Should I avail of the opportunity to be ordained into the Methodist Church?

This text is from a letter written by David Gooding in 1991.

You present me with a very interesting question. Thank you for your confidence in me that I should give you my frank and brotherly reaction to the opportunity that has been put before you. I stress the fact that I can only give you what would be my own personal reaction; and you will, of course, agree with me that what your reaction should be is altogether a matter between you and the Lord.

Here then are my reactions, put in no particular order:

I do not know what 'ordination' means within the Methodist Church. For me, the term 'ordination' carries the connotations that the word has in the Anglican Church, where it separates the people of God into two groups: those who have been ordained, and those who are not ordained. Anglicans, of course, would agree that every member of the church is meant to serve the Lord; but they would distinguish not only between clergy and laity, but also between ordained and non-ordained servants of the Lord. They would regard me, of course, as non-ordained.

This is a concept that I find impossible to reconcile with Scripture. I recognize, of course, that one person having a gift or gifts that others do not have is completely scriptural. And similarly, to make sure that those who act in any office on behalf of the church have been appointed to that office by the elders of the church, is also according to Scripture (see 1 Timothy 3). Elders, for instance, need to be recognized by the church, and so do Sunday School teachers; but I find nowhere in Scripture that teachers of the word have first to be ordained before they may be allowed to teach—any more than a man who has the gift of exhortation has first to be ordained before he may be allowed to exhort. The whole idea that some gifts are ordained, and some are not, seems to me to introduce a quite unbiblical distinction. On the other hand, as I say, I do not know what 'ordination' in the Methodist Church signifies. You mention the fact that being ordained would lead to your being regarded as an 'elder' within the church. What would that mean? How can you be an elder in an individual church in which you are never present? Or is it that you mean that you would become an elder in the worldwide Methodist denomination? If so, quite what would that mean? What function within the denomination would that denote?

I notice your remarks about the way your doctrinal position has changed over the years.

More generally, if a young man desired to be a minister in a church, and he did not accept infant baptism, but believed only in believer's baptism---that is, baptism after conversion—he may not be allowed to enter the ministry. Now, I do not know your personal views about baptism. But if I believe in believer's baptism—as I do—I would not be happy to be an official within a denomination that insists that they practise infant baptism, even though the denomination were willing to accept me because of my seniority and make an exception to their general rule in my case. What would be the point of becoming an official in a denomination unless one believed, and were keen to propagate, the official doctrines of that denomination?

I feel that the whole idea of a denomination is contrary to what the Scriptures teach (as in 1 Corinthians 1–4, for instance). What denomination a person belongs to is, to my mind, irrelevant. To divide the Lord's people into different groups by forming denominations that include some and leave others out seems to me to be a sad thing to do.

Sometimes, it seems to me that some of God's servants are not over-concerned as to what denomination they shall be a minister of, so long as that denomination is on the whole scriptural in its doctrines and practices. Rather, they are concerned with the financial support that they would thus get from a denomination, and also with the status and credibility that being a recognized minister of a recognized denomination gives. But, in your case, it seems to me as if these considerations are irrelevant anyway.

These, then, are my immediate reactions. Above all, it seems to me that the most valuable thing is freedom to teach the word of God without restraint and without inhibition, and by our practice to show ourselves willing to obey what the Lord shows us in Scripture, and so to make ourselves an example to the flock.

With love in the Lord,