by Jared Siebert

Alan Hirsch, author of “The Forgotten Ways” and contemporary Missional Church thinker, says the current church has itself turned around backwards. The natural flow of the gospel that a proper Christology [understanding of Christ] gives rise to a compelling Missiology [understanding of our mission] which needs a proper Ecclesiology [understanding of the church] to support that Christ inspired mission. According to Hirsch much of the church growth movement starts with Ecclesiology, and finds a Missiology to grow and support the church, in an effort to move closer to Christ. In this model, evangelism and/or “missions” becomes a program of the church and not its reason for existence. Hirsch proposes that church must recover the natural flow of the gospel [Christology->Missiology->Ecclesiology].

Historically, the gospel was flowing in the right direction in the Methodist church. Wesley’s revival began with a series of encounters with Christ that compelled his evangelistic campaigns. From that mission the Methodist church was born to support Methodists as they spread the gospel further and deeper into the world. This trend did not end with the Methodists but was rediscovered in the work of the early Free Methodist movement. An overwhelming majority of our churches were planted to support the success of Free Methodist revival meetings in the end of the 1800s and first part of the 1900s.

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