The Nature of the Church
As taught in the Methodist / Wesleyan tradition
The visible and invisible church as the congregation of faithful people where the Word is preached and sacraments administered.
The question that stands at the heart of the Methodist inquiry into the nature of the Church is both simple and profoundly challenging: Is the Church merely a human association of like-minded individuals, or is it a divinely instituted means of grace essential for the pursuit of scriptural holiness? In the Methodist tradition, ecclesiology—the study of the Church—cannot be separated from soteriology—the study of salvation. For John Wesley and the subsequent Methodist movement, the Church is not an end in itself, but the "grand depository" of the Gospel, the primary environment where the Holy Spirit works to justify, sanctify, and ultimately perfect the believer in love. To understand the nature of the Church in this tradition, one must look past the institutional structures to the "social holiness" that Wesley famously insisted was the only kind of holiness possible.
By the end of this lesson
- **Identify** the essential "marks" of the Church as defined in Article XIII of the Methodist Articles of Religion.
- **Distinguish** between the "visible" and "invisible" Church through the lens of John Wesley’s Sermon 74.
- **Explain** the relationship between individual salvation and "social holiness" within the life of the Church.
- **Articulate** how the "connectional" nature of Methodism differs from congregationalist or strictly hierarchical models of church government.
- **Trace** the biblical development of the Church as the "Body of Christ" and "Royal Priesthood" through the assigned Scripture anchors.
- **Defend** the Methodist practice of "field preaching" and "societies" as a legitimate expression of the Church’s nature in times of spiritual decay.
- **Apply** the doctrine of the "Royal Priesthood" to the role of the laity in modern Methodist mission and ministry.
- **Compare** the Methodist "via media" ecclesiology with Roman Catholic and Radical Reformation (Anabaptist) perspectives.
Scripture
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