In today’s world, when we think about starting a new church, or taking the gospel to a new place, I think it is easy to want to ask first about who will lead it. We need to find a leader, make sure they have some training, a vision, and all the rest. Other things need to be planned, but we often act as if communities of faith stand or fall based on their leaders, and this is often the pastor.
That isn’t how it has always been, though. Methodism, in its earliest days, was hugely lay-driven. They couldn’t help but be driven by the laypeople. There were only ever a handful of ordained clergy involved with the Methodists in those early days. We often think of the spread of Methodism as taking place when Wesley and the other preachers traveled from place to place and proclaimed the gospel. That was part of it, to be sure, but more of the spreading happened when Lay leaders moved from one place to another, taking their faith with them.
We see this perhaps most clearly in the rise of Methodism in America. It was laypeople, not clergy, who got things going. The people recognized a need and rose to meet it and then leadership caught up, sent a pastor, and included them in a circuit. More often than not, new preaching stations started because Methodists in one town realized that there was a new settlement but it didn’t have a class meeting, so they went and started a small group.
Speaking of small groups, all the preaching in the world can’t make disciples of people who don’t live their lives for Jesus every day. The preaching made a difference, but the REAL heroes of early Methodism were the class leaders who helped people think about their Christian life, how they were living, how they needed to grow, and how to take the next steps of faith.
This really isn’t anything new. Right after we read of Stephen being stoned to death as the first Christian martyr, we read, “On that day a great persecution broke out against the church in Jerusalem, and all except the apostles were scattered throughout Judea and Samaria” (Acts 8:1b). It is sad that the people scattered, but they took their faith with them. The gospel didn’t spread primarily because the apostles took it places, it was because ordinary Christians took their faith wherever they went and made a difference wherever they lived.
We are called to be disciples who make disciples. As we make those disciples, we are also called to spread scriptural holiness across the globe. That isn’t just a call for clergy. It is a call for every Global Methodist, every Christian. Step up into leadership. Start a small group. Start to pray about a new church plant, one that starts with the people, not the pastors. After all, that is our heritage, both as Methodists and as Christians.
