I have arrived in beautiful Lakewood, NY.  This marks the closest I have ever been to the Great Lakes – in fact, I pulled off the highway to see Lake Erie up close and personal.  Also, I didn’t think the change coming from Tennessee to New York would be an increase in trees, but I swear I have never seen such an endless expanse of forest as I did in the last 30 miles to Lakewood.

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As for the town itself, relaxation and quiet beauty seem to be the best words to describe it.  Initially a hot spot for summer resorts, the village gradually grew up around the two main hotels (both destroyed by the early 1900s).  As more summer homes were built, a larger permanent population arose, until it reached its current status of still extraordinarily small!  It is one of those places where every house looks like it was built with the unique desires of its first inhabitants in mind – no commercial subdivisions that I can find, and pastels seem to be the paint of choice.

I am fortunate enough to be staying in one of these beautiful, quaint homes.  In fact – and here I admit that I cheated a bit in finding this first church – I am staying with my girlfriend’s grandparents.  It makes for a comfortable and welcoming first step into this year of unknown places.  Also, I am not averse to my first commission, which I have undergone with gusto:  Eat all of the food in the house that they are trying to get rid of.

I am heading to the actual church this afternoon to meet the pastor, but for the time being, I thought it might be helpful to offer a basic run-down of the United Methodist Church:

• Though it now exists as a democratically-governed 75-million member world-wide organization, Methodism first started as a movement within the Anglican Church, led by John Wesley.
• Wesley, ever the reverent Anglican, essentially developed his theology and practice by incorporating and rejecting bits and pieces of Puritan ‘holy living,’ Anglican religious societies, Lutheran piety, medieval mysticism, the teachings of John Calvin, Arminianism, and the teachings of the early church fathers.  Through this amalgamation of different thought, Wesley created a methodical way of living the Christian life that focuses on Grace.
• Wesley’s theology can, in many ways, be summed up as “faith that works through love.”  Essentially, one who experiences justification (‘the door of religion’ – something given freely by grace), must ultimately be sanctified (what Wesley called ‘religion itself’) through the process of Christian Perfection.  This does not mean people become like Jesus, but rather that one is wholly sanctified by God – not by what each person does or does not do.  I am not sure if this is something he thought possible in this life, but I know that he never claimed Christian Perfection for himself.  The theology within the UMC today is wide-ranging, but in some form or fashion, all claim to be hearkening back to Wesley’s initial teachings.
• In terms of worship, the Methodist church stresses a combination of staunch Anglican liturgy that centers on scripture, though colored by the authority of tradition, reason, and experience.  He imagined the ideal worship to have “freedom and flexibility with established form.”  In the U.S., Methodism has taken on a personality of its own, developing organizational structures and styles of worship that largely result from the nation’s earliest experiments in republicanism.
• Today’s United Methodist Church has continued Wesley’s example of distributing resources to the needy, organizing medical care for the poor, subsidizing houses for widows and children, etc.  Prison reform, education for the masses, the labor movement, the women’s rights movements, antiwar action, economic equality, the elimination of child labor, are all part of the UMC’s “Social Principles” that were officially established in 1968.

I am a member of a United Methodist Church in Nashville, and so this affords me a little more familiarity with the tradition.  Yet, if one thing should be stressed about the UMC, it is the diversity of opinions, beliefs, and worship styles encompassed by this umbrella title.  The church that stresses “Open hearts, open minds, open doors” has proven to be open to a pretty eclectic collection of people, from the liberal, progressive movements to evangelical and even pentecostal strands.

Next time, I will talk more about the particular church that I am working with.  Now, on to some Sloppy Joe…