It is all changing...again

I know I've used the heading "It's all changing" before in this blog (January 28, 2010)...but it came up again today in lunch conversation with another friend.  My friend is new to Methodism, returning to church from years of rejecting the institutional church --just like me and some others my age (late forties).

We each expressed our internalized feelings of anxiety that revolve around our perceptions that "everything" is changing--particularly institutions that once seemed "permanent bastions of society" to us.   Yeah, it's a cliche, but we feel buffetted by the winds of change blowing gale force around us.  We see changes within mainline churches, government agencies (city, county all the way to federal, international), communications (newspapers, phone companies), and commercial interests (Big Three auto companies and more)--not to mention the overwhelming changes to our planet's species and climate! We watch what is happening within our professions, paths once certain and safe, wondering what the changes will bring to our families and future. We know we are on the cusp of a new context for society....we wonder what it might look like.

We started to talk about other times of major shifts in society..the industrial revolution in England came up, so naturally I started to talk aobut John Wesley.  Since my friend is new to Methodism, he had never heard of the impact of John Wesley of the Anglican church and Englands society by his "enthusiastic" Gospel of Social Holiness and Personal Piety.  It was brand new. 

And, we talked about Wesleyan covenant groups--small gatherings of people committed to discipling with each other.  These covenant groups once helped Wesley's "Methodists" navigate the unsettled waters of personal and social changes they were experienceing.  My friend and I talked about our longing for that kind of small group in our lives--people you know "got your back" but are going to speak the truth to you, too, when you need to hear it.

I would like to hear more from people currently in small covenant groups...anyone out there?  How's it going?