Our Purpose Is Love Leader Guide: The Wesleyan Way to Be the Church

What does it mean to love God and neighbor today, when things so often feel divided and in conflict?

In Our Purpose Is Love, author David Field challenges us to recognize and reclaim love as the center of our identity and purpose as the church. Field presents a Wesleyan vision of the church as the embodiment of God’s love in the world and explores the implications of this vision for our life together. In this vision, the church is where we become creatures of love, learning to love God and neighbor ever more completely and authentically through the means of God’s grace. As a result, we bear witness to the world by reflecting God’s love more and more perfectly in the way we treat others and order our common life. With a special focus on the importance of unity for the church’s witness, Field invites us to consider the ways in which embodying God’s love can and should influence
how we live as individuals and as communities of faith, calling us to reclaim and recommit to love as the center of who we are.

This Leader Guide includes leader helps and complete session plans for facilitating an eight-week small group study using Our Purpose Is Love: The Wesleyan Way to Be the Church, by David N. Field.

David N. Field is the Academic Coordinator for the Methodist e-Academy - a theological education project for Methodist Churches in Europe - providing online supplementary education in Methodist Studies for ordination candidates and further education courses for pastors and lay leaders. The e-academy draws students and teachers from a variety of European countries. The role of the coordinator is to provide the planning, regular management and academic leadership of the e-Academy. He also teaches a course in the Methodist Studies Program.
Dr. Field is also Research Associate of the Research Institute for Theology and Religion at the University of South Africa.