Ephesians this week focuses on the personal transformation of individuals and systemic transformation across congregations and networks.
These transformations included moving away
from lying to truth-telling for the sake of the whole body, using anger as an
occasion to seek reconciliation quickly (vs 25-27), moving former thieves into
hands on community service with the poor (vs 28), talking together in ways that
were never to be destructive of others, but always about building up the whole
body and blessing all who hear or overhear (vs 29). This last transformation
meant putting an end to all conversation that is filled with bitterness, rage,
uncontrolled anger, fighting for the sake of fighting, slander of others or
malice. Instead, the conversations must be driven by kindness, compassion, and
mutual forgiveness (vs 31-32).
All of these are not just individual changes,
but cultural ones. And all of them are necessary if we are to be imitators of
God, walking in love as Christ has loved us and gave himself for us, an offering
and a sacrifice to God (5:1-2).
Cultural shifts and transformation is
difficult to live out and sustain if not supported. Paul envisions the
congregations and their larger network working together in some way to provide
the support needed to live into this vision of sanctified life in Christ.
In short, helping these transformations
happen for more people requires a process of accountability for individuals and
congregations alike.
Such accountability was the heart of the General
Rules of the United Societies, the “large-group” ministries formed by John
and Charles Wesley. The first two of these rules— “Do no harm” and “Do good” —
each including specific lists of behaviors, were guidance for concrete
practices to help people enact the baptismal covenant of the day and as ways of
making these verses from Ephesians 5 come to life for people.
A key learning in early Methodism, though,
was that having these rules as lists – not unlike Paul’s list in Ephesians 5 -
makes almost no difference in the lives of individuals or wider systems. You
could recite the rules, memorize them, hold them up as ideals for all in a
larger group to follow, and next to nothing would change. Indeed, during the
first year or so of the Methodist societies, Wesley and others noted how people
were floundering more than growing, and the societies themselves were in some
financial crisis. The large group couldn’t and didn’t help people live
accountably. It would take a smaller, face-to-face group, to do that. The class
meetings that began as a means to collect funds for the societies soon became
the needed small groups where people could give weekly accounts of how they
were (or were not) living out the General Rules, and each person could offer
support to the others to do so better.
Class meetings were already on the wane by
the 1830s in “white” American Methodist denominations, though they continued
strong among African-American Methodist denominations. In General Conferences
in 1848, the divided white Methodists, North and South, made participation in
class meetings essentially optional for church membership, and by the early
twentieth century, the class meetings themselves were considered optional as a
ministry for congregations to offer.
There are ways to reclaim a positive practice
of accountable discipleship so individuals, congregations and networks of
congregations can enable the kinds of transformation Paul describes to be lived
reality for more people. Covenant Discipleship is one of these ways. The Covenant
Discipleship website provides much guidance on ways we can recapture the
core practices of accountable discipleship and thereby develop leaders who will
live as and make disciples of Jesus Christ who are being transformed by God's
grace and power.