Read an Excerpt
Five Marks of a Methodist
The Fruit of a Living Faith Leader Guide
By Magrey R. deVega, Steve Harper Abingdon Press
Copyright © 2016 Abingdon Press
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-5018-2025-0
CHAPTER 1
EPISODE 1
Character: The Marks of a Methodist
INTRODUCTION
Character describes not just the qualities of an individual person; it is the foundation upon which a group of similarly characterized people discover and sustain their corporate meaning. In other words, the choices one makes about how one will live not only impact their own lives but also the lives of those with whom that person chooses to identify. And the opposite is also true: the corporate character of a group of people will also shape the individual choices that its members make. Group character both feeds and is fed by the choices of its participants.
This is the reason Wesley wrote his treatise The Character of a Methodist, which is the subject of our small group study. This opening session will help your class:
1. Explore the concept of "character" and why it is a foundational topic for spiritual growth;
2. Offer initial impressions of the five marks of a Methodist as a baseline for understanding;
3. Commit together to create an environment of support, prayer, and trust.
GATHERING (5 Minutes)
Invite participants to listen as you read aloud the following words of Charles Wesley's poem "Where Shall My Wondering Soul Begin": "Where shall my wondering soul begin? / How shall I all to heaven aspire? / A slave redeemed from death and sin, / A brand plucked from eternal fire, /how shall I equal triumphs raise, / and sing my great deliverer's praise?"
Invite students to reflect silently on those words for two minutes. After the silence, have them turn to a person next to them to share what words, phrases, or ideas resonate with them.
Ask a participant to open the session with a word of prayer.
REFLECTIONS ON THE READING (10 Minutes)
Have the class brainstorm a list of the kinds of groups they are involved in outside the church. That list might include civic organizations, service clubs, recreational sports leagues, work teams, etc. After the class has come up with that list, have them pair up and explore more deeply one of the groups on the list. For that group, have the pair write up a list of character qualities that can be used to describe not only the group as a whole but also the required characteristics of each member of the group. For example, for a sports team, character qualities might include "commitment to practice" and "desire to win." For a work team, qualities might include "trust in each other" and "dedication to the task."
Invite some of the pairs to share their conclusions. Then as a class, have everyone reflect on the question, "How does being part of a group shape the character qualities of individual members of that group?" Then, make the connection to the Christian church. Tell the class that for Methodists, there are five marks that define all people who call themselves Methodist. It is a list of expectations that every Methodist must fulfill as members of that group.
They are:
1. A Methodist Loves God
2. A Methodist Rejoices in God
3. A Methodist Gives Thanks
4. A Methodist Prays Constantly
5. A Methodist Loves Others
VIDEO SEGMENT (15 Minutes)
Video segment by Dr. Steve Harper, author of Five Marks of a Methodist and retired professor of Spiritual Formation and Wesley Studies.
VIDEO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (10 Minutes)
1. Do you agree that the culture (Wesley's and ours) determines value or worth by achievements and appearances (vs. character and integrity)? Why or why not?
2. Steve describes his father as a person of character. If character is how you act when no one is watching, who is a person of character in your corner of the world? Why?
3. What does it mean to say that in matters of the spiritual life we are always beginners? How will you begin again in the coming weeks?
THE JOURNEY AHEAD (15 Minutes)
A. The Five Marks
Have the class refer again to the list of five marks of a Methodist that will guide these sessions ahead. As a group, discuss each of the five marks, and ask people to share their understanding of what that mark means.
• What does it mean, for example, to rejoice in God?
• Of all the qualities that Wesley might have chosen, why is this one of the five that he identifies as important?
• What questions do you have about what this mark means?
B. The Character of This Group
Together, come up with a list of characteristics that will define this group's time together. What can they expect from each other in relation to each of the following characteristics:
• Being prepared for each session;
• Listening and contributing to each session;
• Honoring differences;
• Resolving conflict;
• Encouraging honesty and protecting confidentiality;
• Praying for each other;
• Being punctual and honoring each other's time;
• Creating an atmosphere of joy, love, and laughter.
After the class has come up with these shared values, have the list printed and displayed for all future sessions. Class members might even choose to sign the list to ritually commit to sharing those values.
LOOKING AHEAD AND CLOSING PRAYER (5 Minutes)
Remind participants to keep up with the daily readings and exercises for the week ahead if they are using the participant character resource found in the appendix of this leader guide.
Have the class share joys and prayer concerns, and invite them to be in prayer for each other over the upcoming week. Invite someone to close in prayer.
CHAPTER 2
EPISODE 2
The First Mark: A Methodist Loves God
INTRODUCTION
Loving God is part of the greatest commandment of Jesus, and it is a hallmark of the Methodist spiritual life. All of the other marks of a Methodist are drawn out of this central aspect of Christian character. Without loving God, the others are impossible to perform.
This session will help your class:
1. Determine how all that we love in our lives can flow out of our love for God;
2. Learn how to love God selflessly, rather than out of selfish motivation;
3. Discover how to love God with all our heart, being, and mind.
GATHERING (5 Minutes)
Invite participants to read in unison the quote from John Wesley at the beginning of chapter 1 of Five Marks of a Methodist (p. 1): "'What then is the mark? Who is a Methodist, according to your own account?' I answer: A Methodist is one who has 'the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Ghost given to us.'" Invite students to reflect silently on those words for two minutes. After the silence, have them turn to a person next to them to share what words, phrases, or ideas resonate with them.
Ask a participant to open the session with a word of prayer.
REFLECTIONS ON THE READING (10 Minutes)
Tell participants that Dr. Harper reminds us that to love God does not mean that we are not to love anything or anyone else, but that all of the love we share must flow out of the context of our love for God (p. 4).
Even though God's love is perfect, our human capacity to love is not. We are therefore prone to loving God out of purely self-seeking motivations, which is often expressed in prayers that are more about what God is doing for us, rather than simply acknowledging who God is.
Invite the class to work together on coming up with a list of qualities they believe describe God, ensuring that each quality is not about what God does for humans but simply describes who God is. For example, guide the class to think about descriptors such as "holy" and "just" and "mysterious" rather than "saving" and "comforting" and "always there when I need God."
Ask, "Was it difficult to come up with words that talk about God, apart from what God does for us? How might this list we came up with guide the way you love God simply for who God is?"
VIDEO SEGMENT (15 Minutes)
Video segment by Dr. Steve Harper, author of Five Marks of a Methodist, and retired professor of Spiritual Formation and Wesley Studies.
VIDEO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (10 Minutes)
1. Did your experience of God's love begin with someone who loved you or with the church and its story of God's saving love in the Bible (or somewhere else)?
2. Steve (and Wesley) remind us that God loves first and our love always follows that initiative. Share a time when you loved first and someone else responded.
3. Are you carrying a "thimble" or a "barrel" into the downpour of God's love this week? What would help you rightsize to a bigger vessel?
REFLECTIONS ON THE SCRIPTURE (10 Minutes)
Invite someone in the class to read aloud Matthew 22:36-38. Have the class break up into three groups, and have them fill out one of the following three lists:
1. Ways to love God with all my heart
2. Ways to love God with all my being
3. Ways to love God with all my mind
After the groups have shared their lists with the class, have the class reflect together on barriers that prevent us from loving God in each of the ways described in those lists. Which ways are the most challenging? What barriers are the most difficult to overcome?
Next, have someone in the class read Romans 8:35-39. Have the class work together to make a list of all the barriers that might prevent us from God's love (notice in particular the words listed in verses 35, 38, and 39). Ask the class to reflect together on the question, "If God has broken down each of these barriers, what difference should that make in how we love God?"
PRACTICAL APPLICATION (5 Minutes)
Dr. Harper reminds us that the outcome of loving God is joy. Have someone read aloud the closing paragraph on p. 10, beginning with "As we can see from Wesley's exclamation above, the love of God produces joy." Then invite the class to break into groups of three and have them share with their partners the ways that they will choose to love God more this week and live a life of joy.
LOOKING AHEAD AND CLOSING PRAYER (5 Minutes)
Remind participants to keep up with the daily readings and exercises for the week ahead if they are using the participant character resource found in the appendix of this leader guide.
Have the class share joys and prayer concerns, and invite them to be in prayer for each other over the upcoming week. Invite someone to close in prayer.
CHAPTER 3
EPISODE 3
The Second Mark: A Methodist Rejoices in God
INTRODUCTION
Joy is an essential ingredient to Christian character. It is not a fleeting emotion, such as happiness or gladness; nor is it always a conscious choice, such as contentment or patience. Rather, it is a result of one's encounter with the faithful love and grace of God. In other words, it is a natural response to the favor that God has given us, regardless of our circumstances.
This session will help your class:
1. Discover a fuller definition of biblical joy;
2. Identify the barriers that prevent us from experiencing joy;
3. Determine steps to have a freer experience of God's joy in our heads and hearts.
GATHERING (5 Minutes)
Invite participants to read in unison the lyrics from the Charles Wesley hymn "Rejoice the Lord Is King!" on page 20. "Rejoice the Lord is King! / Your Lord and King adore; / mortals, give thanks and sing, / and triumph ever more. / Lift up your heart, lift up your voice; / rejoice; again I say, rejoice." Invite students to reflect silently on those words for two minutes. After the silence, have them turn to a person next to them to share what words, phrases, or ideas resonate with them.
Ask a participant to open the session with a word of prayer.
REFLECTIONS ON THE READING (10 Minutes)
Invite participants to break into groups of three and describe for their partners a time when they experienced real joy. How was that feeling of joy similar to and different from happiness? Is there a difference?
Invite the class to break up into three groups, and have each group reflect together on one of the following quotes by Dr. Harper in this chapter:
• "The primary expression of strength is joy." (p. 16)
• "'Happiness' is a deeply ethical word that means the harvest of a life given over to righteousness." (p. 17)
• "The basis for our joy ... is the atonement." (p. 19)
Ask each group to describe the meaning of these statements, perhaps restating the meaning in their own words. Then have each group share their explanations with the other two.
When all the groups have shared, ask the whole class to reflect together on these questions:
• "What are the obstacles that often prevent us from rejoicing in God in this way, and experiencing this kind of joy?"
• "What can we do to overcome these obstacles?"
VIDEO SEGMENT (15 Minutes)
Video segment by Dr. Steve Harper, author of Five Marks of a Methodist, and retired professor of Spiritual Formation and Wesley Studies.
VIDEO DISCUSSION QUESTIONS (10 Minutes)
1. Wesley had no use for "dour godliness" and calls it "the Devil's religion." Who is the most joyous person you know? Describe that person.
2. How is joy the sign that we've experienced love? Is that true in your life?
3. What "joy set before you" kept you going through difficult times or "crosses" in your own life?
REFLECTIONS ON THE SCRIPTURE (10 Minutes)
Break the class into four groups, and have each group reflect together on one of the following four scripture passages referenced in this chapter:
• Nehemiah 8:10
• Matthew 5:8, 12
• 1 John 4:18
• Romans 5:8
Have someone in the group read the passage aloud. Then ask the group to work together to answer the question: "What do these verses tell us is the source of our joy?"
PRACTICAL APPLICATION (5 Minutes)
One of the hallmarks of Wesleyan thought is its balance between the head and the heart, between thinking and emotion. For Wesley, there is no reason to choose between the two, as both are necessary in experiencing and understanding the fullness of God's love. Dr. Harper closed this chapter with a conversation between John Wesley and August Spangenburg that underscores this balance.
Have someone read that closing story aloud (found on page 20). Then invite the participants to break up into pairs and reflect with their partners on ways they will seek to find balance between their head and their heart in their experience of God's love this week.
To spur some ideas for people, the following might be ways to emphasize the "head":
• Reading books on the spiritual life, theology, or biblical study;
• Having deep conversations with a spiritual friend;
• Engaging a line of biblical interpretation or theological perspective with which they might not entirely agree.
The following might be ways to engage the "heart":
• Spending time in nature and communing with God;
• Singing or reading the lyrics to Wesley hymns;
• Creating artwork, poetry, or dance in response to some theological concept.
Invite them to share their experiences in next week's class.
LOOKING AHEAD AND CLOSING PRAYER (5 Minutes)
Remind participants to keep up with the daily readings and exercises for the week ahead if they are using the participant character resource found in the appendix of this leader guide.
Have the class share joys and prayer concerns, and invite them to be in prayer for each other over the upcoming week. Invite someone to close in prayer.
CHAPTER 4
EPISODE 4
The Third Mark: A Methodist Gives Thanks
INTRODUCTION
Children learn the value of saying "thank you" at an early age. It is a core quality of a polite, decent character. We write thank-you notes for gifts that others give us; we express gratitude when others do us a favor; we offer appreciation to others when they do a good job.
But how often do we forget to say "thank you" to God? Perhaps we are quick to acknowledge many of our obvious blessings: health, family, and provision. But what difference would it make in our level of gratitude to God if we saw all of life and all of our being as gifts from God?
This session will help your class:
1. Heighten our awareness of God's many blessings, every day of our lives;
2. Discover how gratitude to God is rooted in an acknowledgment of God's nature, rather than simply blessings to us;
3. Renew a commitment to faithfully express gratitude to God.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Five Marks of a Methodist by Magrey R. deVega, Steve Harper. Copyright © 2016 Abingdon Press. Excerpted by permission of Abingdon Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.
