Methodism- a Eucharistic revival?

For many Christians today, the word revival conjures up images of large open-air gatherings, masses streaming to the altar, people falling on their faces (or on their backs) in fervent prayer, fiery evangelistic messages, healings, prophecies and other “manifestations of the Spirit”. The revival under John and Charles Wesley shared some of these features, but it also had something else that was not to be found in subsequent revivals. It was a revival where the celebration of the Eucharist played a pivotal role. 

Many today, including even those who call themselves Methodists, have largely forgotten this. For the Wesleys the Eucharist was no mere ritual; it was a powerful, spiritual reality. The Eucharist was a real point of contact between God and His people. The journal of John Wesley records many instances where people were healed or fell under deep conviction of sin during the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. 

This a ”converting” feature of the Eucharist, provides a strong missiological challenge for the Wesleys’ spiritual descendants.  The history of the revival as a eucharistic revival; has demonstrated that the Wesleys’ eucharistic practice is undergirded by a strong eucharistic theology. Unlike many today who regard the Eucharist as merely a commemorative event, the Wesleys believed that the Table was the place where Christ’s real presence could be encountered. This theology, however, did not develop in a vacuum but grew out of the Wesleys’ deep acquaintance with the larger spiritual tradition. The Wesleys drank deeply from the spiritual resources within Roman Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism, Anglicanism and even various pietistic traditions, but they also used their sources judiciously. The result was an eucharistic spirituality that was truly catholic in the best sense of the word and contextually grounded. 

Is  the doctrine of the Eucharist as a “converting ordinance” an evangelistic tool?  There is certainly great potential for Methodists in Britian to return to a spirituality centring in the eucharistic celebration. It is of interest to note that in recent years many evangelicals and charismatics from the Free Church tradition are rediscovering the power of eucharistic worship and of the ancient Christian tradition.  They have run the gamut of quick-fix solutions; and have discovered that these strategies are no more than passing fads that do not provide the church a deep enough foundation on which to build and mature.

They have travelled full circle to return to the truth that the Church throughout history has been affirming all along: that what constitute or make the church are Word and Sacrament. 

 

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