To Respond in Faith
For we are God's workmanship, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.
Ephesians 2:10 (NIV)
According to the United Methodist Discipline our responsibility to Society is to Educate, Witness, and Take Action. John Wesley, founder of the Methodist Church, believed both in the experience of faith and its practice - an emotional experience - a program of action. He believed that the poor had certain rights and that, when half the people were burdened by wealth and half by poverty, human rights had been robbed. Wesley saw three stages of giving: charity which relieves immediate pain; philanthropy which seeks to cure the diseases of society; and Social Justice, which recognizes that all people have rights to the good things of God's earth without being made objects of either charity or philanthropy.
We consider each member of our congregation to be a minister of Hughes United Methodist Church, and we embrace John Wesley's philosophy. As a result, we encourage one another to use our respective spiritual gifts in service to others in our community, our country and the world.