Analyzing Disaffiliating Churches
By Thomas Lambrecht -- A recent report by Lovett Weems of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership purports to examine the 2,000 or so churches that disaffiliated from The United Methodist Church by the end of 2022. The Weems report was supposedly intended to discover...
Methodist Heritage: Bishop Matthew Simpson
By James V. Heidinger II -- It would not be long before I began hearing much about Matthew Simpson, the renowned son of Cadiz, Ohio. He was a nationally-recognized Methodist bishop and then president of Indiana Asbury University (now DePauw University). He was also...
Focus 2: Global inequity challenges United Methodism
By Steve Beard - The 2019 General Conference of The United Methodist Church is being simultaneously translated for delegates in French, German, Korean, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Swahili. The skilled bank of interpreters illustrate the unique international DNA...
Focus 2: Devotional – Power of the Holy Spirit
By Samuel Chadwick - The church still has a theology of the Holy Spirit but it has no living consciousness of His presence and power. No doctrine of the Christian faith has been so neglected. The blunders and disasters of the church are largely, if not entirely,...
Focus 2: What Makes a Successful General Conference?
By Elizabeth Glass Turner - How can we move toward a common goal successfully together? That endgame may mean significantly different things to various factions in St. Louis. The problem isn't that we can't work together. It's that we're working towards different...
Focus 1: Devotional – A prayer for hope
By Richard Allen (1760-1830) - O, my God, in all my dangers, temporal and spiritual, I will hope in thee who art Almighty power, and therefore able to relieve me; who art infinite goodness, and therefore ready and willing to assist me. O, precious blood of my dear...
Focus 1: Which Way Forward? Modified Traditional Plan
By Thomas Lambrecht “I look upon all the world as my parish,” famously said John Wesley. As we gather in St. Louis, The United Methodist Church – one aspect of Wesley’s spiritual legacy – is in ministry in 60 different nations around the globe. Within the last 20...
Is Mainstream Selling Us Downstream?
By Chappell Temple - I've been getting their emails and letters almost every day, so it seems. In preparation for the upcoming General Conference of The United Methodist Church in St. Louis, a group advocating for one of the plans being proposed has been more than...
