Transcription of article in the Primitive Methodist Magazine by R. Newman Wycherley
METHODISTS must make up their mind about the class-meeting: “To be or not to be—that is the question.” Things are heading to a crisis, and unless something is done, Wesley’s favourite institution will disappear from the list of church organisations.
Some profess to view this possibility with undisturbed calm. They are not afraid of the prospects of Methodism minus the class-meeting. They believe that its day of usefulness is over, and that other institutions will more efficiently carry on its work. A prominent Methodist minister recently said, “The people have settled the problem of the class-meeting: they keep away from it.”
But a great host of the Methodist family, and among this some of its most distinguished sons, will deeply lament if such prognostications ever become true. They love the class-meeting. They have faithfully supported its services for years and received abundant good therefrom. It is to them the most helpful means of grace, the one that appeals most directly to their personal religious life and they are sure, in spite of appearances, it can be revived and enhance even its past glory.
The Wesleyan Conference of 1907 passed, by a large majority, a recommendation of a special committee urging ministers and people of the Methodist Church sincerely to cherish the fellowship of the class-meeting and loyally to support it by their own regular attendance. The Rev. W.L. Watkinson declared at one of the principal public meetings of the same Conference, “The class-meeting was never wanted more than at the present day.” Other Methodist bodies have followed precisely the same course. They are convinced it will be a fatal mistake to surrender this institution. They insist it must be zealously maintained at all costs.
But why? Is it not possible for Methodism to be Methodism without the class-meeting? Cannot it fulfil its mission unless it retains this particular institution? Dr. Rigg says, “The Methodist Church is a contexture, a web of such class-meetings; do away with these classes and the whole web, the whole vital growth and structure of Methodism is destroyed. As a Church system it would no longer exist.” And there is much to support this view. The class-meeting is the differentiating mark of Methodism. Take it away and you despoil the latter of that which distinguishes it from other churches.
Moreover, this institution is undoubtedly capable of rendering additional service to the evangelistic propaganda of Methodism. If it has fallen on evil days, that is its misfortune. But the organisation is precisely the same as that which Wesley found so beneficial. It only needs new life, greater devotion from its members to spring into enlarged usefulness. “They needed in these days Christian evidences; the evidence of the plain, blunt man, who has met in the class-meeting week by week, was grander than a whole library of controversial theology.”
Moreover, there is nothing to take its place. I emphasise this fearlessly and confidently. People talk about more modern institutions and claim that these have made Wesley’s peculiar service unnecessary. “They know not what they do.” There is no substitute for the class-meeting. It has yet to be invented. Band-meetings, Guilds, C.E.s, Prayer-meetings come short in the matter of qualification.
It is especially necessary as the centre whence arise the most courageous and vicarious schemes of evangelism. The church must be more daring if it is ever to arrest and overcome the forces of evil. And so far as Methodism is concerned, the place where consuming zeal is best fostered and the fire-coal from the heavenly altar descends is the class-meeting.
References
Primitive Methodist Magazine 1909/424
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