For All the Saints …
For All the Saints ... By Scott N. Field - In America, Halloween is the second biggest holiday of the year, based on consumer spending. Without a doubt it almost completely overshadows the day from which it derives its name. “Halloween” is the contracted form of “All...
More “Mainstream” Misrepresentations
More "Mainstream" Misrepresentations - By Thomas Lambrecht - Last week’s Perspective addressed the arguments made by the “centrist” caucus group Mainstream UMC regarding the need for exit paths to be adopted by the 2024 General Conference. This week, I would like to...
Review: Prayer In The Night
By Elizabeth Glass Turner - There is a point when dog-earing a book becomes an exercise in futility. My copy of Tish Harrison Warren’s Prayer in the Night: For Those Who Work or Watch or Weep is accordioned with an absurdly unhelpful number of dog-eared pages. The...
Getting United Methodism Unstuck
By Thomas Lambrecht - The dust is clearing after an eventful last few months for The United Methodist Church. General Conference is postponed in-person to August 2022. A special virtual General Conference was scheduled for May 8, 2021, and then canceled. The...
Abundant Life
By Shannon Vowell - Spring pushing white and lavender and pink into dazzling prominence as the gray and brown disappear. Easter joy writ large on the landscape. Alongside the greening, something new in my neighborhood, a winter-is-over ritual: Regiments of...
When Movements Lose Direction
By Windfield Bevins - Methodism swept across the American frontier like an uncontrollable prairie fire. That is hardly how we would describe it today. There are great benefits in considering some of the things that led the decline of Methodism. What lessons can...
An Overlooked Flock
By Terry Mattingly - While working on the 1985 book Habits of the Heart, the late sociologist Robert N. Bellah met “Sheila,” who described her faith in words that researchers have quoted ever since. “I can’t remember the last time I went to church,” she said. “My...
A Journey in Discernment
By Jennifer Jones - I almost didn’t go on the “GreenLight” mission trip. I had already participated in a fair number of short-term mission trips and had already visited the country where the team would be going. I was concerned whether the experience would...
