cont reflections on IDEAL

I have been thinking about what I am going to be talking about next Sunday. I am here at our called clergy conference. As I prepared to come to the sessions, I was not sure what to expect. To say that I was mildly surprised by what we were doing is an understatement. Sometimes attending conferences one is never sure what might be happening. I have attended the main speakers and have been excited about some of the ideas that were presented. The one breakout group on living as a United Methodist or really living as a Christian was interesting as it provided ideas for my sermon series.
We were talking about the importance of small groups and also about the three general rules that John Wesley spoke of. For those who may not remember what they are or have never been exposed to them, Wesley stated that there are three rules to live by as a methodist. The first was to do no harm. He broke that down to several examples. I have certainly thought about those at differing times and have thought about maybe reflecting on those on our Wednesday services. The second rule is to do all the good that you can. The third rule is to attend to the church's ordinances and sacraments.
In that session, we also talked about the balancing of our Christian lives between acts of personal piety and acts of social piety. As we discussed these, I realized that what we have come up with as our mission in our church speak directly to these. Too often we can become stuck with pursuing our personal piety which would include worship, spiritual disciplines, prayer, communion, my personal spiritual development and feel that is all we need to do. There is a tension between salvation by faith alone and our actions in this world. John Wesley felt that we needed to take our faith into action for compassion and justice. We talked about the I.D.E.A.L. life. The first is identifying our spiritual gifts which is an act of personal piety. The second was to discover and develop our purpose which included both personal and social. This week we will be looking at engaging in mission.
We need to take our faith and put into practice what we have stated that we are. I would suggest we read Matthew 25:31-40 and James about faith in action. When we are able to balance these two aspects of our lives I believe we are able to be more faithful to God's calling in our lives.