Methodist Distinctives

The heart of the Methodist tradition is a profound confidence in the grace of God, not only to forgive us, but to transform us.

We believe that God’s grace pursues us before we are even aware of it, awakens in us a desire to turn toward him, forgives us when we do, and then continues its work in us for the rest of our lives. Grace is not just the door through which we enter the Christian life; it is the atmosphere in which we live it.

The goal of that grace is holiness. We believe that God not only forgives us for the ways we have fallen short, but that he actually frees us from them. The patterns of behavior, the dysfunctional habits, the addictions, and, the brokenness that diminish our lives are not beyond his ability to change. God has the power to transform us and to develop us into the people we were always meant to be. For some, that transformation comes quickly and dramatically. For others, it unfolds slowly and quietly over many years. But the destination is the same: a life increasingly shaped by love for God and love for others.

This is what John Wesley called going on to perfection; not sinless perfectionism, but the genuine and progressive restoration of our whole selves toward the love for which we were created.

God does not leave us to pursue that transformation on our own. He has provided patterns and tools, what our tradition calls the means of grace, through which growth and formation happen. Among the most important are prayer, the searching of Scripture, Holy Communion, and corporate worship. These are not religious obligations to be checked off. They are the pathways along which God meets us, shapes us, and moves us forward. A life of holiness is built, day by day, through these ordinary and extraordinary encounters with a grace that never stops working.

We do not believe that churches do well in isolation. Just as individual Christians need community, so do individual congregations.

We are part of the Global Methodist Church, connected through the Mississippi–West Tennessee Annual Conference and the Memphis Metro District.

This connection is not merely organizational. It reflects a conviction that the church is one body, and that we are stronger, wiser, and more faithful together than we are apart. Practically, connectionalism makes our reach in missions wider and deeper than any single congregation could achieve alone. It allows for the calling, development, and, deployment of clergy across a network of churches. And it helps keep us grounded in orthodoxy; accountable to the broader church so that we do not drift into a form of Christianity peculiar only to our own setting or moment.

We are part of something larger than ourselves, and we think that is exactly as it should be.

Methodism was born within the Church of England, and our worship bears the marks of that heritage. While our services are not full-blown Anglican liturgy, they are shaped by the Anglican tradition in ways that are both intentional and formative.

Our worship follows a structured order; not because structure is an end in itself, but because a thoughtful order of worship tells the story of the gospel and draws us into it week after week. We use responsive readings, in which the congregation speaks together as one voice, because worship is not a performance we watch but a conversation we join. We recite the ancient creeds, the Apostles’ Creed and the Nicene Creed, because these are the words the church has used for centuries to declare what it believes, and to connect us to Christians across time and around the world. We pray both structured and spontaneous prayers, because both have their place in a life of honest conversation with God.

This kind of worship is sometimes called liturgical, a word that simply means the work of the people. Liturgy is not meant to be stiff or cold. At its best, it is the whole community of faith, together, doing the work of worship. It forms us not just in the moment, but over time. Week after week, season after season, the words and rhythms of worship shape who we are becoming.

One of the most distinctive and formative elements of our worship is the Christian year; an ancient calendar that structures our worshiping life around the life of Jesus himself. Rather than following the rhythms of the secular calendar, we follow the story of Christ, moving through his life, death, resurrection, and ongoing mission across the course of each year. For people unfamiliar with it, the Christian year can be one of the most transformative discoveries of their faith.

Advent — Late November to late December. The Christian year begins not with Christmas, but with waiting. Advent invites us into the longing of Israel; centuries of hope and expectation for the promised Messiah. We hear the voices of the prophets, the witness of John the Baptist, and the courage of Mary and Joseph. We learn to wait with hope, which is itself a profound spiritual practice.

Christmas — December 24 to January 6. The Twelve Days of Christmas celebrate the birth of Jesus, the Word made flesh, God come to dwell among us. This season runs from Christmas Eve through Epiphany, marking the arrival of the one for whom the world had been waiting.

Epiphany — January through early February. In this season we celebrate the early years of Jesus’ ministry; his baptism in the Jordan, his first miracle at Cana, the calling of his disciples, and his transfiguration on the mountain. We see who he is beginning to be revealed.

Lent — Forty days of reflection preceding Holy Week. Lent invites us to walk with Jesus through the final weeks of his earthly life as he set his face toward Jerusalem and the cross. It is a season of honesty, repentance, and deepening  devotion; a time to examine our lives in the light of his sacrifice.

Holy Week — The solemn heart of the Christian year. We walk with Jesus through his triumphal entry, the Last Supper, his betrayal, his trial, and his crucifixion. We sit with the weight of what his death means, and what it cost.

Easter — Forty days of celebration beginning with Easter Sunday. The resurrection of Jesus is not a single Sunday but a whole season. For forty days we celebrate the risen Christ and reflect on how he spent that time preparing his followers for their mission in the world.

Ascension Sunday — Forty days after Easter. We celebrate Jesus’ ascension to the right hand of the Father, his coronation as Lord of heaven and earth. He reigns, and we live under his reign.

Pentecost Sunday — Fifty days after Easter. We celebrate the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on the church, the fulfillment of Jesus’ promise and the birthday of the church’s mission in the world.

Trinity Sunday — The Sunday after Pentecost. Having walked through the life of Jesus and celebrated the gift of the Spirit, we pause to worship the God who has been fully revealed; Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, one God in three persons.

Ordinary Time / Kingdomtide — The long season that follows Trinity Sunday and carries us through most of the year. This season goes by two names in our tradition, each capturing something important.
Ordinary Time — so called not because it is unimportant, but because it is the time of ordered, faithful, everyday discipleship, reminds us that most of the Christian life is lived not in dramatic moments but in the steady, faithful  rhythms of following Jesus day by day.
Kingdomtide — a name with deep roots in the Methodist tradition — keeps the focus on the ongoing mission of the church, empowered by the Holy Spirit, continuing the work Jesus gave us until he returns in glory. When we observe this season as Kingdomtide, we keep the color red rather than moving to green, as a reminder that the fire of Pentecost has not gone out, the Spirit is still at work, still sending, still transforming. Both names point to the same reality: this is the season of the church’s mission in the world, and it is long by design. The Christian life is mostly lived here, in the ordinary, Spirit-empowered work of loving God and neighbor until Christ comes again.

All Saints Sunday — We pause to remember and give thanks for those in our congregation who have died since the previous year. We grieve, and we hope, because death is not the end of their story or ours.

Christ the King Sunday — The final Sunday of the Christian year. We celebrate the return of Jesus in glory, the completion of all things, and the eternal reign of the one who is Lord of all. Then Advent begins again, and the story starts once more.

Music is not decoration or filler in our worship, it is instruction.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, called his collection of hymns “a little body of practical divinity,” and that conviction shapes how we approach music to this day.

We carefully select both hymns and contemporary songs not simply because they sound beautiful, but because they teach. The songs we sing week after week carry theology into our hearts in ways that sermons alone cannot. They form us. They give us words for prayer, for grief, for joy, and for praise. They plant the truths of the faith deep enough that they sustain us when life is hard.

We draw from the rich treasury of historic hymnody; Wesley, Watts, and the great writers of the church, as well as from the best of contemporary Christian songwriting. In both cases, the question we ask is the same: does this song teach us something true and beautiful about God, and does it help form us into the people he is calling us to be?

We practice an open Communion table. Just as the sermon proclaims the gospel in words, Communion proclaims the gospel in visible form, and we believe that Christ is truly present in this meal, meeting people where they are.

Because it is Christ who acts in this sacrament and not we ourselves, we do not limit the table to those who have achieved a certain level of understanding or maturity. We welcome all who desire a closer relationship with Jesus Christ to come and receive, including children and those with cognitive or intellectual disabilities. The grace offered here is not contingent on our capacity to comprehend it. Christ is more than able to meet every person at this table.

We do not re-baptize. Baptism is primarily about what God does for us, not what we do for God. If someone has been baptized in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in any Christian tradition, we trust that God was at work in that moment, and we do not repeat it.

When people come to a deeper or renewed faith, we encourage them not to be re-baptized, but to reaffirm their faith and continue growing in Christ. Please see our page on Baptism for a fuller treatment of what we believe about this sacrament.

We believe that men and women are equally created in the image of God and are equally called to serve in the life and leadership of the Church.

The New Testament teaches that in Jesus Christ, the old distinctions of privilege based on gender, race, or social status no longer define who leads or who serves, for we are all one in Christ Jesus (Galatians 3:28). We understand this not as a departure from Scripture but as a fulfillment of the new creation that Jesus inaugurated. Women serve at every level of ministry in our church, as pastors, teachers, leaders, and preachers, because we believe God calls and gifts them to do so.

Methodism has always had a generous and ecumenical spirit. We draw from the richness of the wider Christian church and recognize the work of God across many traditions and denominations.

We are committed to our own convictions, but we hold them without contempt for those who differ. We believe that God is honored through the many faithful expressions of Christian worship and practice, as long as they remain grounded in Scripture and the historic faith. We are glad to be part of a tradition that has always seen the whole church as its family.

Underlying all of these distinctives is a commitment to orthodoxy; the historic, ancient faith of the Christian  church. We do not believe we are at liberty to invent a Christianity suited only to our own preferences or moment in history. We are stewards of something we received, and we intend to pass it on faithfully.

For us, orthodoxy means staying in living continuity with the church throughout the ages; holding fast to Scripture as our final authority, reciting the Ecumenical Creeds, honoring the teaching of the church fathers, learning from the theologians of the Reformation and the Wesleyan Revival, and worshiping in the rhythms and language of the Anglican tradition. It means that our reading of Scripture is not a solo exercise but a conversation with the whole church across time.

At the same time, orthodoxy is not a museum piece. We are committed to proclaiming the ancient faith in ways that are clear, compelling, and relevant for the twenty-first century, without changing what we have been given. We want to be a church that is simultaneously rooted and alive: grounded in what is true and reaching toward those who have not yet heard it.