History of the Church: What Do Methodists Believe?

Hey everyone! So as some of you may or may not know, I am not only Methodist but after I graduate I plan on going to seminary to become a Methodist pastor. So I thought I’d do today’s post on asking; what exactly does that mean? What do Methodists believe?

According the United Methodists Church’s official website two things are needed for Christian life, faith and theology. I have to admit; I absolutely love how they word their definition of faith. “Faith-as-belief is active; it involves trusting, believe, following, hoping.” Theology, they say, is something that every individual should reflect on, not just the clergy.

This year, instead of a New Years Resolution, I picked one word for the whole year and every day I reflect on a Bible verse about that single word and I write about it in a journal. My word was faith. I did it because I wanted to live intentionally toward something good. I defined faith as confidence of trust in God, belief based on truth not proof and loyalty.

Through this exercise, so far I have learned about a fellowship, being small, patience, peace, righteousness, grace, action, death, and glory. My favorite echoes a little what the United Methodist Church’s Website meant when they said “Faith-as-belief is active”. Faith is a verb.

“So you see that Abrahams faith and the things he did worked together. He faith was made perfect by what he did.”

James 2:22

Perfect faith. Isn’t that what I’m striving for? His faith was made perfect by what he did. Faith is a verb. You do faith. Your noun faith grows when you do verb faith. Want confidence in God? Do something that forces you to trust him. Want belief without proof? Learn. Understand. Get to know the one you want to believe in. Want a loyalty in you that you never had before? Don’t leave his presence. You’ll be so busy worshipping the Lord who made you that you won’t have time to look for distractions. You want faith? Then do faith.

Now notice something; and I didn’t do this on purpose, I honestly didn’t even notice it until I looked over it again. How many of those verb faiths included reflecting on the theology? Reflecting on scripture? You want something dangerous and hard that will force you to trust God? Something life threatening and daring? Turn of the TV, put down your work, make the laundry wait until after. Read your Bible. I know it’s scary! The entire world may fall apart around you if you don’t get everything done! That’s why it builds confidence, that’s why it builds trust. The best way to believe in something is the understand it. And the best way to be loyal to someone is to know him. God wants to know you, personally and intimately. He loves you so much, words cannot describe.

That’s what Methodists believe. They believe in faith and theology. There is more, and throughout our time I will be getting to more, but that is what is at the main core.

Your Turn! What's one way that you can make your faith a verb, and use it to build your theology? Post it in the comments and then go do it!