Wesley's plan for discipleship
Published: Mon, 10/27/25
Updated: Mon, 10/27/25
Sessions Include:The Good and Beautiful Community, Lesson #1 Why Study Books?My church recently transitioned to using books as curriculum in our Sunday School. The reason is simple. My life has been profoundly influenced by the reading of books. I don’t think my life has ever been changed by any curriculum piece I have ever read. Ever. I have actually surveyed a number of groups I have taught over the years, asking: Has your life ever been changed by any curriculum? The most common response is for people to laugh out loud. Our first study was the Bless book by Dave and Jon Ferguson. It is a great study on relational lifestyle evangelism. About half-way through the the study, we did a survey to help determine what we would study next. No one wanted to go back to the curriculum. Not. One. Person. The #1 choice for what to study next was a tie:
We will be studying these two books over the next year and a half or so. Here is what Amazon says about Ortberg’s book: The Me I Want to Be will help you discover spiritual vitality like never before as you learn to "live in the flow of the spirit." Why does spiritual growth seem so difficult? God's vision for your life is not just that you are saved by grace, but that you also learn to live by grace, flourishing with the Spirit flowing through you. And this book will show how God's perfect vision for you starts with a powerful promise: All those who trust in God "will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit" (Jeremiah 17:7-8). Pastor and best-selling author John Ortberg first helps gauge your spiritual health and measure the gap between where you are now and where God intends you to be. Then he provides detailed tasks and exercises to help you live in the flow of the Spirit, circumventing real-world barriers - pain and sorrow, temptations, self-doubt, sin - to flourish even in a dark and broken world. As you start living in the flow, you will feel:
God invites you to join him in crafting an abundant and joy-filled life. The Me I Want to Be shows you how to graciously accept his invitation. I have just completed a new, 22-week study of John Ortberg’s book, The Me I Want to Be that we will be using in my church. (I had previously done a 7-week study.) I have always thought that using books as a curriculum would be a good idea, and I have written a lot of book studies over the years. One of the things that actually using books as curriculum caused me to realize has to do with cost. By writing a study on every chapter of this book, instead of my previous study that had a lesson for every section, the cost drops to below what we were paying for curriculum. Better curriculum. Cheaper cost. Win. Win.
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In the eighteenth century the early Methodists were one of the purest examples of the power of accountability in community. The leader, John Wesley, preached to countless people, and thousands were converted. John was encouraged to preach outdoors to the masses by his longtime friend George Whitefield. Whitefield was, by most people’s estimates, a far better preacher than Wesley. He preached to larger audiences and saw greater numbers of conversions than Wesley. But there was a difference in how they instructed people to live after conversion. Whitefield had no plan; he simply assumed that people who gave their life to Christ would find a church and live out the Christian life. Wesley, on the other hand, insisted that people join what were called societies, which functioned very much like churches (though without Communion, as Wesley was a true Anglican and wanted people to attend an Anglican church as well). In these Methodist societies the people were encouraged to attend many times a week to hear the preaching of Wesley or one of his other ministers. In addition, they were asked to join a class, which consisted of twelve people and a class leader. Each week they were challenged to come to the class meeting to share candidly with one another about the state of their souls. Wesley was so serious about this that if people failed to attend the class meeting, they would not be allowed to return unless they came to him and shared why they were absent. Though Wesley’s practice might not work in today’s world, it certainly did in his time. He offered people a method (hence the name Methodists) to grow in Christlikeness in the context of communities. The movement spread rapidly and continued to grow in astounding numbers. He asked a lot of his people, but he saw a lot of transformation. The Methodist movement stands as one of the great movements in the church. The work of Wesley continued on through many generations. George Whitefield, however, left no such legacy. While considered one of the greatest preachers, Whitefield never started a movement. In one stark entry in Wesley’s journal, he commented on a time when he failed to establish societies and classes in a region where he had preached. He returned twenty years after a great revival in a region called Pembrokeshire and was grieved to see that no evidence of their evangelistic success remained. He concluded,
Though “begetting children for the murderer” is quite harsh, it shows how important discipline, order and connection were to Wesley. And they should be to us as well. James Bryan Smith, The Good and Beautiful Community: Following the Spirit, Extending Grace, Demonstrating Love (Downers Grove, IL: IVP Formatio, 2010), 53–55. If you would like to explore this new study, it is available on Amazon, as well as part of Good Questions Have Groups Talking |
