About
Here at Jamieson Memorial Global Methodist Church: “Joyfully welcoming all to God’s family through service, sharing and love.”
Beliefs
Like Baptism, the sacrament of Holy Communion is a sign of God’s grace present through the physical elements, offering the Gospel promise that all who come to Christ in repentance and faith receive new life in him. In Holy Communion also known as the Lord’s Supper or the Eucharist (from the Greek word for “thanksgiving”), we are invited into fellowship (koinonia) with the real, spiritual presence of Christ Jesus in the whole of the Sacrament; we participate in the communion of saints with the Church universal; and we are given a foretaste of God’s eternal banquet, the marriage supper of the Lamb. The Sacrament may be offered to all who repent of sin and desire to draw near to God and lead a life of obedience to Christ.
Holy Communion is normally celebrated in the midst of the congregation, physically gathered to remember and respond to God’s mighty acts of salvation revealed in Holy Scripture. Local congregations are urged to ensure regular opportunities for the congregation to commune. John Wesley argued that “it is the duty of every Christian to receive the Lord’s Supper as often as he can” (Sermon, “The Duty of Constant Communion”). This is because Christ commands it and we receive great benefits through it; we receive “the food of our souls.” God has given us the Lord’s Supper, according to Wesley, “that through this means we may be assisted to attain those blessings which he hath prepared for us; that we may obtain holiness on earth, and everlasting glory in heaven.” Thus, believers should partake of Holy Communion as often as they can.
Holy Communion recalls Jesus’s actions at the Last Supper: he took the bread and cup, gave thanks, broke the bread, and gave it to his disciples. Thus, the Communion liturgy should reflect these actions by including:
- the taking/ preparation of the bread and cup;
- a time for repentance and confession of sins, including a pronouncement of pardon for sins;
- thanksgiving for the gifts about to be received;
- the words of institution, which recall Jesus’s words at the Last Supper;
- the prayer of invocation, in which the Holy Spirit is invited to make the gifts of bread and wine become for us the body and blood of Christ that we may be for the world the body of Christ;
- the breaking of the bread; and
- the distribution of the elements to all who repent of sin and desire to draw near to God and lead a life of obedience to Christ.
Since its inception, God’s Spirit has enlivened the Methodist movement. In the 1720s John and Charles Wesley and friends at Oxford University met together to deepen their Christian faith through daily, practical spiritual disciplines. Derided by others as a “new sect of Methodists” for their “methodical” ways of practicing the faith and holding one another accountable to it, the small group embraced the insult and persevered in their fellowship. And so they and the millions who followed after them have ever since been known as “the people called Methodists.”
In that spirit, this Transitional Book of Doctrines and Discipline of the Global Methodist Church is intended to serve as a resource for all who wish to join in a “methodical,” practical, and warm- hearted pursuit of loving God and serving others as Jesus’ disciples in the world. Beginning with confessions rooted in Scripture and shaped by the great teaching of the Church universal, the Transitional Book of Doctrines and Discipline provides the essential structure for the Global Methodist Church from its official launch on May 1, 2022 until its convening General Conference twelve to eighteen months later. It is offered with the prayer that it will help guide us in a new season of the church’s life as we make disciples of Jesus Christ who worship passionately, love extravagantly, and witness boldly.
The membership of a local Global Methodist church shall include all people who have been baptized and all people who have professed their faith.
1. The baptized membership of a local church shall include all baptized people who have received Christian baptism in the local congregation or elsewhere, or whose membership has been transferred to the local church subsequent to baptism in some other congregation.
2. The professing membership of a local Global Methodist church shall include all baptized people who have come into membership by profession of faith through appropriate services of the baptismal covenant in the ritual or by transfer from other churches and who profess the vows of membership in ¶ 319.
globalmethodist.org
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