What We Believe: A Wesleyan Perspective
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith…” — Ephesians 2:8
After roughly forty years of ministry—most of those years serving within The Wesleyan Church—I can see a thread running through my story.
That thread is grace.
I did not become a Christian because I understood Wesleyan theology. I did not come to Jesus because I could explain prevenient grace, sanctification, or the Articles of Religion.
I came to Jesus because somewhere along the journey, God’s grace found me.
Looking Back and Seeing Grace
The Wesleyan Church was part of my early childhood development. There were people who opened the Bible, prayed for me, taught me, encouraged me, and helped me understand that God knew me and loved me.
Then came my teenage years and youth group. Those are important years because eventually the faith you have heard about must become more than somebody else’s faith.
As a teenager, I was uncertain about my future. I faced some difficult things and certainly did not know where the road ahead would take me.
But God was already at work.
Later, college helped me think more deeply about Scripture, theology, calling, and ministry. Eventually came my first church. The church that had poured into me gave me an opportunity to begin pouring into others.
Looking backward, I can see it now:
God was working before I knew He was working.
God was guiding before I knew where He was leading.
God was putting people in my life before I understood how important they would become.
Jesus Is the Center
As I write about my Wesleyan heritage, I want to make something clear: I do not believe Wesleyans are the only people going to heaven!
We are not saved because the word Wesleyan appears on a church sign. We are not saved because we can trace our theological heritage to John Wesley. We are not saved by denominational membership.
We are saved by Jesus Christ.
The Body of Christ is larger than any denomination. Across generations and traditions, Christians have proclaimed the gospel, cared for the poor, educated children, sent missionaries, stood beside hurting families, and carried the name of Jesus into places none of us could reach alone.
Unity does not mean pretending theological differences do not exist.
It means knowing where the center is.
The center is Jesus.
Within that larger Body of Christ, however, God has used the Wesleyan movement to emphasize some beautiful biblical truths: grace, holy living, transformed lives, compassionate action, and mission.
One of those truths is especially precious to me.
Grace Comes Before
Wesleyans sometimes use the term prevenient grace.
The phrase sounds complicated, but its meaning is beautiful. It is the grace that “comes before”—God graciously working in our lives before we fully recognize Him, drawing us and enabling us to respond to Him.
First John 4:19 captures it simply:
“We love because He first loved us.”
Before I knew I needed God, God was working.
Before I understood the gospel, God was working.
Before I knew how to pray, God was working.
Before I ever reached toward Him, He was reaching toward me.
Or put another way:
Before you ever went looking for God, God came looking for you.
You Are More Than Your Worst Mistake
I came to understand this grace in a practical way during a season when I was both a youth pastor and working with young people through the juvenile probation system.
I met teenagers who had made mistakes—sometimes serious ones.
It is easy for a young person in that situation to begin thinking, This is who I am. I messed up. I am the problem. This mistake is my identity.
I wanted them to understand something different.
Choices matter. Actions have consequences. Responsibility matters.
But failure does not have to be the final chapter.
I could remember my own teenage years. I did not have my future figured out either. I faced uncertainty and difficult circumstances. I could not have imagined all God had ahead for me.
Yet God stepped in.
God guided me. He placed people around me. He opened doors and gave me opportunities to make decisions that moved me toward the person He was calling me to become.
That allowed me to tell those young people:
What happened matters, but it does not have to define everything that happens next. With God’s help, you can choose another direction. God has not finished with you.
That is grace.
Grace does not tell us our choices do not matter. Grace tells us our worst choice does not have to have the last word.
Maybe you need to hear that too.
Your failure may be part of your story, but it does not have to be the author of your future.
Jesus Christ is still writing stories of redemption.
A Home of Second Chances
Cindi and I learned another dimension of grace when we opened our home to foster care.
Young people came into our home carrying circumstances they had not necessarily chosen and often did not understand. Some carried hurt, fear, disappointment, confusion, or behaviors they had learned simply trying to survive.
We wanted our home to communicate something different:
God loves you.
Your life has value.
There is hope for your future.
What has happened to you does not determine everything that can happen through you.
Perhaps you could have called our house a home of second chances.
But the longer I have lived, the more I realize that description does not belong only to foster children.
All of us need a second chance.
Some of us need a third and a fourth. I know that has been true in my own life.
Peter denied Jesus. Thomas doubted. Paul persecuted Christians. The prodigal son walked away from home.
Grace met them.
Grace did not excuse what was wrong. Grace made redemption possible.
And that leads me to something I believe deeply about the church:
The Church ought to be a home of second chances because we are all people who live by grace.
Grace Invites a Response
Grace being available to everyone does not mean our response is unimportant.
Paul writes:
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith.” — Ephesians 2:8
A simple way to remember our Wesleyan understanding is:
God initiates.
Grace enables.
We respond.
Christ saves.
Our response does not purchase salvation. Faith is not the price we pay for grace. Faith is the open hand receiving what Jesus Christ has already provided.
God calls. God convicts. God draws. God enables.
And love invites a response.
Grace Sends Us
Ephesians 2 does not end with verse 8. Paul goes on to say that we are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works.
Good works are not the root of our salvation.
They are the fruit of it.
Grace saves us.
Grace changes us.
Grace makes us holy.
Grace sends us.
That is why the church must always be a church on mission.
We do not exist simply to maintain an institution or preserve a denominational name. We exist because there are still people who need Jesus.
The child matters.
The teenager matters.
The person with a record matters.
The foster child matters.
The widow matters.
The successful businessperson matters.
The skeptic matters.
The person who has not walked through a church door in thirty years matters.
If God’s grace is available to everyone, everyone matters.
That is why we care, pray, and share.
We care because grace cares.
We pray because grace is already working.
We share because the gospel is for everyone.
And perhaps this is one of the most beautiful implications of prevenient grace for the church: when we enter someone’s life, we do not bring God with us as though He has never been there before.
God got there before we did.
We simply have the privilege of cooperating with what His Spirit is already doing.
Look Back and See Grace
When I look backward now, I see a church.
I see Sunday school teachers.
I see youth leaders and pastors.
I see college.
I see that first church.
I see young people whose lives crossed mine.
I see foster children who came through our home.
I see people who believed in me, challenged me, prayed for me, and gave me opportunities.
But behind all those people, I see something greater.
I see grace.
Maybe it is worth looking backward over your own life.
Who prayed for you?
Who invited you?
Who taught you?
Who gave you another chance?
Who believed in you when you were not sure you believed in yourself?
Who told you about Jesus?
They were not the source of grace.
They were instruments of grace.
And now comes the question for us:
Whose story is God asking us to become part of next?
The same grace that found us is sending us to others.
Before you ever went looking for God, God came looking for you.
And because He came looking for us, we can go looking for those who still need to know His love.
We are Wesleyan because of our heritage.
We are Christian because of Jesus.
And we are here because of grace.
A Prayer
Father, thank You for grace that came looking for us before we knew how to look for You. Thank You for the people You placed along our path—parents, grandparents, pastors, teachers, friends, youth leaders, churches, and others who became instruments of Your grace.
Thank You that our failures do not have to have the final word. Thank You for second chances, third chances, and the redeeming work of Jesus Christ.
Open our eyes to the people around us. Make us people on mission—people who care, pray, and share because we believe Your grace is available to everyone.
For the person who senses Your grace drawing near today, give them courage to respond in repentance and faith, trusting completely in Jesus Christ.
Make us a holy people, a gracious people, and a sent people.
In Jesus’ name, Amen.
