Growing in Grace

To understand our approach to spiritual growth, it helps to know a little of our story.

In the early 18th century, a young Oxford student named John Wesley, along with his brother Charles and a small group of friends, began meeting regularly to pray, read Scripture, serve the poor, and hold one another accountable in their faith. They were so deliberate and methodical about their approach to the Christian life that other students began to mock them, calling them Methodists. The name stuck, though not in the way their critics intended.

What is important to understand is that John and Charles Wesley were not trying to start a new denomination. Both were Anglican priests who loved the Church of England and never left it. They were trying to renew it, to call Christians back to a serious, wholehearted, and grace-filled pursuit of God. Methodism began not as a church but as a renewal movement within the church, and that instinct has never entirely left us.

At the heart of that renewal was a conviction that God has not left spiritual growth to chance. He has provided ordinary means, practices and relationships, through which his grace flows and his people are formed. Wesley called these the means of grace, and they remain central to who we are.

Some people approach spiritual growth passively, hoping it will simply happen over time. Others think growth depends entirely on their own effort, discipline, and determination. God’s design is different from both. Spiritual growth does require attentiveness and intention. But it is not something we produce by our own strength. Growth happens as we remain open to the grace of God, who alone can transform the human heart. The pattern of Christian discipleship does not create grace, but it does place us where grace is ordinarily given and received.

The goal of all of this is not religious performance. It is love; to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. The means of grace are the ordinary ways God forms us toward that goal.

John Wesley spoke of certain practices as the means of grace; the ordinary ways God has appointed for us to receive his grace and grow in faith. These are not the goal of the Christian life. They are the pathways along which God meets us, shapes us, and moves us forward. Here are the most important ones:

Public Worship

When we gather together as the body of Christ, something happens that cannot happen alone. Corporate worship is not merely inspiration, it is formation. We are shaped by what we do together week after week. The songs we sing, the prayers we pray, the Scriptures we hear, and the table we share all work together to make us more fully who God is calling us to be.

Prayer

Prayer is the primary language of our relationship with God. It is how we speak to him, listen to him, and remain consciously in his presence throughout the day. It is less a religious duty than a lifeline, the ongoing conversation between a child and a Father who is always listening.

Searching the Scriptures

The Bible is the primary way God speaks to us. Regular, attentive reading of Scripture, sometimes called searching the Scriptures, is how we come to know God’s character, understand his purposes, and hear his voice. We use the word searching intentionally. We do not read the Bible merely to gather information. We read it to pursue God himself — to seek him as we would seek a person we love and want to know more deeply.

Silence and Listening

In a noisy world, silence is increasingly countercultural, and increasingly necessary. Silence is not emptiness. It is the practice of becoming still enough to hear what God is already saying. Many Christians never develop this practice and wonder why they feel distant from God. Learning to be quiet before him is one of the most important and most neglected disciplines of the Christian life.

Holy Communion

As we discuss more fully in our document on communion, this is not merely a memorial meal. Christ is truly present in this sacrament, and each time we receive it we are nourished, renewed, and drawn more deeply into his life. We come to the table not because we are worthy, but because he invites us, and because we need what only he can give.

Baptism

Baptism is received once, but its meaning is carried for a lifetime. Returning regularly to the reality of our baptism, remembering that we are claimed, sealed, and beloved by God, is itself a means of grace. We are not trying to become God’s children. We already are. Baptism reminds us of that truth and calls us to live from it.

Serving Others

When we serve others, especially those in need, we encounter Christ in ways we do not expect. In Matthew 25, Jesus tells the story of the sheep and the goats, and seems to suggest something astonishing, that when we care for the least, the last, and the lost, we are caring for him. Service is not merely good works. It is one of the primary places where we find and experience the living Christ.

Fasting

Fasting is the voluntary setting aside of something good, usually food, in order to create space for God. It is a way of saying with our bodies what we believe with our minds: that God is more essential than anything else. It clarifies desire, sharpens prayer, and reminds us that we are not as self sufficient as we tend to think.

Giving

Generosity is a spiritual discipline because money is one of the primary competitors for our hearts. When we give, we are not just funding ministry, we are loosening the grip of material things on our souls. We practice generosity so that God can shape our hearts into hearts that reflect his own character — the character of one who gave everything for us.

Sabbath and Rest

God built rest into the fabric of creation. Sabbath is the weekly practice of stopping, of trusting that the world does not depend on us and that God is at work even when we are not. In a culture that measures worth by productivity, Sabbath is an act of faith as much as an act of rest. It declares that we are more than what we produce.

Celebration and Play

This one surprises people. But Wesley understood that joy is a mark of the Spirit-filled life. Celebration is the practice of deliberately noticing and giving thanks for the goodness of God in our lives. Play is the freedom to enjoy the life God has given without guilt or compulsion. Both push back against the grimness that can creep into religious life and remind us that the God we serve is the inventor of laughter, beauty, and delight.

Christ-Centered Friendship and Fellowship

We were not made to grow alone. Christian friendship, the kind where Christ is genuinely at the center, where we pray for one another, speak truth to one another, and bear one another’s burdens, is one of the most powerful means of grace God has given us. The early Methodists called these relationships class meetings, and they were central to the revival. Wesley was convinced that there is no holiness but social holiness, that we cannot become who God is calling us to be in isolation from one another.

The Christian life was never meant to be lived alone. In the book of Acts, the earliest Christians devoted themselves to worship, teaching, fellowship, prayer, and the breaking of bread together (Acts 2:42). They did not simply believe the same things, they shared their lives.

For this reason, Methodists have always emphasized not only spiritual practices but also spiritual friendships and intentional community. We grow best in relationships where Christ is at the center, relationships in which we pray for one another, encourage one another, and help one another remain faithful.

This is why we talk about helping every person find their community, their people, their circle, and their purpose. You can read more about what we mean by each of those on our Discipleship Pathway page. But the short version is this: you need people who know you and walk with you. And this community needs you. Growth in grace happens personally, but never merely privately.

We have small groups and Sunday school classes designed to help you find those relationships. We would love to help you find your people.

The means of grace are gifts, not requirements, and they are not a test. They have no magic power in themselves. It is God who works through them, and he is not limited to working only through these. They do not save us. We are saved by grace through faith in Jesus Christ, and nothing we do earns or adds to that.

They are not a checklist to be completed or a performance to be maintained. Different seasons of life call for different rhythms, and God meets us in all of them. What matters is not flawless discipline but a heart that is genuinely seeking God. Come to these practices not out of obligation or fear, but out of hunger.

Spiritual growth is also rarely what we expect. It is usually slower than we wish and less dramatic than we hope. The means of grace are not a formula that guarantees a particular experience. They are the ordinary pathways along which an extraordinary God tends to meet his people. Some days they will feel alive and rich. Other days they will feel dry and routine. Both are normal. What matters is that we keep showing up — not because we have to, but because we believe that God is there and that he is worth seeking.

And when growth feels slow, as it often does, do not lose heart. God is faithful, and his work in us is rarely finished when we think it should be.

All of this, the practices, the relationships, the rhythms, the disciplines, exists for one reason: to bring us closer to God and to make us more fully the people he created us to be. That is what our tradition means by holiness. Not a grim religiosity. Not a performance of virtue. But a life so shaped by the grace of God that we begin, gradually and genuinely, to love what he loves, to grieve what grieves him, and to reflect his character in the world. A life in which the brokenness, the dysfunction, and the patterns that diminish us are slowly but surely replaced by the fruit of his Spirit; love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

This is the life God has always intended for us. It is the life to which his grace is always moving us. And it is available, not just to the spiritually gifted or the especially disciplined, but to anyone who is willing to show up, remain open, and trust that the God who began a good work in them will be faithful to complete.