John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist movement, proclaimed, “The world is my parish.” Ever since, the people called Methodist have committed to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with people all around the world. In that spirit, faithful Methodists have been praying and working to discern God’s will for a new church rooted in Scripture and the historic and life-giving teachings of the Christian faith. In 2022, this prayer was answered in the formation of a new denomination as we disaffiliated from the United Methodist Church. Given that those called to this new denomination are from many countries, speak many languages, and yet share one faith, the name “the Global Methodist Church” seemed fully appropriate. Methodists in Africa, Europe, Eurasia, the Philippines, and the United States have warmly embraced the name. It simultaneously states who we are and who we aspire to be: faithful Christians in the Methodist tradition dedicated to sharing the good news of Jesus Christ with people all around the world.
Since its inception, God’s Spirit has enlivened the Methodist movement. In the 1720s, John and Charles Wesley and friends at Oxford University met together to deepen their Christian faith through daily, practical spiritual disciplines. Derided by others as a “new sect of Methodists” for their “methodical” ways of practicing the faith and holding one another accountable to it, the small group embraced the insult and persevered in their fellowship. And so they and the millions who followed after them have ever since been known as “the people called Methodists.”
As part of the Global Methodist Church, our beliefs and structure are outlined in the Book of Doctrines and Discipline (BDD). This book is intended to serve as a resource for all who wish to join in a “methodical,” practical, and warm-hearted pursuit of loving God and serving others as Jesus’ disciples in the world. You find the current BDD below.
The Wesleyan tradition celebrates the universal love of God in affirming that Christ died for all people with the result that the gift ofsalvation is available to all persons through the ministrations of the Holy Spirit. Our Father inHeaven is not willing that any should be lost (Matthew 18:14), but that all may come to “the knowledge of truth” (1 Timothy 2:4). With the Apostle Paul, we affirm the proclamation found in Romans 10:9, “That if you confess with your mouth, ‘Jesus is Lord,’ and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”
God’s love toward fallen creation is made manifest in the Incarnation of Jesus Christ; his life, ministry, death, and bodily resurrection. This gift of salvation is available to all humanity by grace through faith. Grace includes the active, empowering presence of God, through the Holy Spirit, enabling believers to trust, love, and serve God. This undeserved gift works to liberate humanity from both the guilt and power of sin, and to live as children of God, freed for joyful obedience. In the classic Wesleyan expression, grace works in numerous ways throughout our lives, beginning with the general providence of God toward all.
God’s prevenient or preventing grace refers to “the first dawning of grace in the soul,” mitigating the effects of original sin, even before we are aware of our need for God. It prevents the full consequences of humanity’s alienation from God and awakens conscience, instills a basic knowledge of the moral law, gives an initial sense of God, and restores a measure of liberty to receive the further graces of God – all of this issuing in the first inclinations toward life. Received prior to our ability to respond, preventing grace enables genuine response to the continuing work of God’s grace.
God’s convincing grace leads us to what the Bible terms “repentance,” awakening in us a desire to “flee the wrath to come” and enabling us to begin to “fear God and work righteousness.” Clearly, repentance is at the heart of what Methodism has always been about: the calling of sinners to forsake their self-referential ways and to embrace the good news of Jesus Christ. Indeed, so important was repentance to John Wesley that he referred to it as one of the three main doctrines of Methodism, along with both faith and holiness. In fact, he even described repentance as “the porch of religion."
God’s justifying grace is received by faith to reconcile us to God through the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ, what God does for us. It is pardon for past sins and ordinarily results in the direct assurance of “God’s Spirit witnessing with our spirit that we are children of God” (Rom. 8:16) as well as the indirect witness of a good conscience in the midst of the fruit of the Spirit.
God’s sanctifying grace begins with God’s work of regeneration, sometimes referred to as “being born again,” or “initial sanctification.” It is God’s work in us as we continually turn to him and seek to be perfected in his love. Sanctification is the process by which the Holy Spirit increasingly cleanses the heart in Christlikeness and to put to death the carnal nature in an ever increasing abundance of the fruit of the Spirit. With John Wesley, we believe that a life of holiness and ultimately “entire sanctification” should be the goal of each person’s journey with God.
Our ultimate hope and promise in Christ is glorification, where our souls and bodies will be perfectly restored to live with God eternally through the new creation.
The Apostles’ Creed is the oldest statement of faith within the Christian Church, stemming from an older Roman Creed that was in use in the second century, with the earliest written form of this creed found in a letter dated about 341 A.D. It has been employed by the church throughout her rich history for doctrinal clarity and for the lively confession of faith in preparation for the sacrament of baptism.
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, creator of heaven and earth.
I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord,
who was conceived by the Holy Spirit,
born of the Virgin Mary,
suffered under Pontius Pilate,
was crucified, died, and was buried;
He descended to the dead.
On the third day he rose again;
He ascended into heaven,
Is seated at the right hand of the Father,
and will come again to judge the living and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit,
the holy catholic* church,
the communion of saints,
the forgiveness of sins,
the resurrection of the body
and the life everlasting. Amen.
* universal
The Nicene Creed was developed by the first ecumenical council of the Christian Church that met in 325 A.D. in ancient Nicaea, in the present-day nation of Turkey. The creed was later amplified and adopted as a true expression of the Christian faith at a second ecumenical council held in Constantinople in 381 A.D. While the creed expresses the belief of the “catholic” or universal church, Christians in the East and West have long disagreed over the inclusion of one word, filioque, a Latin term meaning “and the Son.” The original creed expressed the idea that the Holy Spirit proceeds from the Father, while churches in the Western tradition (including Methodists) came to believe that the Spirit proceeds from both the Father and the Son. Reflecting its worldwide nature, Global Methodists are free to include or leave out the phrase, “and the Son” in the use of the creed both in worship and for instruction in the faith.
We believe in one God, the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth,
of all that is, seen and unseen.
We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God,
eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light,
true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father;
through him all things were made.
For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven,
was incarnate of the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary and became truly human.
For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate;
He suffered death and was buried.
On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures;
He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.
He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead,
and his Kingdom will have no end.
We believe in the Holy Spirit, the Lord, the giver of life,
who proceeds from the Father and the Son,
who with the Father and the Son is worshiped and glorified,
who has spoken through the prophets.
We believe in one holy catholic* and apostolic church.
We acknowledge one baptism for the forgiveness of sins.
We look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come.
Amen.
* universal