Steve Manskar on the Class Meeting

Dr. Steve Manskar is the Director of Wesleyan Leadership at the UMC's General Board of Discipleship. In that capacity, Steve is the chief minister in the Church responsible for advancing the ministry of Covenant Discipleship.

Covenant Discipleship (or CD) groups are a contemporary expression of the early Methodist class meeting - a form of small group ministry that fosters growth in discipleship to Jesus Christ through relationships of mutual accountability. CD groups are a real means of grace, and I say that as someone who has participated in them since the late 1990s. I think they are a crucial way for fostering mature discipleship in Christians of all ages.

A recent article by Steve in the United Methodist Reporter - which you can find at this link - made me want to highlight his important work. The Reporter article speaks to the problem of our "enculturated church" that owes more to the market mentality than it does to a biblical pattern of ministry. And it points to the model of the class meeting as a way to practice a more faithful form of ministry within the church.

Manskar asserts that  a central place for the class meeting can assist in helping all members of a congregation to participate in ministry (rather than relying primarily on the ordained clergy for leadership in every instance). And he also points to the important role of the class leader, a lay ministry position in early Methodism that fell out of use as the class meeting did.

One thing about the class meeting (or Covenant Discipleship, which is the best way to practice a kind of small group that approximates the class meeting in the present) is that it is decidedly not a flashy, 'cutting edge' type of ministry. It doesn't come with a slick, edgy curriculum written by the hottest writers in Christian publishing.

But you know what? I think that's a very good thing. Most of the flash in programmatic ministry these days turns out to be flash-in-the-pan. Covenant Discipleship has more substance than that. It's about helping us to receive God's grace, that we might know the reality of sanctification and thereby come to know Jesus Christ better.

If you think this sounds compelling are some links you might want to check out:

-- Covenant Discipleship Connection, the monthly (and free!) resourcing e-newsletter for CD groups.

-- Accountable Discipleship, Steve Manskar's own blog.

-- A link to Steve's book, Accountable Discipleship: Living in God's Household, which offers a theological overview of the ministry of small group accountability for Christian discipleship.

-- A link to the Rev. Kevin Watson's book, A Blueprint for Discipleship: Wesley's General Rules as a Guide for Christian Living, an excellent small group resource that introduces lay Christians to the essentials of Wesleyan discipleship. (I did a review of Watson's book, which you can read here.)

-- A UM Reporter column I wrote awhile back on Covenant Discipleship as a means of grace.