Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.  James 5:16

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds.  Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.  (Hebrews 10: 24,25)

 

When I was still studying theology, and taking a class on church history, I spent some time studying John Wesley, the founder of what we now call “Methodism”.  The United Church has a whole lot of roots in the Methodist movement, because the Methodist church was one of the original ‘uniting’ denominations way back nearly a 100 years ago now, in 1925.

There’s a couple of interesting things to know about John Wesley; the most important one being that he never intended to birth a whole new denomination.  Instead, he was trying to inspire people to a deeper level of discipleship, and had proposed a ‘method’ to do so.  One of the things that Wesley did was form small groups that he called ‘Class Meetings’ that were all about discipleship with Christ and accountability to each other.  Well – not originally.  Originally the groups were set up to solve an immediate financial crisis that they were facing but the focus on the practical and the visiting that people did to see what they could collectively do, soon showed that what people were longing for was a deeper level of spiritual commitment to the work of God in the community.

And so the Class Meetings were set up. They met regularly to “bear each others burdens” and “speak truth in love”.  Every Methodist was put into a class meeting and they were expected to meet with their class on a regular basis or risk getting turfed from the whole movement.  The meetings themselves were not a bible study, nor were worship, but was a time where people would “…..share about their previous week’s experience, thanking God for progress and honestly sharing their own failures, temptations, or inner battles.”  (retrieved from www.holyjoys.org).

And share they would…..think AA meeting on steroids.  This was a place where people aired every item of dirty laundry they had in their lives.

Here’s what’s interesting – these class meetings were part of a whole movement that spawned a Revival.  A Revival that we have as our roots.  A Revival that continues to influence much of what we talk about in church on Sunday.

So there’s something about honesty and accountability in community that changes the world.

And there’s something about honesty and accountability in community that is just, kinda….

Incredibly threatening.

But I’ve thought about this all week; especially when the news hit about the Class-action lawsuit against the Diocese of Quebec, with all sorts of allegations of sexual assault and sexual inappropriate behaviour perpetrated against children and adults on the part of Clergy.  The lawsuit names incidents going back 40+ years, that were witnessed and reported decades ago, but no one held the perpetrators accountable.

This information was very difficult for me to absorb.  On one hand, I get the concept of all of us being human and often doing things that are evil.  I get that honesty and accountability in clergy is tough; we work in relative isolation, and often have this undercurrent of competition because often the traits that are seen as effective in ministry (charisma for one) often fly in the face of what we know God wants for us as disciples (humility and accountability).  I also know that its incredibly intimidating to confess those hidden dark corners of your life; because – well I’m not 100% sure why.  Maybe because we think that we ought to at least appear perfect (You know, those pesky ‘whitened sepulchres”) or maybe because we don’t really believe in Grace and Forgiveness.

But, today, I’m thinking that somehow we need Revival.  We need something, anyway, that reminds us that accountability and honesty about our lives is not only good, its Right.  We need something that says that discipleship is more important than image, that truth is more important than charisma, and that confession really is good for our souls.

And so, my Bethel friends, today I hold myself accountable to all of you and will prioritize discipleship over any kind of image seeking.  I will also tell you that I’m here for all of you as a place where you can talk about the hidden dark corners of your life, so that you can find your own personal revival.  And I will also be a place where you will hear that grace and forgiveness are yours just for the asking.

And maybe together, we can bring Revival.

Blessings today and remember you are Loved

~ Rev. Lynne