Overview

We invite you to join Duke Divinity School in “Rediscovering Wesleyan Mission,” the second of five courses in the Rediscovering the Heart of Methodism series, designed to help engaged laypeople and clergy (including local pastors in licensing schools) develop core capacities for innovative leadership within the Wesleyan tradition. This course is designed to help individuals and Christian communities rediscover the Wesleyan mission at its finest. It introduces Methodism’s history as a missionary movement and teaches us to recenter our histories within the story of God’s mission to the world. In addition, it explores key practices and commitments that undergird a Methodist sense of mission, including convictions about salvation. Above all, it gives us opportunities to attend to the Holy Spirit and discern how God may be prompting us and our communities to engage in mission today. If you are a pastor or ministry professional in need of Continuing Education Unit (CEU) credits for your professional development, CEU credits are available for this course. Upon successful completion of this course, you can provide your Coursera certificate and the course description to your employer for recognition of earning 0.5 CEUs. Contact [email protected] with any questions regarding CEUs for this course. Each of the 5 courses in the Rediscovering the Heart of Methodism specialization is worth 0.5 CEUs, for a total of 2.5 CEUs for completing all of the courses. Each course includes four weeks of interactive video lessons from Duke Divinity School faculty and Methodist leaders, plus an interactive course workbook PDF that includes exercises to accompany each video lesson and discussion guides for group meetings.

Syllabus

Methodist History as Christian Missiology

Throughout its history, Methodism has connected doctrine, story, and mission because Methodism is, at heart, a missionary movement. This week, we’ll explore doctrine, story, and mission in Methodist history and reconsider the history of Methodism, the history of our Christian communities, and our personal life narratives. This will mean setting aside nostalgia, triumphalism, and despondency to recenter our stories within God’s missionary story.

Articulating the Heart of Methodism: Rediscovering Wesleyan Mission

What fuels the sense of mission that has distinguished Methodism at its best? In this lesson, we’ll consider several convictions and practices—from practical divinity and scriptural holiness to improvisation and holy friendships—that empower us to join in God’s redemptive story. Once we’ve seen how these elements have fueled Methodism’s missionary endeavors, we can see their presence—or absence—in our lives and communities.

Salvation in Methodist Christianity

This week, we’ll examine another fundamental aspect of Methodism’s missionary spirit: its understanding that “salvation is free in all and free for all.” And if salvation really is for all, as Methodists testify, then spreading the news about Jesus’s saving love is all-important. And if salvation involves our response to God’s ongoing work in our lives, then we need to think much more broadly about how we respond to God’s ongoing work in the world.

The Holy Spirit, Social Innovation, and the Spread of Scriptural Holiness

In this course, we have examined the roots of Methodism’s missionary character and considered ways to recover the convictions and practices that fueled Methodist field preaching, circuit riding, and social activism. Yet rediscovering Methodism’s missionary heart is a vain effort unless the Holy Spirit gives life to our work. In this final lesson, we’ll take a closer look at what it might mean for us to be “sensible” to the Spirit today.