during my ash wednesday service or minister called us to participate in fasting according to john wesley. could it be, this mainline & generally conservative methodist church is calling us out to participate in fasting? i found this odd for our church, we do very little that is as radical as fasting. i participated in the fasting as best i could, i made it 18 of the 20 hour fast. i know, i'm a wimp.
today @ church (had youth praise team practice) i checked out the insert that explained this fasting. it is a publication of the world methodist evangelism emphasis. they are also the producers of a church wide bible study that our sunday school classes are doing (all the adult ones). so i see the connection to why our church is doing this and no one elses. oh yeah, no one else has heard of this that i talked too.. allow me to inform you.
the 2001 world methodist conference in england, called upon methodists around the world to "follow the wesleyan pattern of prayer and fasting, focusing on spreading the gospel of Christ Jesus through word, deed, and sign" by participating in the same weekly fast which john wesley observed most of his life. congregations in the methodist movement were called to "celebrate pentecost as making disciples sunday."
oh yeah.. no one i talked to adheared to the fasting except me. not much evangelism there.
:: world methodist evangelism emphasis ::
