North Georgia Blocks Church Disaffiliation
By Thomas Lambrecht -- In a provocative, year-end proclamation as she was walking out the door to her new assignment in Virginia, Bishop Sue Haupert-Johnson defiantly led the North Georgia Conference to stop all local church disaffiliations. The “pause” announced by...
Community Rallies Around Barbershop Evangelist
By Mike DuBose -- Friends, family, and his beloved church community are coming together to make sure Jake Sherrell gets his flowers while he yet lives. Sherrell, 96, runs North Nashville’s Bel-Aire Unisex Salon where he’s brought to Christ hundreds who have sat in his...
Conferences Play Hardball with Exiting Churches
By Thomas Lambrecht - Much has been made of the ability of congregations to leave The United Methodist Church with their property through a negotiated settlement with their annual conference. Some bishops are saying that the Book of Discipline already provides an exit...
VIDEO: Rob Renfroe takes on bishops who support the “One Church Plan”
Message by the Rev. Rob Renfroe, president of Good News, at the Confessing Movement luncheon of the Texas Annual Conference taking on the bishops who put forth the "One Church" Plan. "It has to be very frustrating for centrists and progressives to come up with an...
Your Tithes and Gifts Are Not Enough
By Thomas Lambrecht- Every Sunday, all around the world, faithful United Methodists give their tithes and gifts to the church. But apparently it's not enough to secure them a seat to observe the proceedings of one of the most important General Conferences in the...
An Unwilling Undertaking: Happy Aldersgate Weekend
By Chappell Temple - I feel for the guy. For he certainly wasn’t the first fellow ever to go rather begrudgingly–or as he put it, “very unwillingly”– to church. After all, in terms of his pastoral career trajectory, it hadn’t gone exactly as he might have hoped it...
Judicial Council Allows Alternative Proposals
By Thomas Lambrecht - In a decision released today, the Judicial Council ruled by an 8-1 margin that “Petitions to the special session of the General Conference 2019 may be filed by any organization, clergy member and lay member of the United Methodist Church as long...
Anti-American Methodism: Bishop Ough vs. We the People
By Jason Vickers - In his 1989 landmark work, The Democratization of American Christianity, Nathan Hatch, Professor of history at the University of Notre Dame, examined the spread of Christianity in early America, arguing that the groups that flourished were the ones...
