WCI and Wesleyan Church Membership
Watch this video to get an idea of the mission of the Wesleyan Church!
Context
WCI recently celebrated its 6th year of ministry, serving, and loving our community. What a blessing it is to see God working through all of you. Since the beginning, back in 2017, we believed in our calling to pray “your Kingdom come” for our community and to love our neighbors towards Jesus.
One way we knew that God was calling us to this community was through the way He orchestrated everything. God brought together people, organizations, churches, and undeniable circumstances to confirm his plans for this community. Very early in the process, we were and still are blessed with one of those relationships – The Wesleyan Church.
We have worked in collaboration with the Wesleyan Church as they generously have allowed us to use their property for our ministry. We are also blessed through the friendship we have built with their leadership throughout the past years. As we have learned from each other, both leadership teams are now prayerfully considering the opportunity for WCI to become a member of the Wesleyan Church.
We understand that a decision like this requires prayer, collaboration, and wisdom, and that is why the Core Team (those who consider WCI their home church) was asked to participate in the process by submitting questions to help us think from the perspective of the congregation. And many of you attended the meeting on January 28, 2024.
We answered some of the questions at the Core Team meeting and created the following Q&A based on all the questions. If you notice that your question is not showing the way you wrote it, most likely it was combined with a similar question. We tried our best to answer all of them. If after reading through the Q&A you feel you need more clarification about something, we would love to connect with you.
You can learn more about the Wesleyan Church visiting the following links.
Q & A
Questions from Core Team Meeting.
- Theological and organizational guardrailing to help us continue building a healthy church.
- We will be joining a network of churches, leaders, and resources. For example, counting on the experience of other pastors and leaders.
- The opportunity to serve others and to contribute to a “bigger picture.” It is a humbling thing, therefore good, to know that we collaborate with others in the work of the Kingdom.
- Accountability and support to help us keep focus in our mission of making disciples.
- We will continue using the church properties for our ministry. This also answers the questions regarding “financial support” from the Wesleyan Church. Our affiliation to the Wesleyan Church will continue enabling us to do ministry without the concern of having to pay a mortgage or rent (thousands of dollars each month).
One of the positive aspects of joining the Wesleyan Church is how welcoming they have been of our style and approach. In humility, we will always seek to learn from others, but we are not required to change our operations and style.
As a relatively new church (6 y/o), WCI is still in the process of learning and establishing its systems, culture, DNA, etc. So, we anticipate that, as we continue this process, there will be things that we will learn from the Wesleyan Church (and others).
Financially, we will start giving to the mission of the Wesleyan Church, which includes church planting, global mission, Wesleyan colleges and universities, and main offices.
WCI will become part of the Mountain Plains District of the Wesleyan Church (Nebraska, Colorado, New Mexico, Texas, Louisiana, and Hispanic churches in California and Arizona). And because of this, we will be accountable to the district.
We currently feel that our beliefs (or creed) are clear, biblical, and theologically sound. And our beliefs were already aligned, which is one of the reasons we decided to continue the conversation. The affiliation/membership with the Wesleyan Church will add language, content, and guardrails to both our statement of faith and our positions regarding other important subjects.
More than changing our beliefs, the Wesleyan Church will help us remain within a healthy theological framework. For example, they will help us if the WCI leadership tries to go in a different theological direction.
Yes. More specifically our lead pastor. The leadership of the Mountain Plains District is available to our leadership (lead pastor and elders) to help us navigate any issues or challenges with our lead pastor, including transitions.
The churches of the Mountain Plain District are accountable to each other. Other churches will hold accountable a church that is not fulfilling its mission to make disciples or preaching something that is not biblical.
As mentioned above, WCI is still learning and establishing its “heartbeat”, DNA, traditions, systems and culture. We recently transitioned from the “co-lead” pastor model, where we had two lead pastors sharing leadership. We are now under the leadership of a lead pastor who at the same time is accountable to the elders.
As we continue to grow and establish our leadership structure, joining the Wesleyan Church will allow us to learn from their systems and approach to leadership.
We will continue working under our current governance structure: Elders + Lead pastor
These are very good and practical questions. We understand the frustrations and prejudices when it comes to having to become a member of a church or denomination. The leadership of WCI has dealt with those questions throughout the process as well. We know that for many people their experiences with the church as an “organization” haven’t been good. And we get that.
We also want to highlight the biblical value of local church membership (or commitment). More than becoming Wesleyans or being part of a denomination in particular, the Bible teaches us the importance of being active members of the body of Christ, the local church and its mission. Being part of the Wesleyan Church (or any network of churches) is about collaboration, partnership, humility (as we embrace our limitations), and the realization of an already existing alignment regarding our desire to see others following Jesus.
WCI members will not be asked to identify themselves as Wesleyans. However, we encourage our WCI family to see the value and God’s grace and plans to advance His kingdom throughout the world through the Wesleyan Church. We all at WCI should identify as Christians, and followers of Christ, who have been called to be part of the life and mission of our church.
We (elders) believe that God’s invitation throughout this process has been about learning and practicing humility. We know that God moves however He wants, whether through independent churches or through denominations. In our case, we are trying to hear his voice and be led by him. In our humanity, we could say that it would be better if we continue being a semi-independent church, so that we don’t lose autonomy and “freedom” to be ourselves. However, we don’t believe that is a godly motive to filter decisions like this.
Not every church has to be part of a denomination. In our case, we were led to “make room” to the possibility of joining the Wesleyan Church. More than analyzing the “pros” or “cons”, we are trying to seek how God wants us to collaborate with others in advancing his Kingdom.
Regarding local membership. As part of our bylaws we need to have a formal system to identify who are members of WCI. There are decisions that will need to be made based on the vote of our members. We currently don’t have a “membership” system (or class), but we are considering creating one. Again, it’s not about control, but about alignment, same heartbeat, and unity.
Yes. However, serving at WCI is not up to the Wesleyan Church. As of right now, we use certain criterias to determine who serves at WCI in specific ministry areas. We currently consider “members” those who have expressed their desire to make WCI their home church. Our current equivalent to membership is our Core Team. There are specific areas of ministry that will require local church “membership” from those seeking to serve at WCI. For example, anyone serving at children and youth ministries, elders, lay leaders, and pastors are required to be WCI members.
WCI is about helping people to connect to Jesus’ heart. We believe that discipleship is a process with ups and downs. We discourage the idea of setting rules to make us look like something that we are not. So, we prefer trusting Jesus with people’s transformation and breaking off from destructive habits. In other words, we, the church, prepare the way through discipleship, Jesus changes the heart.
Our invitation is for you to walk into the door steps of a loving and transforming relationship with Jesus. If there are things in your life that need immediate attention because of how destructive they are for your own spirituality, your relationships with your family or others, we encourage you to seek help and talk to someone in our leadership. We are here to help you.
“I have the right to do anything,” you say—but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but not everything is constructive. 1 Corinthians 10:23
