The Wesleyan Church is hosting a Church Leaders’ Dialogue that I have been highly encouraged to be a part. Unfortunately, I just do not have the vacation time, nor time in my school schedule, to travel to Indiana. For this particular dialogue, African-American pastors from our denomination have been invited to attend. This is one of several steps The Wesleyan Church is taking to continue to move toward a church that reflects Revelation 7:9.

Although I cannot attend, I did spend some time wondering if I would even have anything to say if I were to attend. I came up with one thing. In this area The Wesleyan Church needs to vision, pray, plan, dream, and work bigger and harder than they have done previously. Historically, one of the ways The Wesleyan Church has grown is through mergers with other holiness denominations, such as the Pilgrim Holiness Church. Last year, there was talk and work done to partner more with the Church of the Nazarene. Merger rumours with the Nazarenes always abound, but we need a bigger bolder vision.

I think we should start praying and working toward a merger, or at least a partnership, with the African Methodist Episcopal Church. The AME Church was founded in 1794 because of discrimination in the Methodist Church. Although certainly not identical, this is not dissimilar to the Wesleyan Methodist Connection (which became the Wesleyan Church) splitting from the Methodist Church, in order to stand for the abolition of slavery.

I am not naive. These two denominations have unique identities, governments, belief statements . . . (I could make quite a long list here), but we are also part of one body, with one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who has called us to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace (Eph. 4:3-6), and, if we go back far enough, common history. What a demonstration of the ministry of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18) would this merger be!

©2011 Paul Tillman