We are what we sing

The Memphis Annual Conference has just concluded its 180^th – and penultimate – session.  Our pre-conference materials indicated that the full opening session’s initial congregational hymn would be “O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing.”  Now, it takes a lot for me to say anything discouraging about this hymn.  It is far and away my favorite piece of church music.  But not for opening Annual Conference.

The first hymn that a conference session sings traditionally is “And Are We Yet Alive.”  I won’t say that this has been universally so, but I believe that it won’t miss that mark by much.  The hymn is, in part:

And are we yet alive,

and see each other's face?

Glory and thanks to Jesus give

for his almighty grace!

Preserved by power divine

to full salvation here,

again in Jesus' praise we join,

and in his sight appear.

What troubles have we seen,

what mighty conflicts past,

fightings without, and fears within,

since we assembled last!

Yet out of all the Lord

hath brought us by his love;

and still he doth his help afford,

and hides our life above.

Then let us make our boast

of his redeeming power,

which saves us to the uttermost,

till we can sin no more.

Let us take up the cross

till we the crown obtain,

and gladly reckon all things loss

so we may Jesus gain.

The depressing and even combative language has its root in John Wesley’s use of this hymn by his brother Charles as a hymn sung as part of the opening of society meetings and then of annual conferences.  The warfare is sometimes spiritual, but sometimes literal.  Methodists had a reputation as “enthusiasts.”  It was a status that more traditional church folks did not appreciate.  Their expression of that disapproval sometimes took a violent form.  As Methodist spread in the American frontier, the dangers of the wilderness were very real.  “And Are We Yet Alive” was a genuine expression of thanksgiving for the preservation of circuit riders.

Well, as our conference session commenced, the planning committee was “overruled” by the presiding bishop, and the bishop preserved the tradition for another year.

That’s how to start an Annual Conference.

The Conversion of Charles Wesley

It is on this date in 1738 that Charles Wesley (December 18, 

1707 -- March 29, 1788) records his conversion to true Christian Faith.  He was the eighteenth child of Susanna Wesley and Samuel Wesley.  They had nineteen altogether, ten of those children survived infancy.

Charles attended Oxford University and was one of the founders of The Holy Club, the forerunner of the Methodist movement.  He was ordained in the Church of England in 1735 and he followed his brother John to America that same year.  He went to the Georgia colony at the invitation of the governor, General James Oglethorpe, to serve as the secretary of Indian affairs.  While in the colony, Charles reported being shot at, slandered, being dreadfully ill and being shunned even by General Oglethorpe. 

Returning to England in a state of great discouragement, he met the Moravians.  He taught English to one of their leaders, Peter Böhler.  Böhler in turn encouraged Charles to examine his heart more thoroughly.  Falling ill in May of 1738 Wesley began studying a commentary on the book of Galatians by Martin Luther.  His diary entry for this date says, “I labored, waited, and prayed to feel 'who loved me, and gave himself for me.' ”  His journal for the next few days points back to May 20 and observes, “I now found myself at peace with God, and rejoice in hope of loving Christ.”  Within two days he had written a hymn celebrating his conversion.

Charles was a scholar, perhaps a more accomplished academic than John.  He was a linguist of some repute in his day.  But we know him best as a hymn writer.  He was said to have averaged 10 poetic lines a day for 50 years. He wrote 8,989 hymns.  It was through the lyrics of these hymns that Methodists taught theology and doctrine to the masses even more than through the writings of John Wesley.  The tip of the iceberg of Charles’ hymns includes:

Arise my soul arise

And Can It Be That I Should Gain?

Christ the Lord Is Risen Today

Christ, Whose Glory Fills the Skies

Come, O Thou Traveler Unknown

Come, Thou Long Expected Jesus

Depth of Mercy, Can it Be

Father, I Stretch My Hands to Thee

Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise

Hark! The Herald Angels Sing

Jesus, Lover of My Soul

Jesus, The Name High Over All

Lo! He Comes with Clouds Descending

Love Divine, All Loves Excelling

O for a Heart to Praise My God

O for a Thousand Tongues to Sing

Rejoice, the Lord is King

Soldiers of Christ, Arise

Sun of Unclouded Righteousness

Thou Hidden Source of Calm Repose

Ye Servants of God

The Methodist Episcopal Church charters the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society

It was on this date in 1819 that the Methodist Episcopal Church chartered the Women’s Foreign Missionary Society (MFMS) at Tremont Street MEC in Boston, Massachusetts.  The WFMS was the initial missionary society in the Methodist Episcopal Church.  At the time of its organization, the founders had sent invitations to 28 ME churches in the Boston area.  When the time came for the meeting, eight women were in attendance.  They showed up to a locked facility.  But, gaining entrance they prayed and heard reports from missionary wives who detailed the work of missions in foreign lands.

Along with several other groups it is the precursor to the contemporary United Methodist Women.  It was a freestanding organization until the Uniting Conference of 1939 (when the separated ME Church, the ME Church, South and the Methodist Protestant Church came together to form The Methodist Church).

At the time of that conference, the WFMS had supported 1,559 missionaries on four continents and seventeen nations.  It built 20 hospitals, 1,114 schools that employed 3,403 trained teachers and educated over 68,000 students.

At the Uniting Conference, the several Methodist-related mission societies came together to form the Wesleyan Service Guild and the Women’s Society of Christian Service.  For many years people in local churches still referred to these new groups as “The Missionary Society.”  At the constituting of The United Methodist Church in 1968 (where The Methodist church and The Evangelical United Brethren joined together), the WSG and the WSCS came together to form The United Methodist Women.

Denominational boards and agencies have largely taken over the “foreign missions” thrust of the UMW.  But they still work actively in the areas of women’s issues and children’s issues.  It is interesting that The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church (the book of denominational order and organization) to this day says that there “may be” a unit of United Methodist Men in a local church, but that there “shall be” a unit of the United Methodist Women.

"I submitted to be more vile..."

It was on this date in 1739 that John Wesley preached his first open-air sermon.  A few days earlier he had been witness to the “field preaching” of his friend and fellow Holy Club member George Whitfield.  Wesley was at first appalled by the idea of preaching anywhere but in a consecrated church/chapel. But, the pragmatist (and evangelist) in him could not argue with the result.  People were coming to affirm salvation even here, in the most unlikely of places. 

His Journal for April 2, 1739, records:

At four in the afternoon I submitted to be more vile, and proclaimed in the highways the glad tidings of salvation, speaking from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city, to about three thousand people. The scripture on which I spoke was this (is it possible any one should be ignorant that it is fulfilled in every true minister of Christ?), “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He hath anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor. He hath sent Me to heal the broken-hearted; to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovery of sight to the blind; to set at liberty them that are bruised, to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.'

The reference to “be more vile” is from 2 Samuel 6.  When Israel brought the ark of the covenant to Jerusalem, King David danced wildly at the head of the procession.  When he came home his wife Michal reproached him bitterly, accusing him of acting in the manner of a vulgar commoner before the people of Israel and even before his servants and slaves.

David’s response was that he was dancing and exhibiting his exuberance before God with no thought of what humans might think.  He then told her, “I will be even more vile,” promising to do such things again in praise of God, who had delivered the ark to David’s capital.

Wesley appeals to the same sympathy.  He himself – as noted above – had not been a big fan of preaching in the open air.  But he quickly came to see it as a way of glorifying God and serving the Divine purpose.  In that realization, he embraced the practice wholeheartedly and continued in it all his life.