From Sampler to Sower

August Gottleib Spangenberg (1704-1792)

It started again yesterday.

About once a year I teach a course entitled “Exploring John Wesley’s Theology” for the Northeastern Indiana Church of the Nazarene’s School of Ministry.  And it’s that time of year.  My fifth session of that class started last night.

I’m not complaining.  I really enjoy the class, far more than the ethics class they made me teach last year.  And the students are great.

But as I worked my way back through the story of John Wesley’s early life something stood out to me.

Anyone who is familiar with Wesley’s biography understands that the young Wesley was constantly torn apart by fear and doubt, particularly about the status of his soul.

These feelings of despair only deepened when in late 1735 he left England to come to Georgia (the American colony) to serve as a missionary.  During their winter crossing of the Atlantic, about one week before their arrival in the colony, the  ship in which they traveled was caught in a severe storm – or at least it seemed severe to Wesley who appears to have had an incredible fear of the ocean up until that time.

When the storm struck, Wesley – who served as the ship’s chaplain – was worshipping with a group of Moravians, German Christians who were followers of the teachings of Ludwig von Zinzendorf.  In his journal, Wesley recounts what happened.

In the midst of the psalm wherewith their service began, the sea broke over, split the mainsail in pieces, covered the ship, and poured in between the decks, as if the great deep had already swallowed us up.  A terrible screaming began among the English.  The Germans calmly sang on.  I asked one of them afterward, “Was you not afraid?’  He answered, “I thank God, no.”  I asked, “But were not your women and children afraid?”  He replied mildly, “No; our women and children are not afraid to die.”

But while even the Moravian children were not afraid of death, Wesley was.  And that fact troubled him given his doubts about his own salvation.

Wesley arrived in Georgia on February 6, 1736.  The next day his journal records that he met General James Oglethorpe, founder of the Georgia colony, who was traveling in the company of August Gottleib Spangenberg, leader of the Moravians in Georgia.

Wesley, who was obviously still very troubled by his recent brush with death, sought the advice of the Moravian leader.  This conversation, too, Wesley recounts in his journal.

He said, “My brother, I must first ask you one or two questions.  Have you the witness within yourself?  Does the Spirit of God bear witness with your spirit, that you are a child of God?”

I was surprised, and knew not what to answer.  He observed it, and asked, “Do you know Jesus Christ?”

I paused, and said, “I know he is the Saviour of the world.”

“True,” replied he; “but do you know he has saved you?”

I answered, “I hope he has died to save me.”

He only added, “Do you know yourself?”

I said, “I do.”

Wesley then closes his recollection of the conversation with the despairing post-script, “But I fear they were vain words.”

Here is a man who has devoted his life to Christ and the church, a man who has left home and family (at least most of them, his brother Charles accompanied him to Georgia for a time) to serve Christ in the New World, and who cannot testify to the grace God is working in his life without later recanting “I fear they were vain words.”

You can almost sense as he records this encounter that he knows Spangenberg can see right through his professions to the reality he knows exists deep within.  It’s as if Wesley knows Spangenberg can tell with a glance that Wesley is not the man of God he claims to be but only a pretender.

Interestingly, Spangenberg himself has a very different memory of their encounter.  Spangenberg would later write of this conversation “I observe that great grace really dwells and reigns in him.”

I don’t know about you but I think I understand what is going on here.  Wesley is so consumed with what he knows is wrong that he cannot see the grace that God is working in his life.  I’ve been there before myself.  And I’ve dealt with plenty of teens who’ve been in the same place too.

Spangenberg, however, can see what Wesley can’t.  He can see the ways God is working that Wesley overlooks.  He’s so convinced that God is at work in Wesley he even writes about it later.

Of course, I wonder what would have happened instead of writing about it later, Spangenberg had spoken it in that moment to Wesley.

We know from Wesley’s journals that he continued to wrestle with this self-doubt for years to come.  Even his landmark religious experience at Aldersgate a little over two years later cannot long quell these questions in his mind.

But what would have happened if Spangenberg had said “Listen, I know He’s not finished with you yet, and I know you can’t always see it, but I want you to know what I can see.  I can already see how God is at work in you, and this is how . . .”

I wrote previously about how important it is for youth ministers to be able to step back and see the good that God is doing in our ministry.  Today I’m thinking about how important it is not only to see that, but also to speak that into the lives of those in whom God is at work.

Call it the spiritual gift of encouragment, because that’s what it is.

And it’s as needed in the church today as when Paul wrote about it centuries ago.

One of the things I like to do when we have communion is to take the time to speak this kind of grace to each other.  Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 11, “For anyone who eats and drinks without recognizing the body of the Lord eats and drinks judgment on himself.”  The church has spent centuries debating just how we are to recognize the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharistic elements.  But I’m not fully convinced Paul is even talking about recognizing the body of Christ in the Bread.  It seems to me far more fitting to the context to understand that he’s talking about recognizing the Body of Christ in each other.

And so I like to encourage people to take time during communion to do just that.  To see how God is at work in the people who make up this body, and then to speak about it.

But encouragement is too important to wait for Eucharist to do it.  As youth ministers we must be able to find a way to speak grace to hurting lives more often than that.

So, how can you see God at work in the lives of your teens?

More importantly, have you told them about it?