“Exile wasn’t just a holding pattern. It wasn’t just a waiting room. Exile was a space where God was reminding the [Israelites] who they are,” said the Rev. Erik Grayson, Pastor of Aldersgate United Methodist Church in North Charleston, South Carolina. “You can’t get to the land of promise if you don’t learn the lessons of the wilderness.”
Grayson was addressing over 2,000 people who attended More Than Conquerors, the Wesleyan Covenant Association’s Sixth Global Gathering at Kingsway Christian Church in Avon, Indiana, and at 80 simulcast sites on Saturday, May 7, 2022.
Taking the passage from Isaiah 40.1-11 as his text, Grayson applied God’s word of promise to the Israelites during their Babylonian exile to the challenges WCA friends and members are facing today.
“No enduring movement of God is sustained by human initiative. If we want to see this next phase of Methodism thrive then we’re going to have to heed the second part of Isaiah’s message: the word of our God will stand forever,” said Grayson. “We cannot simply adopt a slogan or catchphrase declaring that we’re a biblical church. We cannot adopt a contextualized reading of scripture that dismisses two thousand years of consistent biblical interpretation. We cannot adopt a regionalized reading of the word that places an iron dome over our culture’s reading and rejects the wider witness across global Christendom. The new Methodism will need to catechize believers in the faith in such a way where scripture flows forth from their hearts and minds. We will need to make sure that scripture is our primary authority in matters of worship, theology, and social witness.”
Enjoy viewing Grayson’s presentation; it is both a challenging message, and one filled with God’s promise for a faithful future.
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