The Week of April 4 – Easter Sunday and Easter Week

Lord Jesus.

Risen from the dead and alive for evermore;

Stand in our midst tonight as in your upper room;

Show us your hands and your side;

Speak your peace to our hearts and minds;

And then send us forth into your world as your witnesses for the glory of your name.

Amen.

This prayer was adapted from a prayer by John Stott, a 20^th century British leader in the Anglican Church and one of the more influential people in the evangelical movement. Stott is considered the primary author of the Lausanne Covenant, written in 1974, which resulted from a meeting of 150 evangelical leaders called together by Billy Graham. John Stott chaired the committee that drafted the covenant. The introduction read as follows: “We, members of the Church of Jesus Christ, from more than 150 nations, participants in the International Congress on World Evangelization at Lausanne, praise God for his great salvation and rejoice in the fellowship he has given us with himself and with each other. We are deeply stirred by what God is doing in our day, moved to penitence by our failures and challenged by the unfinished task of evangelization. We believe the Gospel is God’s good news for the whole world, and we are determined by his grace to obey Christ’s commission to proclaim it to all mankind and to make disciples of every nation. We desire, therefore, to affirm our faith and our resolve, and to make public our covenant.” It is from this covenant that the modern evangelical movement began.

This Sunday’s special designated offering will go to United Methodist Family Services, a ministry to children at risk. Please review carefully the information enclosed in this Sunday’s bulletin; and, as you see fit, please write your check to Mt. Zion UMC, putting the initials UMFS on the memo line.

Throughout Lent, we will also collect food for the Caring Hearts Food Pantry, a 24 / 7 provider of food located on Route 230 and operated by the local Mennonite church. Several boxes will be provided to hold the donations; and the food will be delivered to the food pantry on a weekly basis. Thank you for reaching out during this special time of the Christian year.

This teaching series, which will look at right practice (othopraxy) will serve as the complement to the sermon series on right belief (orthodoxy). All members of the charge are strongly encouraged to attend. It will be held most Sundays at 6:00 PM.

Montanism, named after its primary founder Montanus, appeared in northern Africa and Asia Minor sometime between 135 and 157. Montanism was known for its ecstatic forms of expression in worship where both the worship leaders and those in attendance would be transported to physically exhausting and often unintelligible emotional heights.

Basing their authority in part on Genesis 2: 21 (“the Lord sent Adam into a deep sleep”) and Acts 10:10 (“Peter fell into a trance”),  Montanus and his two female assistants Prisca and Maximilla would routinely undergo a public spiritual trance, claiming to be God, Jesus, or the Holy Spirit. Montanus would often say that he was “possessed by God,” claiming in these trances, “I am the Father, the Word, and the Spirit.” Montanists often claimed that the revelations that they received in these ecstatic experiences were the “newer” New Testament, more authoritative than the Scriptures or the words of Christ.

Montanists were particularly rigid, judgmental, and unforgiving regarding many forms of human behavior. They forbid remarriage and saw chastity as the best preparation for a person to have religious visions. Montanists also believed that a sinner could neither be redeemed nor forgiven and could only be returned to the Montanist church after severe acts of penance. Equally severe were their methods of fasting and their strong avoidance of anything from the outside world. This severity in church practice was directly linked to their belief in the imminent return of Jesus Christ and the total destruction of the material world.

Montanism grew very popular in the first two centuries of the church, mostly in the rural villagers of Africa and Asia Minor. The emotionality of the worship events and their strict, even severe church discipline created a large, fervent and loyal group of believers. While Montanism was declared a heresy around 177, it continued as a sect well into the 5^th century.