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The Four Wheels of United Methodist Connectionalism: Imagining God's

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The Four Wheels of United Methodist Connectionalism: Imagining God's The Four Wheels of United Methodist Connectionalism: Imagining God’s Superabundant Grace at Work in the Indiana Area UMC Michael G. Cartwright Founding Director of the Lantz Center for Christian Vocations (1998-2001) and Dean of Ecumenical & Interfaith Programs (2002 to date) University of Indianapolis [I pray] that you may have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now unto him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations for ever and ever. Amen. – Ephesians 3:18-21 To be “connected” in the 21st century is to be privileged. 1 Living in a world that is increasingly perceived to be “flat”, those of us who have access to the internet are able to be competitive in economies of money, education, and well-being (or health). And we can do so virtually any time in the day in the so-called “24-hour global economy” in which CNN never sleeps and “ebay” is always open for us to buy and sell, whether we need to do so or not. By contrast, those persons who do not have access to the internet by virtue of not having a computer are likely to be vulnerable due to the absence of money, a lack of education, and/or the curse of being uninsured. To be “connected” in the 18th and 19th centuries in England and America was also to be privileged. Although Methodist in the 18th and 19th centuries lived in a very different world of monetary exchange, educational opportunity, and communications ability Methodist at that time understood the benefits of being a “connectional” people. With their imaginations enriched by the metaphors and stories of the Old and New Testament scriptures, they celebrated the superabundance of God’s grace made possible through the life, ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. Indeed, it is not an exaggeration to say that Methodists displayed vivid imaginations of the ways that God 1 One of the responsibilities of those who are privileged to be connected as United Methodists is to be grateful for the benefits and blessings one experiences in the context of shared endeavors. I am grateful to the following United Methodists for their assistance and encouragement in the preparation of this paper. The Rev. Dr. Andy Kinsey, pastor of Vincennes Community UMC; the Rev. Bob Walters, Associate Director, South Indiana Conference Council on Ministries; and Ms. Cindy Tyree, Office Manager of the Office of Ecumenical & Interfaith Programs at the University of Indianapolis. 1 was using the church as the means for communicating the good news of the gospel to the principalities and powers of the world (Ephesians 3:9-10). One of the scriptural metaphors to which Methodists in England and America turned to help illustrate the benefits – or God-given blessings – of connectionalism was Ezekiel’s mysterious “wheel within the wheel” image. In the first chapter of Ezekiel’s prophecy, this image is laid out in vivid detail (Ezekiel 1:9-20). With Ezekiel, early Methodists were captivated by the spectacle of a chariot that moved with four sets of wheels within wheels as a metaphor for God’s transformative work in the world. In time, they would come to interpret their experience of God “raising up a people” for gospel ministry organized in bands, societies, circuits, and conferences with the image of the wheel within the wheel. As such, it became a primary image in what might be called the Methodist connectional imagination. Methodists on both sides of the Atlantic used Ezekiel’s image in different ways as they attempted to discern the activity of God’s Providence in the “wheels” of human history. This imagery of the “wheel within the wheel” can be found in several prominent documents of early Methodist leaders, including the 1778 sermon (No. 113) of John Wesley “On the Late Work of God in North America” and the 1798 “Explanatory Notes” to The Book of Discipline written by Bishop Francis Asbury and Bishop Thomas Coke. Drawing upon these materials, I will describe how it is possible to discern four such connectional “wheels-within-the-wheel” in the United Methodist tradition: 1) The Itinerant Wheel (the interlocking patterns of conferences & appointments) 2) The Potter’s Wheel (“Probationary” membership and Christian Formation) 3) Wisdom’s Wheel (spiral of learning) 4) The Macedonian Wheel (reaching out in Evangelism, Witness and Mission). Each of these images corresponds to a different feature of the Methodist connectional “economy” – ways of organizing the various temporal and spiritual dimensions of the household of faith that we know today as the United Methodist Church In the concluding section, I will briefly explain why there are no “fifth wheels” in a United Methodist understanding of connection. The “surpassing abundance” of God’s grace (Ephesians 3:19-21) is what continues to make it possible for United Methodists to 2 discern God’s work in us and in the world no matter how “flat” and/or one-dimensional the economies of the world may seem to be in our time and place. I. The First Wheel within the Wheel: Itinerant Ministry (the Temporal Economy) One of the most widespread images of the Methodist connection as a wheel within-the- wheel was the cycle of conferences associated with itinerant ministry. To take but one well- known example, on the occasion when American Methodists celebrated the centennial of the birth of Methodism in England, a clergyman from New York, used Ezekiel’s image of “the wheel within the wheel” in a speech that described the work of God in Methodism since 1739. The Itinerant Wheel At the end of a lengthy set of declarations about the “glories” of Methodism, the Rev. George Cookman asks his readers to consider a question: “What is Methodism? Methodism, sir, is a revival of New Testament primitive religion. .It is above all a revival of the missionary spirit, which . goes forth aggressively, under the external promise, to the conquest of the world. If, then, sir, this be a true version of Methodism . .What is the grand characteristic, the distinctive peculiarity of Methodism? I would answer, it is to be found in one single word, ITINERANCY. Yes, sir, this, under God, is the mighty spring of our motive power, the true secret of our unparalleled success.” 3 As Russell Richey, one of the leading historians of American Methodism, has observed, the fact that Rev. Cookman imaged Methodism as a “machine” is an indicator of the ways that the industrial revolution of England also funded the emerging Methodist “connectional imagination.” At a time when the centuries-old work of “cartwrights” (wagonmakers) and other forms of manual labor was beginning to be transformed, Methodists in America and England alike were fascinated by the “steam engine” and other labor-saving inventions that used wheels to perform work in new ways. As a result, they tended to image God’s work in the world in their lives as a series of interlocking wheels, each of which turned the other, within a set of weekly, quarterly, annual and quadrennial gatherings of Christian conference. The more successful American Methodists were in carrying out their mission of “spreading Scriptural holiness across the continent and reforming the land beginning with the church,” the more they admired the beauty of the connectionl as a “machine” that works. At their best, they gave the glory to God in the spirit of Ephesians 3:18-21 as they bore testimony to one another and the world to the superabundance of God’s grace that makes it possible to carry out this mission. At their worst, Methodists tended to admire the machinery of Methodist connectionalism as if it were the result of human ingenuity. Within this early 19th century example of Methodist connectional imagination, as Russell Richey has pointed out, “Methodism orbits from class to circuit, without housing itself, so to speak, in building or society. Methodism imaged itself, after the vision of Ezekiel, as intact, integrated, whole, perfect . .” (Many United Methodists are puzzled when they first encounter this image because this particular version of “the itinerant wheel” does not include the very entity that today seems to dominate our connectional imaginations – namely the congregation or “local church.” From the perspective of the twenty-first century, it is difficult to imagine being “Methodist” without inhabiting congregations. At the same time, it is not always clear whether we have come to think this way because of the actual strength of particular congregations in which we participate or because of the perceived weakness of other connectional entities such as the circuit, district, annual conference, etc.) It would be a mistake, though, to assume that Methodists in England and America ignored what took place in the face-to-face gatherings of local communities of Christians. Far from it! To bring this part of the Methodist connectional imagination into view, I need to call attention to a second wheel within the wheel image, one that has less to do with the construction 4 of organizational machinery and more to do with the transformation of human lives in the power of the Holy Spirit resulting in the creation of “earthen vessels” to be used for God’s purposes. II. The Second Wheel within the Wheel: Shaped for Service by the Potter’s Hand (the Spiritual Economy) More than four decades before George Cookman wrote about “the wheel within the wheel” as a figure for imagining Methodist itinerancy, another pair of prominent Methodist leaders argued that something else than itinerant ministry was the heart of the matter for the Methodist “connexion.” In their “Explanatory Notes” to the 1798 edition of The Book of Doctrines and Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America, Bishop Thomas Coke and Bishop Francis Asbury contended that “probationary membership” in the Methodist societies as the most important feature of the Methodist economy.
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