by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By Frank Decker
My home airport is the world’s busiest, and when traveling, I often come across groups of work teams headed to some foreign place to serve for a week or two. They are not difficult to spot, and they sometimes even have matching t-shirts. I often ask them about their plans. “We’re going to build a church,” “We are conducting a Vacation Bible School,” etc. A colleague recently told me of a mission work team whose matching t-shirts displayed a map of their home state with an arrow pointing from home to their Latin American destination. The caption proclaimed, “Bringing Jesus from Texas to Costa Rica.”
I cringed when I heard that story. And if you have served on a work team, lived overseas, or as a Wesleyan simply have a basic understanding of prevenient grace, perhaps you bristled with a vicarious sense of embarrassment on hearing it, too.
We need to pay attention to how others perceive us as we come in the name of Jesus. Perhaps we assume that our identity as Americans is an advantage to our witness. However, this is not the case. Eugene Peterson has written about what people who come from other cultures into ours see and hear. He says, “In my experience, they don’t see a Christian land. …They see something almost the reverse of a Christian land.” “They see a lot of greed and arrogance. And they see a Christian community that has almost none of the virtues of the biblical Christian community, which have to do with a sacrificial life and conspicuous love. Rather, they see indulgence in feelings and emotions, and an avaricious quest for gratification.”
Author and educator Bill McKibbin chimes in on the disconnect between our self-identity as a Christian people and the reality that our collective cultural behavior indicates something quite to the contrary. For example, the United States is the most violent rich nation on earth with a murder rate over four times that of Europe. American prisons house six or seven times the population percentage of other developed countries. And, “Despite Jesus’ strong declarations against divorce, our marriages break up at a rate—just over half—that compares poorly with the European Union’s average of about four in ten. …Teenage pregnancy? We’re at the top of the charts. Personal self-discipline—like, say, keeping your weight under control? Buying on credit? Running government deficits? Do you need to ask?”
America is attractive to outsiders, in Peterson’s words, because of our materialism, not our spirituality. “What they want are cars and televisions. They’re not coming after our gospel, unless they’re translating the gospel into a promise of riches and comfort.”
Therein lies a huge missiological challenge. Let’s say that I feel compelled to serve cross-culturally, and I get it that my cultural identity is not an advantage but sometimes a handicap. I am like a baseball player beginning my appearance at the plate with two strikes against me. The necessary process to avoid striking out is doable, but not easy. And it cannot be accomplished alone.
The Mission Society has a group of workers-in-training who are currently living among mostly Muslim refugees here in the Atlanta area, and one of the books we are studying is Life Together by Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Prior to his martyrdom in a Nazi prison camp, Bonhoeffer wrote that the essential element of authentic Christian life and work is the very presence of Jesus in our midst. Anything we seek to do that is void of his presence is of no value to the Kingdom. Each and every step along the way must necessarily involve a collaborative process of prayer, meditation, and Scripture study in which Christ is invited to reveal himself.
So, as I relate to the hundreds of missionaries with whom I work, I realize that there is a lot at stake as Americans go out to minister in Jesus’ name. And I always go back to Bonhoeffer’s question: Is Jesus himself evident in this work? If one’s doing ministry involves serving AIDS orphans in Kenya, or children at risk through human trafficking in Bangkok, or forgotten villagers in the Peruvian Andes, or struggling adolescents in the Ukraine, or Dalit (“untouchable”) women in India, or the training of pastors, the question must perpetually be asked: Is the presence of Christ himself evident in this?
When Jesus’ presence is experienced as a reality, we might not need a t-shirt to advertize it.
by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
On target
Rob Renfroe’s editorial in the September/October issue (“Tone Deafness and the Call to Action”) is on target and very encouraging. As a person in the pew, let me also ask a question.
Why should I distrust a Board that continually labels conservative Americans in favor of a smaller government and less debt as racists? I was at the August 28th Restoring Honor rally in Washington, D.C. and I was humbled by the presence of such a large crowd gathered peacefully with no political signs to hear Dr. Alveda King (Martin Luther King’s niece) speak of her uncle’s “dream”; which gathered to honor everyday Americans for their bravery and generosity and stood with over 200 clergy of all faiths (Christian, Jews, and Muslims) in proclaiming the greatness of this country and praying for a return to God as our savior and leader, and for a renewal of our faith and a return to the founding principles of this nation.
Yes, I too hope and pray that the Call to Action Committee will take its charter seriously. Leadership must be trusted to carry out its role and responsibilities based on biblical foundations and not some political agenda.
Dave Dyer
Spotsylvania, Virginia
Pushed buttons
It might be my own middle-age crisis, but September/October’s “West Coast Lament” pushed several of my buttons. My call to ministry was shortly after the apex of Methodist membership (unification in 1968) and it’s been all downhill since. Like Bishop Swenson, I came west to serve, convinced the world would very soon be transformed for Christ; but as retirement comes onto my horizon, I sometimes wonder what has happened.
Andrew Miller’s analysis and Steve Beard’s story tag some of the probable factors, and George Mitrovich asks directly what might be the other causes for our decline than a failure to honor our Wesleyan heritage. The author asserts that the liberalism that characterizes the West has undermined the Wesleyan witness out here. I would suggest some other factors.
First, I’d like to know why there can’t also be a Christian, Wesleyan church for liberals? Aren’t we eligible for the good news too? Just because there’s not a lot of us doesn’t mean we’re not faithful. Miller’s analysis skips over these facts, culled from the same sources:
• Attendance per member in Cal-Pac is 57.44 percent, while attendance per member in North Georgia is 39.2 percent.
• Despite Cal-Pac’s 16.5 percent decline over the past ten years, giving per member increased 45 percent. In fact, for 2009, per capita giving to the Advance in the Western Jurisdiction is $6.38, with Cal-Pac giving at an even higher rate of $7.37. In contrast, the per member rate for the Southeastern Jurisdiction is $2.74, and specifically for North Georgia, $1.86. If you’re going to compare apples to apples, compare all the apples.
• The article notes the need for a dedicated staff person for church planting. Also reported was the impact of the Pacific-Homes crisis in Cal-Pac—care to guess one of the many places where staffing was cut? Update: since the late 1990s, Cal-Pac has rebuilt its new ministries staff to include an executive director, and directors in both Hispanic and Urban ministries. We’re going in the right direction.
• But wait, there’s more: even though we are committed to planting new congregations by all viable means, Cal-Pac ranks first in the denomination for cost per member to operate a church: $1,297. This indicates the cost of real estate and infrastructure in the second largest metro area in the country. Plainly, this impacts both the vitality of existing congregations, and establishing new ministries, for new people, in new places.
It is interesting to play with numbers and statistics, but personally, I think the reasons for decline are much more personal. The Rev. Adam Hamilton talks about the traditional equation for discipling as “believe, behave, belong.” First, profess faith, as I did in my call experience at senior high church camp. Then learn how to be or “behave” as a Christian and in community and service. The fruit of this for me has become a deep-rooted belonging in the United Methodist fellowship of faith across my life and several western states.
That priority sequence is also at the heart of the accusation that the liberal West has lost its Wesleyan fire and thus its market, its ministry, its witness. But the West is too small to account for the loss of millions of members in the total denomination, and what really drives that loss across much (not all) of our church is not about belief, but how we have behaved. If we take seriously what surveys of those outside the church say, especially those who have actually visited, then the other end of the sequence comes to the front: today, young people in particular come seeking a sense of community and belonging. Hamilton has built his successful ministry by flipping the sequence to begin with belonging, then learning the behaviors (“discipling”), the fruit of which is ultimately profession of faith.
This locates the breakdown at our doorstep. Belonging never gets started because we have not only forgotten true hospitality, we’ve twisted our need for belonging into a cold shoulder. Our need to greet our friends, to sit in our pew, to have only people who look, act, and speak like ourselves to bolster our sense of belonging has effectively closed many of our doors. The root cause is not in our heads, what we believe, but what is in our hearts.
California and the West are booming. It is the mission frontier of our time on this continent. It is packed with folks of all sorts, including more than enough spiritually-rooted, God-seeking persons who are also, by the way, liberal and would welcome Wesley’s open hand, and the idea that Kennedy’s one hundred churches of a thousand members is entirely possible. We will have to deal with the high cost of land and buildings, with multiple languages and colors, and real competition from other faith traditions; but first we will have to open our hearts and minds, and only then should we open our doors. We will have to re-learn and learn anew the ways that match this population—not Georgia’s or anyone else’s. Those who wish to join us in doing so are welcome to go west.
Gary M. Keene
Executive Director
Connectional Ministries
California-Pacific Annual Conference
More needs to be said
Thank you for the very fine article regarding the decline of United Methodism in Southern California and its growth in North Georgia. I appreciate the fact that you were more than fair to Bishop Swenson. But more needs to be said.
The bishop states one reason for Methodism’s decline in the Cal-Pac Annual Conference is its diversity. But the truth is Bishop Swenson has no truly large churches or rapidly growing churches of any ethnic group under her charge. The problem in that conference is not that they have learned how to do “Anglo church” or “Hispanic church” well, but haven’t learned how to do church well for other ethnic groups. Reality is that they aren’t meeting the spiritual needs of any ethnic group sufficiently to make large numbers of disciples—and this in an area where some of the nation’s largest churches of all ethnic groups exist, only they are not United Methodist. A diverse population is not the reason Cal-Pac is failing. There is something systemic that needs to be addressed.
The fact that the bishop points to a financial and public relations problem (the Pacific Homes debacle), which occurred roughly 30 years ago as a reason for a lack of growth today, is both sad and deflective. It is indicative of a mindset that is content with a lack of growth and that is more comfortable with excusing present-day failure than expecting churches to be growing centers of Wesleyan spirituality.
In the past 40 years, the Western Jurisdiction has lost 45 percent of its membership, far more than any other jurisdiction. The reason is not diversity or problems with retirement homes. The reason is systemic. Thus, systemic failure is at hand with the absence of any passion for saving souls; an ambivalence to the poor historical performance; and, as it is with any failing organization, a leadership deflective and blaming like Adam did with Eve. If we mirror contemporary culture, we will be conformed to the world and the world will not need us.
Stew Grant
Texas Annual Conference
Remembering Arminius
I was blessed to read “Celebrating James Arminius” by George Mitrovich in the May/June 2010 issue of Good News. It sounded themes of which we United Methodists need to be reminded. As the recent anniversary celebration of Calvin’s birth showed, certain debates are still very much with us. Lesser debates have often consumed more energy than the Calvinism-“liberty of the will” issue. Mitrovich points out that our beliefs have consequences; therefore, the debate must still be joined. Also, unwarranted suffering can result from falsified doctrine.
Methodism came into being for many reasons; one of the most important was recovery of nearly-forgotten traditions. For us, tradition was a positive force, at least potentially. More than a reaction to Calvinism or Lutheranism, tradition was at stake. The Wesleys looked farther back than these Reformations. We sometimes forget that Arminius and all were preceded by at least a thousand years of living doctrine. A bearer of this continuity was the Eastern Orthodox Church, which continues to this day.
The tradition from which Orthodoxy draws includes the Cappadocian (4th Century) theologians. Their message, as I understand it, was a both/and approach. Both God and humans are somehow involved in what we call salvation. It is about synergy, if you will, more than energy. The alternative to “total depravity” is “energy together” (syn-ergy), a potent force indeed. It does not have to be explained to be true. It has been courageously upheld by Wesleyans and Disciplinary statements through the years.
Your magazine is to be commended for its coverage of both the Early (pre-Schism) Church and the Eastern Orthodox Church (e.g. Archpriest Hardun, p. 8 in September/October 2010 issue). This provided many connections for us to explore.
Joe Beardsley
Retired Elder
Servant leadership
I enjoyed Rob Renfroe’s challenge (“calling out”) for integrity from the top in “Tone Deafness and the Call to Action” in the September/October 2010 issue of Good News. Robert Greenleaf, known as the father of the modern day servant leadership model in the education sector, admonished boards and ad councils of organizations across our society to do their job—hold leadership accountable, thus being good stewards (Servant Leadership: A Journey into the Nature of Legitimate Power and Greatness, Paulist Press, 1977). Those in any field, not just the church, who push their own agenda at the expense of the common good, assist in the erosion of the core values of the organization. Your article explains this well.
Thank you for reminding us of what is at stake. Those at the top of the chain seem to have so little of an idea of what the grassroots of Methodism really think, and are so thirsting for from the bureaucracy. Simply, the grassroots so thirst for true, ethical, transparent leadership that is not aligned with a political party, or the whims of special interests groups, but aligned with Christ, and the biblical principles Wesley assumed we would know how to cling to.
Joseph “Rocky” Wallace,
Doctor of Strategic Leadership
Foundational and Graduate
Studies in Education
Morehead State University
Morehead, Kentucky
Accountability
Thank you for your editorial about accountability and autonomous organizational structure (“Tone Deafness and the Call to Action” in the September/October 2010 issue of Good News).
I am a fairly recent graduate from one of our United Methodist seminaries, and during my four years there, I found myself asking a question over and over: How did it (and how could it) come about that the UM seminaries are not accountable in any truly meaningful way to the UM Church? Sure, we have our six hours of United Methodist classes. But the other 84 hours required for a Masters of Divinity degree will not have much if any focus on Methodist doctrine and beliefs, (and lots of times not even just basic Christian beliefs), unless the student specifically seeks it out.
How did we ever get to this point in the theological education of Methodists? And how can we ever get out if it?
What hope is there for our seminaries becoming accountable, and actually emphasizing and believing Methodist doctrinal beliefs? This would be a major joy and opportunity for renewal.
Thanks so much for all your efforts! Thanks also for not getting all political about everything. No political party is ever going to be our Savior, and I thank you and praise God that Good News magazine does not fall into that trap, but continues to focus on Jesus Christ!
Paul Stephens
Sedgwick and Bentley UM Churches
Kansas West Conference
by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By B.J. Funk
“I set out on a broken road, many years ago / Hoping I would find true love along the broken road / But I got lost a time or two / Wiped my brow and kept pushing through / I couldn’t see how every sign pointed straight to you.”
If you are a country music lover, you will recognize these words from Rascal Flatts in the song “God Blessed the Broken Road.” Though it is clearly a song for lovers, it is also transparently Christian in its message. Did you find your way to Christ on a broken road? Did you get lost in your search for a relationship with Jesus? When did you recognize that every sign of brokenness was pointing you straight to a life-transforming relationship with Jesus Christ?
As we trip over the unevenness of the road, we finally realize we are incapable of walking it without his help. As we step across the rough cracks, we may try to jump over them, smooth them, or ignore them, but eventually, we realize that this particular broken road is what God is using to bring us to him.
The song continues: “Every long lost dream led me to where you are / Others who broke my heart, they were like Northern stars / Pointing me on my way into your loving arms / This much I know is true / That God blessed the broken road / That led me straight to you.”
While it is difficult to wrap our minds around the thought of God working through our brokenness, Romans 8:28 reminds us that “in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” This does not mean, of course, that everything that happens to us is good. We live in a fallen world where evil is rampant. However, God is able to redeem our difficult and tragic situations. It is a good that we could never have imagined or planned on our own: when God plants his foot beside us on the broken road, he does amazing and wondrous things in our lives and in the lives of others. As the song says, he blesses our broken road and uses it to bring us straight to his loving arms.
The next verse grabs my heart. “I think about the years I’ve spent just passing through / I’d like to have the time I lost and give it back to you / But you just smile and take my hand / You’ve been there, you understand / It’s all part of a grander plan that is coming true.”
Did you have some “passing through” years, when you took life for granted, or thought you would live forever, and wasted many hours living for yourself and no one else? I did, and I didn’t even know it. As a young adult, I was in church every Sunday, prayer groups and Bible studies, but my heart still belonged to me. Out of nowhere, a broken road appeared and tumbled my world. I struggled to walk on it, fell and skinned my knees more than once, and cried all the while. At the end of the road, however, I found out what the good God was doing with my brokenness. I watched God walk that road with me. Sometimes, I even sensed he cried with me.
I lost years with self on the throne. Death to self was a foreign concept; now it is a daily process. I would love to have the time I lost, and give it back to him.
This last verse is illustrated clearly in the biblical story of the loving father who welcomes his wasteful prodigal son home. When the son finally comes to his senses and returns home, his father takes his son’s hand, understanding and loving him back to his heart and home. The wise father knows that his son’s selfishness has served a grander plan—a plan that would change a conceited son into a mature man.
A few lines from the devotional Streams in the Desert gives validity to the reason for our broken roads. “It is not until a beautiful kernel of corn is buried and broken in the earth by death that its inner heart sprouts, producing hundreds of other seeds of kernels. And so it has always been, down through the history of plants, people, and all of spiritual life—God uses broken things.”
In this season of thanksgiving and celebration, thank God that he chooses to use you. Thank him for the broken roads that led you straight to him.
B.J. Funk (bjfunk@bellsouth.net) is associate pastor of Central United Methodist Church in Fitzgerald, Georgia. She is the author of The Dance of Life: Invitation to a Father Daughter Dance, a regular contributor to the South Georgia Advocate, and a frequent speaker at women’s retreats.
by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By Wayne Stoltz
There is a foster care crisis in the United States. Children are taken into foster care for three main reasons: deprivation, abandonment, and abuse. Cases range from homeless children whose parents have lost their jobs to two brothers whose mother committed suicide and an infant with numerous broken bones going straight from the hospital into foster care. These stories are played out throughout the nation.
Approximately 500,000 American children and youth are in foster care today, and there are only about half of the necessary foster families to care for them. The problem is large but the solution is local. One organization, which began in partnership with my local United Methodist church, is working to change the way foster care is done in America.
Like many good ideas, FaithBridge Foster Care began with two people with a vision for societal change. Bill Hancock, FaithBridge’s CEO and president, had spent his entire career in policy and administration of child welfare, and I was involved in missions at Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church in Marietta, Georgia. Each week, for many months, we met and defined a new model and new strategies for the way foster care should be done. Rather than considering the national problem, we considered it to be a problem in our local community, and we focused on developing a local solution that could be scaled to a national scope.
Our discussions centered on how to address three problems in the foster care system: capacity, stability, and quality. We developed concepts and strategies for FaithBridge, and I began talks with the missions committee and senior pastor about the possibility of Mt. Bethel starting a pilot program for FaithBridge. Our church had an active, dedicated missions program and in large part, this missions focus has helped the church grow to 9,000 members. We formed the Mt. Bethel Foster Care committee, garnered support, and were awarded a significant grant from the missions budget to fund the start up of FaithBridge Foster Care. This included setting up the non-profit status, working with the state to earn the designation of a child placing agency, and hiring Bill Hancock as its executive director.
“When I heard about this idea, I knew it was something we had to do,” said Pastor Randy Mickler, senior pastor at Mt. Bethel UM Church for 23 years. “As scripture says, ‘take care of the widow and orphans.’ We wanted to do whatever we could to help.”
“The foster care program at Mt. Bethel is part of our compassion into action philosophy,” Mickler continued. “We are called to go beyond our church walls and carry Christ out into the community. These children are batted around from one family or state organization to the next and it’s our honor and duty to provide them with a safe, loving Christian environment. This program makes Mt. Bethel proud to be a church.”
The FaithBridge approach
FaithBridge Foster Care believes the local church can act as a delivery channel for foster care, solving the problems of capacity, stability, and quality that are endemic to the current system. FaithBridge mobilizes and equips churches to provide the services that foster families need to be successful.
To do this, FaithBridge creates within the church a small group network known as the Community of Care, a team of volunteers who act as a support system to foster families and foster children. They help find resources, such as clothes and toys, and act as an extended family, providing respite services, mentoring, special recreation, and extra-curricular activities. Providing this kind of support is critical to encourage good, stable families to become foster families.
Nationally, almost half of the foster families drop out every year because they are overwhelmed by a system that lacks the resources or personnel to help them. The FaithBridge Community of Care model ensures they have the help they need when they need it. They are not alone. This approach also reduces the workload for government child welfare departments while increasing effective placement and quality care.
As founder and organizational leader, Bill has walked the walk and talked the talk. He and his wife have fostered more than 50 children throughout the years, and Bill knows firsthand how it is to feel seemingly alone in this world, having had to leave his own home at the age of 15.
Like Bill, I also have experience with foster children, as my wife and I had many young people come to live with us over the years. Some lived with us for six months, others just as a quick transitional home when they needed a change of venue.
“I believe there is a family for every child and our job is to build bridges between children and families—to bring them together and keep them together,” said Hancock. “Every local church in every community has the mandate and infrastructure to serve families in their local areas better than anyone and to respond to the needs of these families. We create a safety net in the community.”
Mt. Bethel families
Fifteen families at Mt. Bethel have fostered children since the program began in late 2006, with nearly 50 children served in the Mt. Bethel community. Many have helped with respite care. Some families have even moved forward and adopted their foster children.
Kale and Jeff McKisson, along with their seven-year-old son, fostered a sibling group of six boys. According to Kale, it was simply meant to be, as the couple had wanted another child of their own and had inquired about adoption. Kale and her family had been visiting local churches and had just visited Mt. Bethel for two Sundays in a row, when they heard about the foster care program and responded to the call.
“We thought we wanted an infant, but God gave us what we needed,” said Kale McKisson. “We started by fostering two of the brothers who were two and four years old at the time. In a few short months we had the six boys and their two sisters were with another family at Mt. Bethel.”
This story has a very happy ending as both the McKissons and the other family moved forward with adopting these children, and they all remain together as a family who attend the same church. The McKissons grew from a family of three to a family of nine and continue to say if there is a need they won’t turn their back in offering respite, short-term care to other children in need. In the words of Kale, “how could anyone not foster?”
Robin Freeman, who along with her husband and two children, has fostered six children, all under the age of two. According to Robin, being in a ministry together with her family has really helped them grow spiritually. It has also profoundly changed their children, who are now nine and eleven years old, to be more loving, accepting, independent people.
Julie Kirby, now chairperson for the foster care ministry committee at Mt. Bethel, and a foster parent herself, started with a smaller commitment, providing respite care and babysitting support, to being a foster parent of a 13-year-old. She understands that not everyone is able to foster, but they are able to support the program, which now is supported by a network of several hundred people.
This successful ministry is kept in front of the entire congregation with a bi-annual consecration service for foster families, along with many activities throughout the year such as giving a rose on Mother’s Day to all foster moms, and other opportunities to acknowledge and thank these families for their significant sacrifice.
FaithBridge continues to grow
Mt. Bethel was FaithBridge’s first church partner and helped launch the organization. Since then FaithBridge Foster Care has grown to more than a dozen church partners throughout Georgia and has plans to expand into other states in the near future.
Why is partnering with churches FaithBridge’s focus? Christian families understand the need and are more likely to respond to the call. By becoming involved in this societal problem, these families become missionaries in their own community.
“We continue to build awareness and educate people about the foster care crisis and look for church partners who have all the qualities of Mt. Bethel—willing to lead, positive example, a church of influence, with a focus on missions and outreach,” said Hancock. “So many churches and families are stepping up and it’s wonderful to see them making a difference in the lives of children.”
Wayne Stolz is co-founder of FaithBridge Foster Care and founder of Mt. Bethel Foster Care Ministry. For more information on FaithBridge Foster Care, please visit www.faithbridgefostercare.org.
by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
Archive: Good News moves ministry to Houston area
After 38 years of being headquartered in Wilmore, Kentucky, the Board of Directors of Good News announced that it will be moving its advocacy ministry and publishing endeavor to the Houston area. The evangelical renewal ministry within the United Methodist Church has been the publisher of Good News magazine since 1967.
“In recent years, Good News has made a leadership transition. Both Rob Renfroe, our President and Publisher, and Norm Phillips, our Chief Operating Officer, reside in the Houston area,” said the Rev. Keith Boyette, chairperson of the Good News Board of Directors. “For Good News to remain an effective force for reform and renewal in the United Methodist Church, we wanted to position our headquarters in close proximity to our senior staff. In addition, the relocation of our headquarters takes advantage of our significant relationship with a number of strong and vibrant evangelical churches, clergy, and lay persons in the Southeast and South Central Jurisdictions.
“We want to capitalize on those relationships as we continue to advocate for a more faithful and fruitful United Methodist Church,” says Boyette. “Our offices in the Houston area will facilitate much easier travel to resource our partners and to encourage their ongoing involvement in our efforts.”
Good News’ long tenure in Wilmore began in 1972 when founding editor Charles Keysor left the pastorate of Grace United Methodist Church in Elgin, Illinois, to join the faculty of Asbury College in order to develop a program of Christian journalism.
“It is difficult for me, frankly, to think about the Good News office being anywhere else than in Wilmore,” said the Rev. James V. Heidinger II, President and Publisher Emeritus. “That is all that I’ve experienced. However, this is a move I support. This is the right time for a transition like this. Some of United Methodism’s most vital congregations are located in the Houston area. The leadership roles for Rob and Norm will be made much easier with the relocation. Furthermore, I am confident that Good News’ commitment to United Methodist renewal will remain focused, strong, and vital in the new environment.”
The move of the ministry to the Houston area—the fourth largest metropolitan area in the United States—was a unanimous decision on the part of the Good News Board of Directors. The administrative office will be relocated in November to Spring, Texas. The editorial office will remain in Wilmore, Kentucky, until next spring. Correspondence and donations will still be received at the Wilmore office until the editorial office is moved.
“Wilmore, Kentucky, is a home base for my soul; just returning there for a day or two refreshes me and reminds me of my happy years at Asbury,” said the Rev. Ken Werlein, a member of the Good News Board of Directors and pastor of Faithbridge United Methodist Church in Spring, Texas. “But Houston has given me countless opportunities to put real shoe leather on all the good theory I learned in Wilmore. Our frazzled denomination needs the real influence of Good News more than ever, and anchoring in a metropolis of our denomination’s largest and most influential churches should only expand that influence.”
—The Good News editorial team.
by Steve | Nov 16, 2010 | Magazine Articles
By Rob Renfroe
If you haven’t heard yet, Good News is moving its offices. What’s not changing is our historic, God-given mission to reform and renew the United Methodist Church. That has always been the purpose of Good News. And it always will be.
Decades before I became the president and publisher of Good News, I respected its work—and I was comforted by its voice. Good News assured me that there were committed, Wesleyan Christians who were speaking up for me and for others like me—people who believe that Jesus Christ is the way and the truth and the life; people who believe that the Bible is the Word of God; and people who believe that the Church is meant to change the culture, not be changed by the culture.
In those early years of my ministry, I was greatly encouraged to know that I was not alone. In Good News there was a movement within our denomination that would not let our elected leaders, whatever their titles, go unchallenged if they led our church away from the truth once and for all delivered to the saints.
Recently in my daily Bible reading I came upon Paul’s words to his son in the faith, Timothy. He wrote: “Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season; correct, rebuke and encourage—with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when men will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear. They will turn their ears away from the truth and turn aside to myths” (2 Timothy 4:2-4).
Even in Paul’s day there were teachers and leaders who did not want to hear the truth, much less preach it. Even in the first century, sound doctrine was difficult for itching ears to listen to—and some in the church preferred to remove the offense of the Gospel and be told what was culturally acceptable. But Paul instructed Timothy to “preach the Word” whether people wanted to hear it or not because the truth of the Gospel is our hope and our salvation.
Good News has always understood its mandate to be similar to what Paul instructed Timothy. Nearly two thousand years later, the time that Paul predicted is certainly here. And we must be Timothy to our generation. We must defend the Gospel from those outside the church who condemn us for being narrow-minded and from those inside the church who would compromise the truth into something that itching ears want to hear.
On the opposite page, you will read about the unanimous decision by our Board of Directors to move our offices to the greater Houston area. Many on our Board have historic, spiritual, and emotional ties to Wilmore. Relocating was not an easy decision. But we are doing so because we are convinced that such a move will make us more effective in defending the faith, holding our United Methodist leaders accountable, and speaking out for people like you and me who believe that the Gospel is the revelation of God and the hope of the world.
Our address may change, but be assured that our mission, motivation, and ministry will not.
Rob Renfroe is the president and publisher of Good News.
