The United Methodist Church is a Christian Denomination rooted in Loving God and Loving Neighbor. We are guided by Wesleyan Theology which emphasizes God's grace and sanctification within our lives. With over 10million members and churches across the globe, we are a Christian body rooted in grace, love, and discipleship.

In fact, our UM mission is: making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. We do this by loving boldly, serving joyfully, and leading courageously in our communities to bring prosperity, love, peace, and the common good to all.

In the 18th century, when Christianity seemed to be in a waning period, John Wesley and his brother Charles inspired, revived, and made plain to the people the Good News of God. Through God's guidance, the movement called "Methodism" grew. Fun fact! the term "Methodist" was originally an insult. At Oxford University, critics mocked the Wesleys and their study group because they used guided rules, scheduled routines, and "methods" for daily prayer, Bible study, and charitable work. The Wesleys eventually adopted the name as a badge of honor.

As we know in the scientific method we learn in school, there is a process of inquiry, observation, experimentation, etc... steps that guide scientist to a desired goal and observable "laws" of the universe that help us orientate ourselves in reality.

John and Charles believed Christianity has method too. When we read the Scriptures and meditate on the life of Jesus Christ, we find out about who we are and who God has called us to be. In Methodism, there are moments throughout our lives where our walk with God deepens and disciplines. We use words like conviction, repentance, restitution, faith, justification, regeneration, salvation, prayer, covenant, sanctification, holiness.

All of these are moments, methods, and processes in our Christian journey that let us "Draw near to God and God will draw near to you" (James 4.8)

As a large Christian denomination spanning the globe, we also emphasize connection. We call it connectionalism, and it is how we organize ourselves. In the days of Wesley, connectionalism was defined by conferencing, simply meaning getting together at various levels.

For example, we at Fredericksburg UMC are a local church, and will meet regularly as a church outside of Sunday worship (usually called a local charge conference) to discuss various items and agendas such as how we would like to be apart of our community, develop ministry programs, what non-profits do we partner with, etc.... On the next level, we are a part of a wider UM district, called the North District, where we meet with other churches to collaborate on larger ministries and Central Texas outreach programs.

On the final level, we are apart of the Rio Texas Annual Conference, the largest body which connects methodists all over Central and South Texas. With over 200+ congregations, we are able to love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in our communities across the state and world. Led by our Bishop, we meet each year at Annual Conference to determine clergy appointments: the bishop assigns pastors to local churches for the upcoming year. Ordination & licensing: voting to approve, commission, or ordain new pastors and ministers. Budget & legislation: voting on conference budgets, mission funding, and apportionments that local churches will pay. etc...

This level of connection allows us to listen to God, to listen to the people, and to operate and adapt our Church to be better disciples for Jesus Christ.

We believe that our primary identity is as children of God. With that identity comes societal and cultural constructions that have both positive and negative impacts on humanity and the Church. Cultural identity evolves through our history, traditions, and experiences. The Church seeks to fully embrace and nurture cultural formation and competency as a means to be fully one body, expressed in multiple ways. Each of us has our own unique identity. We affirm that no identity or culture has more legitimacy than any other. We call the Church to challenge any hierarchy of cultures or identities. Through relationships within and among cultures we are called to and have the responsibility for learning from each other, showing mutual respect for our differences and similarities as we experience the diversity of perspectives and viewpoints.

We firmly believe in following the example of Christ. The United Methodist Church believes God’s love for the world is an active and engaged love, a love seeking justice and liberty. We cannot just be observers. So we care enough about people’s lives to risk interpreting God’s love, to take a stand, to call each of us into a response, no matter how controversial or complex. “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

The United Methodist Church believes God’s love for the world is an active and engaged love, a love seeking justice and liberty. We cannot just be observers. So we care enough about people’s lives to risk interpreting God’s love, to take a stand, to call each of us into a response, no matter how controversial or complex. The church helps us think and act out a faith perspective, not just responding to all the other ‘mind-makers-up’ that exist in our society.”

Jesus was very explicit when He said, ‘Here’s what love of neighbor looks like: You saw me hungry and you fed me. You saw me thirsty and you gave me drink. You saw me sick and you took care of me.’ Those neighbors start right here in our hometown, but it doesn’t stop there; it goes all the way to the ends of the earth. Wherever we see a need, as the church, as United Methodists, we reach out to meet that need and serve as we feel Jesus would. It’s the basis of who we are. That’s why we’re in mission, to bless those around us, to love God by loving our neighbors. The Bible teaches us that everything we have from God is given because of God’s great love for us. Ephesians 2 reads “You are saved by God’s grace because of your faith.”

United Methodists share with other Christians the conviction that Scripture is the primary source and criterion for Christian doctrine.

Through Scripture the living Christ meets us in the experience of redeeming grace. We are convinced that Jesus Christ is the living Word of God in our midst whom we trust in life and death. The biblical authors, illumined by the Holy Spirit, bear witness that in Christ the world is reconciled to God. The Bible bears authentic testimony to God’s self-disclosure in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ as well as in God’s work of creation, in the pilgrimage of Israel, and in the Holy Spirit’s ongoing activity in human history.

As we open our minds and hearts to the Word of God through the words of human beings inspired by the Holy Spirit, faith is born and nourished, our understanding is deepened, and the possibilities for transforming the world become apparent to us.

The Bible is sacred canon for Christian people, formally acknowledged as such by historic ecumenical councils of the church. Our doctrinal standards identify as canonical thirty-nine books of the Old Testament and the twenty-seven books of the New Testament.

Our standards affirm the Bible as the source of all that is “necessary” and “sufficient” unto salvation (Articles of Religion) and “is to be received through the Holy Spirit as the true rule and guide for faith and practice” (Confession of Faith).

We properly read Scripture within the believing community, informed by the tradition of that community.

We interpret individual texts in light of their place in the Bible as a whole.

We are aided by scholarly inquiry and personal insight, under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. As we work with each text, we take into account what we have been able to learn about the original context and intention of that text. In this understanding we draw upon the careful historical, literary, and textual studies of recent years, which have enriched our understanding of the Bible.

Through this faithful reading of Scripture, we may come to know the truth of the biblical message in its bearing on our own lives and the life of the world. Thus, the Bible serves both as a source of our faith and as the basic criterion by which the truth and fidelity of any interpretation of faith is measured.

While we acknowledge the primacy of Scripture in theological reflection, our attempts to grasp its meaning always involve tradition, experience, and reason. Like Scripture, these may become creative vehicles of the Holy Spirit as they function within the Church. They quicken our faith, open our eyes to the wonder of God’s love, and clarify our understanding.

The Wesleyan heritage, reflecting its origins in the catholic and reformed ethos of English Christianity, directs us to a self-conscious use of these three sources in interpreting Scripture and in formulating faith statements based on the biblical witness. These sources are, along with Scripture, indispensable to our theological task.

The close relationship of tradition, experience, and reason appears in the Bible itself. Scripture witnesses to a variety of diverse traditions, some of which reflect tensions in interpretation within the early Judeo-Christian heritage. However, these traditions are woven together in the Bible in a manner that expresses the fundamental unity of God’s revelation as received and experienced by people in the diversity of their own lives.

The developing communities of faith judged them, therefore, to be an authoritative witness to that revelation. In recognizing the interrelationship and inseparability of the four basic resources for theological understanding, we are following a model that is present in the biblical text itself.

From "The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2016." Copyright 2016 by The United Methodist Publishing House. Used by permission.

Grace is God's presence and power. John Wesley defined grace as God's "free, undeserved favour, ... man having no claim to the least of his mercies. It was free grace that ‘formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into him a living soul,' and stamped on that soul the image of God, and ‘put all things under his feet.' ... For there is nothing we are, or have, or do, which can deserve the least thing at God's hand."

Our United Methodist Book of Discipline defines grace as "the undeserved, unmerited, and loving action of God in human existence through the ever-present Holy Spirit." Grace pervades all of creation and is universally present. Grace is not a gift that God packages and bestows on us and creation. Grace is God's presence to create, heal, forgive, reconcile and transform human hearts, communities and the entire creation. Wherever God is present, there is grace! Grace brought creation into existence. Grace birthed human beings, bestowed on us the divine image, redeemed us in Jesus Christ and is ever transforming the whole creation into the realm of God's reign of compassion, justice, generosity and peace.

Now, we believe there are moments and forms of grace in our lives.

1) Prevenient grace: Grace that goes before

This grace is present in all creation — in the natural order, in human conscience, in the relationships and heritage into which we are born. Love of family and friends, the Christian community, the sacraments, creation itself, pangs of guilt. This grace is the pull toward a vision of all the good that can be in our lives. These whispers of God draw us in, ask us to use our reason, our experiences, our tradition, our Scripture to begin seeking God

Wesley described prevenient grace as the porch on a house. It is where we prepare to enter the house. Grace may also be compared to a journey. The desire to embark on the trip, the road or trail, the vehicle in which the journey is to be made and the map to be followed are all gifts. The beauty of the landscape, the mind and eyes that conceived the journey and perceive its beauty, even the explorer who blazed the trail are all unmerited gifts — grace!

But, there is more to a house than the porch! There is more to a journey than the desire to travel! We must enter the house or begin the journey.

2) Justifying/saving grace: Doorway into new identity and understanding

Prevenient grace prepares us for justifying grace. "Justification," said Wesley, "is another word for pardon. It is the forgiveness of all our sins, and ... our acceptance with God." Justifying grace is the assurance of forgiveness that comes from repentance, from turning toward God's gracious gift of new life. It is being reconciled and realigned with God and the acceptance of God's atoning act in Jesus Christ.

Wesley considered justification, or justifying grace, as the doorway into the house of God's salvation. God reconciles us, adopts us into the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, bestows upon us our identity as beloved sons and daughters and incorporates us into the body of Christ, the church.

3) Sanctifying grace: Grace perfecting us

God's goal for humanity is the complete restoration of the divine image and the conformity of all creation to the image of Jesus Christ. Sanctification (from the word sanctus, "holy") denotes the process by which we are made holy and whole in response to justification.

The Book of Discipline states: "We hold that the wonder of God's acceptance and pardon do not end God's saving work, which continues to nurture our growth in grace. Through the power of the Holy Spirit we are enabled to increase in the knowledge and love of God and in love for our neighbor." If prevenient grace is the porch of the house of grace and justifying grace is the doorway, sanctifying grace represents the rooms in the expansive dwelling of God's presence with and purposes for humanity. With each new room, we are changed, transformed, and drawn closer to God.

The Freedom to Grow in grace

Grace involves both gift and response. Our identity as sons and daughters of God is God's gift to us. Living in the world as redeemed children of God is our gift to God. Justifying grace reconciles us to God, incorporates us into the body of Christ and sets us on the journey toward wholeness. Sanctifying grace continuously forms us in the likeness of Christ and sheds the love of God abroad in our hearts, our actions and our relationships.

Wesley affirmed that God's grace is universally present in all and irresistible in none. Although God's presence and power to create, forgive, reconcile and transform are universally and persistently present, we can resist God's gracious presence and work in us and the world. The freedom to say "no" to the invitation to be reconciled and transformed remains. Contrary to the Calvinists of his time, Wesley affirmed that we can lose our responsiveness to grace and become unaware/closed off/turn inward on ourselves. This is a choice and freedom God will never take away, the choice to turn to or away from God. Still, God's grace remains steadfast, ever blessing, sustaining and calling us toward wholeness and salvation.

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Baptism at Fredericksburg United Methodist Church Marks Entry into the Covenant Community.

Baptism is one of two sacraments recognized by the United Methodist Church, the other being Holy Communion. At Fredericksburg United Methodist Church, baptism is understood as an act of grace. It is not contingent on readiness, achievement, or timing. It is the church's way of saying, through water and the words of scripture, that God's love is already present and at work in a person's life.

Whether you are bringing an infant to be baptized, preparing your older child, or coming to baptism as an adult, FUMC welcomes you into this sacred practice. The doors, as the Methodist tradition has long affirmed, are open to all willing to draw nearer to God and neighbor.

Baptism Serves as a Sacrament of Initiation in the United Methodist Tradition

The United Methodist Church teaches that baptism is a means of grace, a practice through which God's presence and grace are made real and available. It is not symbolic in a superficial sense. The act of baptism with water in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit marks a person's formal entry into the covenant community of the church.

Holy Communion at Fredericksburg United Methodist Church Extends an Open Invitation to the Table of Christ and Fellowship. Holy Communion is one of two sacraments the United Methodist Church recognizes, alongside baptism. At Fredericksburg United Methodist Church, the table is open. That open welcome is both the starting point and the defining characteristic of how FUMC practices this sacrament.

Holy Communion Stands as a Sacrament and a Means of Grace in Methodist Teaching

The United Methodist Church defines Holy Communion as a sacrament instituted by Christ, one of two acts the church understands as a formal means of grace. A means of grace, in Wesleyan theology, is a channel through which God's grace becomes available to people in a tangible way. Communion is not merely a memorial or a symbol. It is a practice through which something real is conveyed.