I read a post about the UMC’s apparent loss of enthusiasm for evangelism evidenced by how many churches have had no professions of faith in any recent year and voicing the hope that new expressions of Methodism would renew the practice of evangelism and bring many to Christ. The writer compared the UMC unfavorably to those Baptist churches that year after year report numerous baptisms.
In my experience, my 10 year old heart was touched by the message of God’s love and grace and, like the cripple by the pool at the Temple, I longed for someone to place me in the storied healing of the pool’s sacred stirred water. I experienced it in the hands of the Baptist pastor in the church of my youth as I was immersed in the baptism pool of my childhood church along with several others.
But it has in been deep-diving myself, at times alone and at times with friends in classes and groups from diverse Christian traditions, all seeking the mind, heart, and will of Christ, when Jesus joined us at the well of Wesleyan tradition and theology, and we worshipped in Word and Spirit, where I discovered the depth and richness of relationship with Jesus Christ, who is the fullness of grace and truth and the source of the Living Water. That Living Water was poured over and saturated the altar of stone as well as the wood within me. And on that doused altar the fire of the Holy Spirit sparked the flame that consumed the idols of my life and freed me for joyful obedience and faithful service to Him alone. It’s not necessarily the place where water stirs the heart or even the place where it more deeply cleanses your soul. It is in knowing that the Person you walk away with after experiencing the water is the One who will baptize with the Spirit upon and from within one’s own body again and again, sanctifying spirit, soul, and body as we abide with one another.
I have been blessed to have had examples, encouragers, and evangelizers through whom the Good News of Christ was made known by witness and Word and who made Christ’s Spirit real to me and helped nurture Christ’s Spirit alive in me.