Wesleyan Pastoral Ministry, Evangelism, and Global Missions — Unit 3: Small Groups and Discipleship: Class Meetings for Today

Key Verse

"And let us consider one another in order to stir up love and good works, not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as is the manner of some, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching." (Hebrews 10:24-25, NKJV)

Learning Objectives

When you finish this unit, you should be able to:

1. Explain what discipleship means and why Wesley believed preaching alone was not enough.

2. Describe the early Methodist society, class and band, and tell how the class meeting began in Bristol in 1742.

3. Show from Scripture why Christians need small, regular, accountable fellowship.

4. Plan a simple weekly small group for your own church, with a leader, a structure and rules for trust.

5. State three objections to class-meeting-type groups and give the Wesleyan answers.

The Voice of This Course

This course is written from inside the Wesleyan tradition, for pastors who belong to it. We hold that the Bible is God's inspired Word, that Christ died for all, and that God calls His people to holiness of heart and life. Other Christians differ on some points; we state their views fairly and answer from the Wesleyan side. For Wesley's method as history, see Course 1, Unit 4. Here we ask how that method can serve a church today.

Preaching Is Not Enough

Jesus did not say, "Go and make converts," but "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you" (Matthew 28:19-20). A disciple is a learner who follows. He is not made in one meeting. He grows over years, in company with others.

John Wesley understood this early. In his field preaching he saw many people awakened under a sermon. He also saw that some, when left alone, soon went back to their old life. The preacher moved on to the next town, and the new believers had no one to teach them or to tell them the truth when they were drifting. So Wesley joined every awakening to a way of caring for the new believer. A sermon opens the door. Discipleship is the road beyond it.

For a pastor in Latin America, Africa or Asia, this is a practical matter. Many churches see people come forward at a campaign or a special service and then disappear in a few months. The cure is not a better campaign. The cure is a way to put each new believer in the hands of a few people who will walk with him.

The Early Methodist Pattern: Society, Class and Band

Early Methodism had three levels of meeting, and each had its own purpose.

The society. This was the whole body of those who wished to be Methodists in a place. The first societies were formed in the late 1730s. To join, a person needed only one thing, as the General Rules put it: a desire to flee from the wrath to come and to be saved from his sins. The society met to hear preaching, to pray and to be taught. The members agreed to keep the General Rules: to do no harm, to do good, and to use the means of grace.

The class. This was the key to the system. A class was a group of about twelve members of the society, under a leader, who met together once a week. Both men and women belonged to classes, and a class leader could be a layperson, man or woman. The class was not a Bible study in the usual sense. Its center was the question of how each person's soul was doing and what each was doing to follow Christ in the week that passed.

The band. The bands were smaller groups, joined by choice and not required of everyone. Members were divided by sex and by whether they were married, and they could speak with greater freedom about their temptations and failings. Wesley took the idea of bands from his contact with the Moravians in 1738 (see Course 1, Unit 3). Bands were for those who wanted the deepest fellowship.

Here we notice a plain truth. The class meeting was not a spiritual extra for the very devoted. It was the ordinary way in which a Methodist was taught, watched over and held up.

How the Class Meeting Began

The story is told by Wesley himself in his account of the people called Methodists. In February 1742 the Methodists in Bristol were in debt for their meeting house, the New Room. A man named Captain Foy proposed that every member give a penny a week toward the debt, and offered to collect from about eleven of his neighbors. Wesley then divided the whole society into groups of about twelve, each with a leader who gathered the pennies.

This was a plan about money. But the leaders soon reported something else. As they went from house to house, they found people living in ways that did not fit their profession, and others who were sick and in need. Wesley saw that this was a good way to care for souls, and he made a money-gathering method a method of pastoral oversight. The leaders at first visited each person at home, but it proved easier and better to meet the whole class once a week. The practice spread through the societies.

The pennies were soon a small matter. What lasted was the weekly meeting, the leader and the question about the soul.

Why It Worked: Scripture and Reason

Wesley did not invent a new idea. He gave new form to what the Bible already teaches.

We need one another. "Two are better than one," says Ecclesiastes 4:9, "because they have a good reward for their labor." The next verses say that if one falls, the other will lift him up. "As iron sharpens iron, so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend" (Proverbs 27:17).

The first church met in small groups. The first believers "continued steadfastly in the apostles' doctrine and fellowship, in the breaking of bread, and in prayers" (Acts 2:42), and they met "from house to house" (Acts 2:46). There was a large gathering in the temple, and there were smaller gatherings in homes.

We are told to confess and pray together. "Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much" (James 5:16).

We are told to restore one another. "Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness . . . Bear one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ" (Galatians 6:1-2).

We are told to encourage one another. Our key verse tells us to "consider one another," to stir up love and good works, and not to stop meeting. The word "exhorting" is a word for encouragement as well as correction.

These passages do not describe a lecture. They describe people who know one another's lives. This is the reason that classes were not mainly teaching. The sermon taught. The class helped each person to do and to grow.

What Happened Over Time

Historians agree that the class meeting was important to early Methodist life, but they weigh its role differently. Some say that it was the center of the Methodist method and the main reason that converts stayed. Others point to the power of the preaching, the hymns, the lay preachers and the revival itself, and say that the classes helped but were one part of a larger whole. A fair reading says that the classes did something that the sermons could not do: they kept converts in a close and regular fellowship.

In the nineteenth century, in many Methodist churches in the United States and elsewhere, attendance at class meeting fell, and in time many churches stopped requiring it. Reasons that have been given include the growth of the churches, a change in the idea of what a church member should do, and the rise of other organizations such as Sunday schools and study groups. Scholars discuss the reasons, and we do not need to settle them here. In many places in Africa and Latin America, small-group fellowship has remained part of church life. A church in any country can learn from the original pattern.

Class Meetings for Today

We do not have to copy the eighteenth century. We should keep what was essential. Here are the essentials in a form that a pastor can use.

Keep the group small. Eight to twelve people is a good size. A group of thirty cannot ask each member how he is. When a group grows past twelve, divide it.

Meet weekly, at a regular time. The rhythm matters more than the place. A home, a church room or a shaded yard will do.

Choose and train a leader. The leader is not the best teacher but the one who cares, listens and keeps confidence. Wesley chose leaders from among the members, and he met them each week to learn how things were going. The pastor should do the same: meet with the leaders regularly, pray with them, and teach them what to do when someone confesses a serious sin or a deep trouble.

Use a simple structure. For example: (1) open with a hymn or a short prayer; (2) read a short passage of Scripture; (3) each person tells, in a few sentences, how he has tried to follow Christ this week and where he has struggled or been blessed; (4) the leader responds with encouragement and, where needed, a gentle word of correction; (5) the group prays for each other by name; (6) close with a blessing.

Set clear rules for trust. What is said in the group stays in the group, except where someone is at risk of harm. No gossip. No ridiculing. In groups where people may speak of temptations, men meet with men and women with women. The leader does not ask for details of sin that would harm others to hear.

Tie the group to the church. The group is not a rival to the Sunday service. It sends people to the service, and it brings the pastor's teaching into daily life.

Plan to multiply. Every group should have an apprentice leader, so that when it grows, it can divide. Many churches today speak of cell groups or home groups. The names are different but the Wesleyan principle is old: small, regular, accountable and open to new people.

Objections and Wesleyan Answers

Objection 1: This is intrusive. The Bible does not tell us to confess our sins to other people, and it looks like Catholic confession.

Some Protestants fear that asking people to speak of their inner lives will create pressure, or a human priesthood.

Our answer. The Wesleyan class does not have a priest who absolves sin. Only God forgives sin (Mark 2:7; 1 John 1:9). What the class offers is the mutual confession and prayer that James 5:16 describes between Christians who are equals. It is also voluntary in the sense that no one is forced to speak about anything he is not ready to share. The class asks, "How is it with your soul?" It does not demand a list of sins. Deeper confession belongs in the bands, where it is chosen. A wise leader sets the pace and protects the quiet.

Objection 2: Lay leaders may teach error or give foolish advice.

A pastor may worry that untrained leaders will harm the group.

Our answer. The risk is real, and it is why the classes were not left alone. Wesley met with the leaders, kept the groups under the preachers' oversight, and gave them a limited task. The class leader's task was to ask, to listen, to encourage and to report, not to be a teacher of doctrine. Scripture shows the same sort of sharing: when Priscilla and Aquila heard Apollos teaching with gaps, they "took him aside and explained to him the way of God more accurately" (Acts 18:26). The pastor trains and supervises. If a matter is beyond the leader, the leader brings it to the pastor.

Objection 3: Small groups can become cliques that divide the church.

Small groups can become closed circles with their own opinions.

Our answer. This danger is real if the group stands alone. In early Methodism the classes belonged to the society, and the members took part in the preaching and the Lord's Supper. Wesley insisted that the Methodists keep to their parish church and its sacrament. We should do the same: keep the group under the pastor and in the life of the congregation, include new people, and divide the group when it grows too large or too closed.

Pastoral Application

Pastor Daniel serves a church of about forty-five people in a farming town. In the past two years, fifteen people came forward at special services, but only four are still attending. He decides to try three groups of seven or eight.

He chooses three leaders: a schoolteacher, a mother of grown children, and a farmer who is not a good speaker but is known as a man who listens. He meets with them for four weeks before the groups start, going over a simple structure and the rules for trust. In the first month, one member of a group tells a story about another member's family outside the group. Daniel meets with the leader and the two people, and they remind everyone of the rule. The group continues. By the fourth month, one of the people who had stopped coming has returned. When the groups reach ten members, Daniel plans to divide them.

Now each person in the church has a place where someone knows his name and asks about his week.

Summary

Preaching begins discipleship, but it cannot finish it. Wesley joined every awakening to oversight in the society, the class and the band. The class meeting began in Bristol in 1742 as a way to collect a penny a week for a debt, and it became a weekly meeting of about twelve people under a leader, built around the question of the soul. The Bible supports it: Ecclesiastes 4:9, Proverbs 27:17, Acts 2:42-46, James 5:16, Galatians 6:1-2 and Hebrews 10:24-25. Historians weigh its role in the revival differently, and in many Methodist churches it faded in the nineteenth century. For today, the essentials are a small group, a weekly rhythm, a trained leader, a simple structure, rules for trust, a tie to the church, and a plan to multiply. We answered the objections that such groups are intrusive, that lay leaders may err, and that groups may become cliques.

Further Reading

• John Wesley, "A Plain Account of the People Called Methodists," a primary source on the societies and classes.

• The General Rules of the United Societies, a primary source.

• John Wesley, "The Means of Grace," in the Standard Sermons.

• The Journal of John Wesley, on the formation of the societies in Bristol and London.

• John Wesley, Notes on the New Testament, on Acts 2 and Hebrews 10.

• Richard Baxter, The Reformed Pastor (1656), on the pastor's personal oversight of his flock.

• The Journal of Francis Asbury, a primary source on classes in American Methodism.

• Course 1, Unit 4 (Wesley's method) and Course 3, Unit 7 (the means of grace) of this specialization.

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