prayer: Our Father, we love you.. we delight in your great kindness and

mercy to us.. you are a wonderful God.. you have spoken peace to us..

in the blood of your Son.. we will never know why you willed to give him

to us.. and certainly while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us..

and that is our message, the gospel.. and we thank you so much for

opening our eyes.. and calling us to him.. he loved us.. and he walked

with us.. he delight in us.. in all our failings.. we look forward to

the day when we will lay down our life.. to take it truly.. to be with

this one whom we love, having never seen.. and thank you our Father for

the opportunity to be together, to struggle over issues and questions..

that while they seem at times esoteric and useless.. they do have some

impact upon the choices we make.. and we pray our Father that you would

make all of us.. mighty in the scripture.... to gather around them men

and women of like faith.. to enjoy, to grow with, to be sharpened by, to

walk with.... and help us to serve you with all the strength that we

have while it has been given to us.. we look forward to the day when we

will see him.. help us as we think today about Wesley.. his thoughts

about the doctrine of sanctification.. that you would be pleased to help

us.. we love you our Lord.. we give our hearts to you.... we bless you..

in Christ Jesus' name. Amen.



...I don't look upon the Bible as giving us the inspired ecclesiology..

I think it gives us an inspired embryonic nebulous variety of

ecclesiology.. but over the centuries as we searched for solutions in

context.. various ecclesiologies have evolved.. today we call it

episcopal.. that really helps when you need hierarchy.. congregational,

when hierarchy is sick or invalid... or whatever...



some presuppositions... if you want to understand the charismatic or

pentecostal movements, you have to understand Methodism.. the simple

little theory is, by all the writers, on both sides of the issue.. is

that pentecostalism is a child of Methodism..