler goes in remark how minor the role of the professional clergy has been, comparatively speaking, especially in the times of the church's crises and radical transitions. [98]

Author's Conclusion:  Methodism was essentially a lay movement according to both Outler and Watkins [See quotes on pages 98-99]

Francis Asbury  -  a major force in the growth of Methodism in America was a layperson ordained a deacon one day, an elder the next, and consecrate as bishop (superintendent) the next.  [101]

Dr. Howard Grimes, professor at Perkins School of Theology, in his book, The Rebirth of the Laity, in 1962, called “for opening up power sharing to the laity  . . . to rekindle the evangelical flame  . . . in their hearts.  [102]