New Methodist Conference
empowering ministry outside the lines
Our Walk of Faith
Wesley asked only two questions of anyone who sought to join his churches: 1. Has Jesus the Nazarene become the Christ for you? and 2. Does your daily life reflect that the Christ is at work in you? In this spirit, the NMC asks only these same questions of those who join with us.
Wesley insisted that faith is not an opinion, but a way of living; it does not rely on doctrines, but trusts in the power and grace of God's love as revealed through Jesus the Christ. In our faith journey in the NMC, we seek to live into that radical trust. After prayerful discernment and conversation, we offer the following reflections-in-process on our belief, flowing out of the great Wesleyan-Anglican-Celtic tradition:
We believe in Original Blessing. All people are made in God's Image: good and beautiful and filled with holy possibility. We "fall away" from this divine model through actions and attitudes that are hateful and hurtful and divisive; setting us apart from one another — and apart from God. Yet no matter how far we fall, nothing we do can destroy God's love for us.
We believe in God's Kin-dom. God's handiwork is present in all of Creation — and therefore all that is, is good. All that is reveals the Promise of hope and renewal and eternal love. God is truly with us, wherever we are. If we open our hearts and our eyes and ears, we will discover this Kin-dom, "hidden in plain sight."
We believe in Jesus the Christ. Jesus revealed the passionate love and abundant grace of God; the Spirit of Grace set an answering reply in our souls. We are called — personally and particularly — to be Christ-followers, bearers of his Presence in our world. As Christians, our life's work is to grow into the image of our Lord: to love and forgive, to heal and bless, to nourish and care for all God's people, just as He did.
We believe in the Message and Grace of the Gospels. We are Christians, not Paulinians, not apostles of John of Patmos. It is in the life and ministry of Jesus the Messiah that we find our hope and our redemption, We interpret all things in light of our Lord's commandments to love God with all our hearts and souls and minds and strength; and to love our neighbors as ourselves.
We believe in "things seen, and unseen." The modern obsession with "verifiable reality" — the Cult of the Five Senses, has misled many souls. There is more to what is than what we can see and smell and hear and taste and touch. Prayer and faith, hope and courage, love and compassion ... these things cannot be "proved," yet they are far more real (and often more powerful!) than "the real world."
We believe in the reality of evil. Evil is more than "the absence of good"; it is a divisive, destructive, hate-fueled force. It erodes the soul and poisons the mind. Evil is visibly at work in gangs, in violence, in wars, in grasping selfishness of every sort. It comes into its own in faceless and soulless entities such as corporations, agencies and even governments — which exist only to sustain themselves, no matter what the cost to people or the planet.
We believe in our responsibility to bear witnesses to the Gospel. Our Lord did not scorn this world, but went forth boldly — facing all of its sins and sorrows and complexities — to preach forgiveness, to restore hope, to feed the hungry, heal the sick, to bless and console ... and, above all else, to love. God sent Jesus to do those things, and He sent us to continue his work; that's what Christians do.
We believe that all can be saved. We believe in God's absolute power and limitless mercy and unending love. Nothing we have done or left undone can place us beyond God's ability to heal and restore, or beyond God's desire to redeem. We believe that Beloved is precisely who Jesus our Lord described in the story of the father who welcomed the prodigal son home, unquestioningly — and ran to greet him with open arms.