People ¢ Keith Tan is a member of Holland Village Methodist Church, and a member of the MCS Council on Communications. / Photo courtesy of Keith Tan
What does being a Methodist mean to you?
Since then, where circumstances and ministry opportunities led, we went. And we now call Holland Village MC home.
In my journey as a Christian, I’ve always enjoyed when worship is spirit-filled and the emotional high that comes with a fiery message is preached or when a worship service comes with the theatrics that modern technology afford us. But in the end, being a Christian isn’t about the religiosity or the showmanship, it comes down to a commitment to our relationship with God.
I grew up in a Bible-Presbyterian church, which saw my family through the toughest of times, and was strongly influenced by the 14 years that I was in Anglican schools. So, I’m always asked, what attracted you to become a Methodist and stay one?
When the lights and sound is stripped away and when life buffets me, I always come back to this—a warm heart and a commitment to methodical devotion and study of the Word.
For me, it was the membership class at Faith MC that was the inflection point. What stood out to me were two things:
So what does being a Methodist mean to me? It means getting back to the fundamentals of a relationship with our Creator; to be meaningfully anchored to these two basic tenets when life sometimes loses meaning.
I stumbled into the Methodist Church almost by accident in 1996. My now-wife, whom I was dating at the time, was a non-practising Catholic and I was from a charismatic church. We needed to find a middle ground and made the rounds with different churches, until we found a place we both felt comfortable with—Faith Methodist Church (MC).
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the story of John Wesley who had the experience of having his “heart strangely warmed”. the commitment to a methodical devotion and study as a key part of the practise of Methodism.
