By Frank Billman “I couldn’t believe I was in a room of Methodists. I’ve never seen us so alive. I want others from my smaller church to experience it!” “The highlight for me was watching the people we brought experience Aldersgate and the presence of God. Every face was lit up—every heart filled with fire!” [...]

By Reed Hoppe While most eleven-year old girls wake up and attend school each day, Maria faces a daily horror most of us could never imagine. Instead of doing homework and playing with her friends, Maria is repeatedly raped by men who are allowed to do so by her own parents. Maria is a victim [...]

By Steve Beard Dear John Paul: For 13 years, you have been a steady and reliable source of pride and joy. No dad could be prouder than I am. I have been grateful to God for every single day of your life and now your mom and I acknowledge that you have reached a momentous [...]

In June 1975, I attended the West Michigan Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church for the first time. In two months, I would complete my final classes in seminary and take my first appointment as a deacon and a probationary member of the conference. Sometime during that week I met with Dr. Bob Smith, [...]

Faithful service It is so hard to think about Good News without Jim Heidinger! (But 28 years ago, it was so hard to lose him from East Ohio Conference. Okay, I was wrong!) What a tremendous influence he has had churchwide. His faithful service to his Lord has been a steady guiding light for many [...]

By Les Longden General Conference 2008 launched a major push from the Council of Bishops and the program boards of the United Methodist Church to transform our denomination by teaching and practicing the “Wesleyan view of the world.” To this end, Bishop Reuben P. Job’s book Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living (Abingdon [...]

By B.J. Funk If the smell of gastric juices and dead fish didn’t get to Jonah, the seaweed would. Inside the dark belly of this fish, with saltwater swirling over his nose as he gasped for air, Jonah realized he was not in the middle of some other fisherman’s large fish story! This was his [...]

By Rob Renfroe The United Methodist News Service has published an article declaring that the 23 proposed amendments regarding the Worldwide Nature of the Church and the proposed Amendment 1 regarding membership eligibility have all failed. Though not all of the annual conferences have released their tallies, there are not enough votes in the unreporting [...]

By Riley B. Case Did we miss something or did the Episcopal General Convention, meeting in mid-July, just thumb its nose at the rest of the Christian world? The week started off with Episcopal Presiding Bishop Katherine Jefferts Schori declaring it is “heresy” to believe that an individual can be saved through a sinner’s prayer [...]

By Riley B. Case One of the best friends of evangelical United Methodists is The Book of Discipline. It serves as the church’s law book, but it is much more. It also serves as the constitution not only for the denomination but for each local church. The constitution contains our doctrine, our General Rules (designed [...]