Love and Lent
Love and Lent By Shannon Vowell A strange day today. Much of the Christian world will begin a season of fasting and prayer by receiving ashes and the somber injunction to “remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Simultaneously, much of the secular world...
Extending Disaffiliation Options
Extending Disaffiliation Options By Thomas Lambrecht The main agenda items for the Renewal and Reform Coalition at the 2024 General Conference meeting in Charlotte, NC, April 23-May 3 relate to providing new disaffiliation pathways for churches and annual conferences...
How Prayer Helps a Hurting Heart
By Scott McDermott Learning how to pray when our life is hurting is one of the most important lessons we can ever learn in life, yet so few of us have been taught just how to do it. Personal pain is a part of everyone’s experience. As Jesus teaches, the storms of life...
Iconic brushstrokes from Ukraine
By Steve Beard As I watched the evening news during the haunting first few weeks of the scorched-earth invasion of Ukraine, I could not help but see Kateryna Shadrina’s vibrant image of the Madonna and Child superimposed over the video footage on television of mothers...
Lenten Underground
By Steve Beard It was standing-room-only for the noon Ash Wednesday service at my local church. Ushers were pulling folding chairs out of a closet and people were sitting in the hallway outside the sanctuary. Parishioners were literally standing against the back and...
Hard Things
By Rob Renfroe When I speak to churches about the problems dividing the United Methodist Church, I begin by saying, “If you are not aware of what I am about to tell you, it will be hard for you to believe. I’ll sound like an ancient astronomer trying to convince you...
Why many Traditionalists feel “stuck”
By Thomas Lambrecht The United Methodist Church is currently in an extremely awkward position. The vast majority of church leaders acknowledge the need for separation to take place in order to resolve the decades-long controversy over biblical authority and...
Church Trust Law Webinar with Lloyd J. Lunceford
Church Trust Law Webinar: Tuesday, May 10, 7 PM Central Time *** Do United Methodist congregations own their buildings? What is a trust? Can the United Methodist trust be revoked? Is there a legal process for disaffiliating from the UM Church separate from what is in...
