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The Evangelical Methodist Church

catechism the journey of faith __________

“We should so work as if we were to be saved by our works; And so rely on Jesus Christ, as if we did no works.” —Francis Asbury: God’s Circuit Rider (1745-1816)

The Evangelical Methodist Church

CATECHISM Published by the authority of the 30th General Conference of the Evangelical Methodist Church, held in Indianapolis, Indiana March 12-15, 2010 General Editor: Dr. Edward W. Williamson, General Superintendent Department of Publications Editor: Mrs. Peggy Trim, Deaconess

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without written permission from the Department of Publications. All Scripture is quoted from the New International Version (NIV) of the Bible unless otherwise noted. Printed in USA by 48HrBooks (www.48HrBooks.com)

Evangelical Methodist Church International Headquarters P. O. Box 17070 Indianapolis, IN 46217 Location: 6838 South Gray Road Indianapolis, IN 46237

Additional copies of this publication may be ordered by contacting the Department of Publications at:

Phone: 317-780-8017 Email: publications@emchurch.org www.emchurch.org

Table of Contents Foreword .................................................................................. 6 Lesson 1: Our History and Commitment ............................... 7 Lesson 2: The Articles of Religion ....................................... 15 Lesson 3: A Biblical View of the Scriptures ........................ 39 Lesson 4: A Biblical View of God and Humanity ................. 41 Lesson 5: A Biblical View of Sin and Redemption .............. 47 Lesson 6: A Biblical View of God’s Plan for Salvation ........ 51 Lesson 7: Sanctification ..................................................... 55 Lesson 8: A Biblical View of the Church and the Sacraments ......................................................... 59 Lesson 9: A Biblical View of Eternity .................................. 65 Lesson 10: Missions ............................................................ 69 Lesson 11: Our Government: Congregational and Connectional ............................................... 79 Lesson 12: Membership Responsibility ………. .................... 83 Lesson 13: Membership ...................................................... 89 Membership Covenant ...................................... 90 Appendix A: John Wesley’s The Scripture Way of Salvation A Break-Through Sermon .................................... 91 Appendix B: The Scripture Way of Salvation, John Wesley’s Sermon in Modern English … ............... 99 Appendix C: Explanatory Notes, Evangelical Methodist Articles of Faith ……………………… ................. 113 Appendix D: Basic Denominational Principles .................. …..127 Answers to Lesson Questions ................................................ 129

Forward The General Board of Christian Education congratulates you for taking this step in expanding your knowledge of the basic doctrinal teachings to which the Evangelical Methodist Church adheres. The EMC is Wesleyan in doctrine which promotes purity of heart and a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. It is the desire of this Board that as you embark upon your journey through this study you will come to know the EMC better and appreciate its stand for holiness. While this study perhaps will not answer all your questions, it will serve as a foundation upon which you, as a student, may build your understanding of the Wesleyan tradition. As you work your way through this study, you will not only develop a better understanding of what the EMC is, but also establish personal disciplines of study which will serve you well as you grow in your personal relationship with the Lord. While this study gives you a basic understanding of the EMC, it also gives you information for becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. Another study, Discipleship Training, A Venture in Learning and Accountability offered by the General Board of Christian Education, will help you become more disciplined in your daily walk with the Lord. It will also give you tools to disciple others, thus fulfilling the Great Commission that Jesus gave the Church while it waits for His return. The pastor and lay leaders will enlarge and supplement this material to accommodate their local church mission statement and unique missional ministries. 2010-2014 General Board of Christian Education Members: Rev. Debbie Miller, Chair Rev. Dan Cottrell Dr. William Dean Rev. John Gentry Mr. Benoit Kitenge Rev. Robert Perkins Rev. Daniel Stiles

esson 10 Missions

The often-quoted verse about the men of Issachar is worthy of our remembrance. “…they understood the times…” This tells us God has given each generation the ability to understand its place on God’s storyboard for world evangelization. What do we understand at this point with missions for the EMC? Truth is where the future is. The apostle Paul said, “…I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2). The message of the cross transforms a person’s life and purifies the believer’s heart from self interest to a supernatural empowered love for people and the world. The EMC will not compromise the cross or the message of heart purity that results in a holy lifestyle. The challenge will be the Gospel’s contextualization in the burgeoning Global South, i.e., Africa and South America. Our teaching and training assignment is to keep the preaching of the cross central, while allowing the Gospel to be African, Latin America, Asia, and South American. We will partner and network with those organizations who affirm biblical authority of the Word, an uncompromised Gospel that makes disciples, and properly contextualizes the mission for each ethnicity and culture. Since 1952 we have been directly affiliated with OMS, formerly Oriental Missionary Society, now called One Mission Society, located in Greenwood, Indiana. Through our affiliation, OMS has become our primary missionary agency. There are several other mission agencies that EMC members work through for ministry to the world. Through these agencies the EMC is in 27 countries. There are EMC congregations in Canada, Mexico, Myanmar, India, United Kingdom, France, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Togo, Kenya, Angola, and South Africa. The challenge of the Global South with the Gospel will be potentially the largest missionary force the world has ever seen. The main focus of OMS recruitment will be in the U.S., and the EMC is networking with them. Our denomination must be flexible and strategically structured as a conduit for our local churches to

face this challenge. The Gospel will not change, but our methods, recruitment and organizational structure must change. This is God’s plan of finishing the task of the Gospel being planted in every people group of the world. Our brothers and sisters in Christ in the Global South can go to countries that are closed to American and European missionaries. They have the people, and we in the North have the finances to network with them to send missionaries from their local churches into every country in the world. This is the statement of Os Guinness at the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism: “Globalization is a monumental challenge that presents the greatest opportunity for mission and the greatest challenge for discipleship the church of Jesus Christ has faced since the Apostles in the first century. Never has the vision of the whole Gospel for the whole world through the whole church been closer yet more contested.” Marv Newell, the Executive Director of Cross Global Link (formerly the IFMA), has reflected these sentiments in saying that the greatest challenge for traditional denominations and mission organizations is navigating the transition of the paradigm shift from “the West to the rest” to “from anywhere to anywhere.” In a recent monthly newsletter he reflected on the reality of this paradigm shift. In the past, the near-exclusive control of global missions by western Christianized nations created monopoly missions. Mirroring the period of western world dominance through colonialism, the mission monopoly existed for over two hundred years. Then the monopoly began to disintegrate toward the end of the twentieth century as circumstances changed. With the emergence of the global church, which was the desired outcome of western missions, also came the arrival of the Majority World Mission Movement—the desired outcome of those churches’ maturation. That in turn broke the western church’s monopoly on missions. It no longer had exclusive control, not because of diminished mission endeavors from the west, but because of the sheer number of mission endeavors surging forth from the rest. 70

With two-thirds of all Christians living in the Majority World, it should have been expected that at present, 60% of cross-cultural, long-term, international missionaries are sent by the Majority World, and this is steadily increasing. The remaining 40% are from Western countries with the percentage decreasing The EMC in a Changing USA Paradigm The apostle Paul in his Mars Hill address in Acts 17 stated the principle that people are directed by God as a part of His strategic plan to spread the gospel.... Percentage Distribution of Foreign Born by World Region of Birth: 2000

(Source: Current Population Survey 2000)

The changes in the United States caused by growing ethnic populations next door to our local churches should not be feared, but rather be utilized for the Gospel. When we befriend people of different origins and races in our neighborhood who should over time become followers of Christ, they can be used to reach their own culture for Christ. Some may even return to the country of their origin to share Christ, a place an American cannot go. The EMC has a Department of Multicultural Ministries assisting local churches and pastors in this ministry. The EMC has Filipino, Hispanic, Congolese, Sudanese, and local churches with many nations represented.

These statistics are always changing. Approximately 28.4 million foreign-born people live in the United States, representing 10.4 percent of the U.S. population. The recent shifts in patterns of immigration have resulted in a much more racially and ethnically diverse foreign-born population. Prior to the mid-20th century, immigrants came primarily from Northwest Europe (United Kingdom, Germany, Scandinavia, France). By 1999, there had been a dramatic shift to over half of foreign-born population now originating in Latin America.

The EMC in a changing World Paradigm The church in the world is changing. There are more Christians in the Global South than in all of the USA and Europe. Global North and Global South is a United Nations descriptive term. The North contains the historical centers of evangelical Christianity, Europe, and North America. The South contains the growing and emerging church, of Latin America, Asia, and Africa. In the early 1980s the ratio was 50/50 between the North and South. Presently over 70% of Evangelical Christians live in the Global South. This changes our view of the world and has implications for denominations and international leadership in the evangelical church to network together.

The Great Commission in our generation could be fulfilled and usher in the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Every local church has opportunities to participate in mission outreach in accomplishing the task our Lord commanded His Church to fulfill. Our General Board of World Missions offers opportunities and assistance for this local church ministry. It is estimated that of the three billion Christians that will be alive by 2050, 75 percent will live in the Global South. One of the results will be that for the first time in the history of Christian faith, the majority of the Christians in the world will not be Caucasian. The percentages are only part of the story. These Christians in the Global South have a much stronger belief in the authority of Scripture than their Western European and North American counterparts. As a Kenyan bishop said, “Our understanding of the Bible is different from them, we are two different churches.” In other words, they believe in the supernatural, believing the miracles of the Bible can happen today. They are what we used to be in the United States, strongly evangelical and biblical in our world view. There is a new focus within organizations and denominations to support and network with those involved in successful church planting, making disciples, and empowering the indigenous church with well-trained leaders. Partnership with others is the only means to meet the challenges and seize the opportunities. God-given opportunities carry with them God-directed responsibility of obedience to travel through open doors. Examples of partnership and networking are seen in Myanmar and the Congo with the EMC and OMS, such as Every Community for Christ (ECC) in village church planting and leadership training, disaster relief and drilling of wells. So what does this partnering mean for the global church of Jesus Christ? It means the child has grown and is looking for equal partnership. This means a redefining of roles, being good listeners, and being Kingdom minded. For instance, Africa’s role in the partnership between EMC and OMS is to take greater responsibility and ownership, stop the beggar mentality, and realize partnership is a two-way street. An African proverb says: “Alone we can go fast, together we can go farther.” The goal is that they realize their call to send missionaries into the world and to lead the church in their country into maturity. (Ephesians 4:13)

We are experiencing on a global level what happened in the Book of Acts in what is called the Diaspora of the Christians among the nations. The Diaspora (i.e., scattering) of people has escalated in massive global proportion since the dawn of the 21st Century. Every nation has been impacted by this phenomenon of population movement. Consequently, we are witnessing re-alignment in the world economy and demography. The older European nations, for example, need more immigrants to sustain their population while the oil rich states of the Arabian Peninsula require contract workers to further develop their infrastructures and economy. Both the Southern and Northern Hemisphere nations (e.g., Australia, the USA, and Canada) have become new homes or adopted countries for refugees, asylum seekers, international students, and immigrants who simply seek a new beginning in life. We also see multiplied waves of people traversing the globe daily. The Church, which is the body of Christ, is the principal means through which God is at work in different ways around the globe (Ephesians 3). The EMC honors the uniqueness, dignity and beauty in each person and culture, celebrating the collaboration of the church with the broader society. (The source for the data and quotes are from the Third Lausanne Congress on World Evangelism.) A Summary on the Diaspora One of the undeniable realities of the 20th and 21st centuries is the global phenomena of the Diaspora Peoples â€“ people on the move. The scale and scope of the Diaspora phenomenon has escalated in recent years and today only 3% of the global population lives in countries in which they were not born. The latest research reveals that around the globe, 200 million people now live and work outside their homeland. With so many people from so many origins moving in so many directions and landing in so many destinations, planned or unplanned, it could be concluded that we are fast becoming a borderless world. We believe that the Triune God in His sovereignty is moving people so that they may seek Him and know Him. The Apostle Paul said, â€œFrom one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed 74

times in history and the boundaries of their lands.â€? (Acts 17:26) Reaching the people on the move is both an urgent necessity and an amazing opportunity for Christians and churches. This certainly is a new paradigm in the mission of the contemporary church. The knowledge that the word nation in the Great Commission, is the Greek word ethne, is critical. The word is not a reference to national boundaries; as you know, historically world wars shift the boundaries of nations. It is a reference to people groups comprised of the same culture, race and traditions. In these last days the instrument of the 10/40 window has identified where the most unreached people groups live in the world. The EMC encourages local churches to adopt a people group, and support missions and missionaries who will enter a country within the 10/40 window and focus on an unreached group of people within that nation.

The map of the 10/40 window represents the religions and people most unreached with the gospel of Jesus Christ, Muslim, Hindus, Buddhists, and Animists. It is a rectangle across northern Africa and Asia which lies 10 degrees latitude north of the equator to 40 degrees latitude north of the equator. Of the 55 least-evangelized countries, 97% of their population lives within the 10/40 window. The EMC has churches in the 10/40 window in Myanmar, and our Mission Conference is sending missionaries into unreached areas and other countries. Today the Myanmar EMC has four churches and almost 500 conversions with an Animists people group in the southern part of their country.

Questions This is our checklist for participation with God in the final push to reach every ethnic group and person with the gospel. The following are seven questions that will help local congregations assess their readiness to reach out to Diaspora people. 1. Do you have a patronizing attitude toward other cultures, races, and ethnic groups? 2. Are you racially prejudiced or ethnocentric? 3. Do other cultures, races and ethnic groups paralyze you or excite you to evangelize them? 4. Do you have a loving burden for the strangers in your midst? (Leviticus 19:33-34; Deuteronomy 10:19) 5. Are you ready to embrace diversity of culture and ministry to all cultural, racial or ethnic groups? 6. Have you embraced loving hospitality as a vital spiritual principle of Christian life and ministry? (Matthew 25:35; Romans 12:13; 1 Peter 4:9; Hebrews 13:2) 7. Are you an active part of a nurturing community who worship and learn together, who love and serve each other? (Acts 2:42-47; 1 Peter 1:22; 3:8; 4:8-11)

Explore Your Neighborhood Increasingly, Diaspora people are moving into all kinds of environments. Often people are unaware of the changes taking place in their everyday world. Help the local church realize that it is a landing place for Diaspora people and a launching pad for Diaspora ministries. Here are some questions to help discover who really is your neighbor; in your work, residential or leisure world. Questions: 1. What is the main focus of the Great Commission? Answer is ‘to make disciples’; it is the only verb in the verse. ‘Go, teach, preach’ are participants attached to the verb. The application is, this is more than getting people saved. 2. What is the meaning of Acts 17? Answer is that God in his providence places people in countries as opportunities for the Christians in that country to be witnesses and to make disciples. 3. What is meant by the Global North and Global South? Why is this knowledge important? Answer is the Global North is the old center of Christianity, Europe and the USA. The Global South is now the center of Christianity with the majority of the evangelical church living there. The Global North has the finances and resources for empowering a new wave of missionary thrust to finish the task of world evangelization. The Global South has the people to carry the gospel into the unreached peoples of the world.

Diaspora Questions for Application 1. Who are the Diaspora people in your neighborhood? 2. What are the lands of their origin? 3. What is the size of each Diaspora group? 4. Why did they come to your community or city? Or what factors brought them here? 5. What is the heart language or mother tongue of the Diaspora people(s)? 6. What generations are represented among them? 7. What are their religions? 8. Have they established worship places? 9. Are there some Christian believers among them? 10. What are their educational levels? 11. Where are they vocationally/professionally? 12. What is their receptivity level to the Gospel? 13. What are their felt/immediate needs? 14. How can you meet these felt/immediate needs and begin to build meaningful relationships with them? 15. Who else can you partner with to reach them?