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CUMC’s weekly adult faith formation study series - October 29-November 19, at 5:30 pm. It is based on the book, "Wesleyan Vile-Tality: Reclaiming the Heart of Methodist Identify", by Ashley Boggan.

Early Methodist leader John Wesley was an ordained priest in the Church of England who sought its revival in ways that promoted personal faith                  experiences while assuring impoverished people and other outcasts of society that they, too, were worthy of God's love.  In 1739, he recorded in his diary:  "At four o'clock in the afternoon, I submitted to be more vile, and preach the glad tidings of salvation from a little eminence in a ground adjoining to the city..." 

For Wesley, this began in places where the people were–coal mines, open fields, prisons, docks, etc.--to share the good news of God's love through Christ Jesus, leading efforts to push societal institutions toward social justice. 

In her book, Boggan argues that Wesleyan vile-tality is at the core of who we are as Methodists, demonstrated by principles of personal and social holiness.  Boggan traces how that original identity was mostly lost as Methodism grew and began to embrace respectability over vile-tality. In the study, we will learn stories of our past that call us to understand who we were, who we are, and what God calls us to be.