Charting a New Direction for the UMC (Part II)
By Thomas Lambrecht With the recent election of thirteen new bishops, the active Council of Bishops will be made up of one-third new members on January 1, 2023. As such, they will play a powerful role in setting the direction of The United Methodist Church into the...
Charting a New Direction for the UMC (Part 1)
By Thomas Lambrecht -- With the recent election of thirteen new bishops, the active Council of Bishops will be made up of one-third new members on January 1, 2023. As such, they will play a powerful role in setting the direction of The United Methodist Church into the...
Big Picture Status of United Methodism (Part 2 )
By Thomas Lambrecht- In last week's edition of Perspective, I began to survey the growth and decline of United Methodism around the globe. The big picture is that most of Methodism around the globe is in decline, with the exception of certain regions in Africa. Last...
Reflecting God’s colorful image
Reflecting God’s colorful image Courtney Lott reviews John Perkins’ One Blood 2018 Our God is a very big God. So big and so creative that a single human never could bare his image perfectly. In his vastness, he uses male and female, black and white, smart and simple,...
Billy Graham, Good News, and United Methodism
Wherever he went around the globe, Billy Graham spent his life preaching a message of God’s love for all people, the essential need to repent, and the assurance that Jesus Christ walks with believers in the brightest and darkest of times. Over his illustrious...
Big Picture Status of United Methodism (Part 1 – Africa)
By Thomas Lambrecht- We are called Methodists for a reason. John Wesley was very methodical in his approach to discipleship (the means of grace, the General Rules) and revival. He always insisted that small groups be formed of those who responded to his preaching. He...
A Secular Religion: The Challenge We Face
By Tom Lambrecht- A recent article in the journal First Things by Mary Eberstadt entitled The Zealous Faith of Secularism makes the case that the challenge we face in the United States and the Western World is one of competing faiths or competing ideologies....
Tempering Expectations — Dealing with Impatience
By Thomas Lambrecht- It is no surprise that many members of The United Methodist Church are growing impatient. It feels like we have been discussing (if not fighting over) our views regarding the church's ministry with LGBTQ people for a lifetime. Many hoped that the...
