Decision #7

Decision #7

Reinstituting Guidelines for Discipline

Focus

The biblical mandate for

rules, accountability, and order

 John Wesley (50)

Better forty members should be lost than our discipline lost.  They are no Methodists that will bear no restraints.

Be exact in every point of discipline. Keep the rules and they will keep you.

Discipling involves:

(1)  Obedience to the commandments of Lord Jesus Christ;

(2)  Obedience to the Holy Spirit, who lives in us;

(3)  Obedience to our spiritual leaders, who are training us in “holiness of heart and life”;

(4)  Obedience to the rules of the Church  (52)

Accountability Defined  

“Accountability is not a judgement, nor judgmentalist.  Accountability is an attitude of love of God and care about self and other people we love and trust.  Accountability is the commitment to self and other loved ones to encourage, teach, build up, and sometimes to correct each other in order to be Kingdom people doing Kingdom Living.  Accountability with this attitude and in this context is love assuring salvation.”  [p. 53]  [This is not a quote from Wesley but a quote form the book, Kingdom People, p. 405, by James B. Scott and Molly Davis Scott.]

Accommodation and appeasement do not work . . . . [54]

So how do we in the twenty-first century return to the strict discipline of The United Methodist Church?  It can be done – there is a way to make it happen.  [55]

Decision #7:

To rebuild a system of clear and strict discipline, and therefore accountability, around a host of practices that will give us assurance of salvation and take us on to sanctification, holiness, and perfect love, to the restoration of the image Christ in us.

MEM COMMENTS

The authors offer no means to restore the discipline referred to here.  In a radically individualized culture restoring any consensus on what this means especially when employed in a practical sense to will be very difficult.  Currently, we have a radically polarized culture and radically polarized church. 

We are split along political lines that are only marginally related to the theological issues.  Many folks either or not aware of this fact or in denial.  History does not give us much evidence that these differences can be resolved without conflict.  The attitudes related on one's understand of the “right way of life” are deep and fundamental to each person.  The witness of the Civil Way and the fight for civil rights for blacks and other minorities still going on should be enough evidence to proof this point.

Again, I return to the importance of “right relationship.”  Discipline and accountability come only when people feel they are in a loving, deep, and trustful relationship with others.  The lack of community and basic trust are major issues to be addressed before we can really talk about the matter of 'rules.'