Author Archives: hummingbird

Beliefs Matter: GMC Webb

Thanks for joining us for the Beliefs Matter Podcast!  In this episode, Rev. Dr. Maxie Dunnam pulls up a chair with Global Methodist Church Bishop Mark Webb to discuss the birth of the new orthodox expression of Methodism and his hope for the future of the Methodist movement.  Bishop Webb serves at one of the founding bishops of the GMC and is a general superintendent for the GMC with supervisory responsibilities in the northern parts of North America, Africa, and Europe.

 

To learn more about the Global Methodist Church, go to globalmethodist.org and check out all that is happening across the globe.  As of May, the Global Methodist Church is one year old, having launched on May 1, 2022.

Dr. Dunnam has a website with a plethora of writings and resources at maxiedunnam.com

For more information about World Methodist Evangelism, check out worldmethodist.org 

Check out this episode!

Belief Matters: James Loftin & Nathan Cook

Thanks for joining us for the Beliefs Matter Podcast!  In this episode, Rev. Dr. Maxie Dunnam pulls up a chair with James Loftin from FollowOne International and Nathan Cook from Christ Church Memphis.
 
James Loftin is founder and president of FollowOne International (est. 2004), a mission that provides coaching and resources to help churches and Christ followers have maximum impact on their communities and the world. Prior to FollowOne, James was dean of the chapel and director of missions at Asbury Theological Seminary (Orlando campus). He also served as the minister of missions in several churches and was a senior corporate consultant with Awake Consulting and Coaching. In addition to serving on the team that started the Orlando Campus of Asbury Seminary, Reverend Loftin helped launch an international school in Asia and two nonprofit ministries in the US that continue to excel: Break Thru Ministries in Mississippi and Service Over Self (SOS) in Tennessee.  James holds an undergraduate degree in sociology from Mississippi State University and a master of divinity from Asbury Theological Seminary. He has listened, learned, and served in urban and rural settings in over forty nations. After living in China for five years, James and his wife, Vivien, came to the United States for a two-week vacation in early 2020. Unable to return to Asia due to the pandemic, the Loftins made a home in Georgia. They enjoy exploring nature, trying new foods, and making friends.  James’ book, Born to Shine, can be found at the FollowOne website or on Amazon.com.

 
Nathan Cook is the new Missions Pastor at Christ Church in Memphis. He grew up going to Christ Church as a youth. Through volunteering at SOS, God gave him a vision for urban ministry. For the last 20 years he has been living in the Binghampton neighborhood with his family. He started several house churches in urban neighborhoods and prepared young physicians for missionary service while working at Christ Community Health Services. He also spent several years doing grassroot community development, helping to start an outreach to women trapped in prostitution and addiction. He is a graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, KY. He is married to Kim, his partner in life and ministry. Together they have three children: Caleb, Grace and Ella.
 
Dr. Dunnam has a website with a plethora of writings and resources at maxiedunnam.com
 
For more information about World Methodist Evangelism, check out worldmethodist.org

Check out this episode!

Beliefs Matter: GMC Webb

Thanks for joining us for the Beliefs Matter Podcast!  In this episode, Rev. Dr. Maxie Dunnam pulls up a chair with Global Methodist Church Bishop Mark Webb to discuss the birth of the new orthodox expression of Methodism and his hope for the future of the Methodist movement.  Bishop Webb serves at one of the founding bishops of the GMC and is a general superintendent for the GMC with supervisory responsibilities in the northern parts of North America, Africa, and Europe.

 

To learn more about the Global Methodist Church, go to globalmethodist.org and check out all that is happening across the globe.  As of May, the Global Methodist Church is one year old, having launched on May 1, 2022.

 

Dr. Dunnam has a website with a plethora of writings and resources at maxiedunnam.com

 

For more information about World Methodist Evangelism, check out worldmethodist.org 

Check out this episode!

A New Chapter for Wesleyan Accent

As January 2023 draws to a close, Wesleyan Accent is poised to enter a new chapter. The website first drew breath – so to speak – more than ten years ago, when Dr. Maxie Dunnam envisioned a hub of reflection and resources that would carve a distinctly Wesleyan Methodist niche online. Contributors would explore the wide realm of the Christian faith – with a distinctly Wesleyan accent.

Since that time, hundreds of pastors, professors, ministry spouses, missionaries, nonprofit directors, and writers have contributed sermons, articles, interviews, essays, poetry, and more. Contributors have shared the fruit of the labors from across a wide Wesleyan Methodist world – Nazarenes and United Methodist, AME Zion and Wesleyans, Free Methodist and AME.

From Charles Wesley hymns to youth ministry, from funeral homilies to the redemption of animal suffering, from Francis Asbury to Celtic Christianity, from intercession to racial justice, from the man lowered through a roof to be healed to centering prayer – philosophy of religion, biblical study, church history, spiritual disciplines, sermons, cultural engagement, missiology have tumbled together in a delightful celebration of the Christian faith as lived out by its opinionated, gifted, sometimes rowdy, always dedicated, often cheerful Wesleyan Methodist children.

These archives will continue to be available online, a treasure trove for the lucky person who wanders in on rainy days.

Moving into the future – as Wesleyan Methodists always do, with grace and hope – Wesleyan Accent will continue in a renewed iteration, perched in the branches of World Methodist Evangelism. Going forward, the content on Wesleyan Accent will build on the excellent work established by WME, focusing on mission, evangelism, and discipleship: a pressing calling for our hungry and hurting world.

Early in 2022, I communicated with Dr. Kim Reisman – head of WME – that I knew the time was coming when I needed to step away from managing Wesleyan Accent. Being entrusted with the platform for eight years, through domain moves, transitions, profound church crises, global crises, and cultural challenges has been a profound privilege; being entrusted with the words of its contributors no less so. Removed from the direct pressures of ministry, about a year after I watched dear colleagues and friends in ministry and the academy hit the wall after pressing through the pandemic, I sensed myself also in need of renewal.

Over the years, I’ve had the privilege of praying for contributors who were facing crises; of watching nervous writers find their confidence and voice; of being entrusted with the words of academics, who do not weigh their words casually. When I started as Managing Editor, I had a steep learning curve, but Maxie, always indefatigably encouraging, has been gracious and supportive from the beginning. I’ve learned more than I could’ve imagined, and even I don’t have enough words to convey the joy it’s been to work with some of the brightest, kindest, and most creative leaders I’ve ever been privileged to know.

I look forward to continuing to cheer on Wesleyan Accent and World Methodist Evangelism, and I hope you’ll explore the excellent resources they have to offer and support their ongoing endeavors.

With abundant gratitude,

Elizabeth Glass Turner

Managing Editor

The Prayer God Always Answers

It might take time or unexpected detours, it may show up in disguise like a trick or treater at the door, but you will always find an answer from God to one particular prayer. Which kind of prayer this is reveals something important about who God is and who we are created to be. Tug on a loose thread of grace before you know what it’s connected to and where it will lead, and often you’ll find this answer to this prayer unspooling in your life. The prayer God always answers may take you where you didn’t know you needed to go.

You may find there’s work in keeping the answer; you may find areas in which growth is demanded of you as you experience the answer. You won’t always live up to the answered prayer. You may question whether the answer is really all that it first seemed. That’s alright. It’s always been so.

But in my life I’ve found God always answers one kind of prayer that my heart entrusts to God’s heart. Browse through Scripture, and you see God doing it over and over and over again.

It may take time or detours or hard work, but the prayer God always answers is the prayer asking God to bring a particular kind of person or community into your life because you recognize your need for other people.

Sometimes it’s tempting to ask God for a solution or a quick fix, when God wants to deepen your relationships with others and to answer your prayers in the healthy interdependency that comes with genuine community.

Sometimes it’s tempting to ask God to heal a particular kind of wound or to numb the pain of loneliness, when God wants you to receive the grace of presence, even if it looks different than you pictured.

Sometimes it’s tempting to ask God for strength to do it all, instead of asking God if your trust in others needs to be expanded.

When you pray and acknowledge your lack, your limitations, your learning curve, and your loneliness, God will always answer your cry for mentoring or community or help or friendship, even if it doesn’t come in the form you’re hoping for or picturing, even if it takes time, even if the circumstances are what you were trying to avoid.

If you’re grieving a gaping hole in your life where a relationship should be but is out of reach for whatever reason, God may not restore a relationship with a particular person. But God can bring into your life someone who’s a similar presence, and they will be a source of grace, growth, and comfort. If your mother abandoned you or was unavailable or absent, a relationship with her may be out of reach, but God can hear the longing of your heart and bring someone mother-ly into your life. She won’t be perfect – no mother is – but whether she’s old enough to be your Grandma or just beyond you in years like an older sister, if you see a kind of person missing in your life, start praying that God will intersect your life with embodied grace.

If you’re grieving a gaping hole in your life where a particular kind of community should be but is out of reach for whatever reason, God may not relocate you, but God can bring into your life people you may not completely realize you need. They will be a source of grace, growth, and comfort. They won’t be perfect – no one is – and you will see your own learning curves and areas for growth in new ways.

One time I sat praying for a very specific kind of small community. I was at a conference; it was a stage of life when it can be really difficult to forge new relationships, especially if you’re in a vocation like ministry when peers themselves are often far-flung or regularly relocating. Someone had been speaking on the value of a small knot of trusted friends who also seek out God’s heart. I didn’t question the value, I questioned the viability; I knew it was a good thing to want, but I could not see how it would unfold. Normally fasting isn’t my first instinct; but that day, I sat and prayed, tears streaming, as others left for lunch, telling God my heart and hurts and longing. I still can’t describe how it happened with any coherence, but by the time I left the conference, I found myself part of a small knot of kindred spirits, some casual former acquaintances, some familiar but until that conference strangers, and we had agreed to form a group together. How? I had lunch with one person, chatted with another, there might have been an introduction, maybe we decided to sit together during worship? And then the final one – I think she saw us knotted together praying during a time of prayer huddles and joined us and then that was that? I’d gone from longing but not seeing any viable avenue, to going home with a fresh set of phone numbers and friends. We still had to work at making time to connect. We’re still far-flung. We all have different points of view, backgrounds, gifts. Persisting in prayer often means you and I are aware of something good that’s missing and that we can’t orchestrate by or for ourselves.

One time when I worked in a nursing home, one of my favorite residents died. He was a rascal; mischievous; gave the social worker grey hairs. I loved him. When his kids wrote to the facility thanking us for the care we had given him, they said – “Dad had been so depressed living alone. He’s always been outgoing, and with his health he was confined to home so much. He loved living at the nursing home. He was his old self again – people to talk to. The friends he made there were so important to him.” I knew what they meant. He had loved it. Not everything about it, certainly; he made that clear. But he had friends he ate supper with every night, they shared treats from “outside” that their families had brought them. He was with others. Most people avoid or dread long-term care facilities, but his extroverted, mischievous heart found plenty of entertainment and genuine friendship there.

The prayer God always answers: your need for other people – like you, unlike you, similar to you, different than you.

That doesn’t mean that every unmarried person will be married; it doesn’t mean that every specific relationship with a specific person will be restored (sometimes they can’t or shouldn’t be).

It does mean that God who is internal community, Father Son and Holy Spirit, and who created humans for and in community, takes our longing for friendship, relationship, camaraderie, and community seriously – and joyfully.

God, I need a teacher. A mentor. A coach. An auntie in the faith.

God, I need someone who’s like a Dad or Grandpa, someone who knows Your heart.

God, I need a handful of good buddies who checks in with me, who I check in with.

God, I need a long-haul friend with whom I can meaningfully share life.

God, I need people in my life who look different than me, who have different experiences, speak different languages.

God, I need a few good prayer warriors I can turn to.

Moses needed his father-in-law’s advice; and Moses needed the people his father-in-law recommended that he entrust. Naomi and Ruth needed each other. Anna and Simeon needed to bless, and Joseph and Mary needed to witness their response to this baby. Paul needed to learn that he needed Barnabas, who was right about John Mark. Esther needed Mordecai, and Mordecai and many others needed Esther. The apostles needed the Greek widows as much as the Greek widows needed them. Mary needed Elizabeth. Saul desperately needed Ananias.

“It is not good for Human to be alone…”

These are prayers worth persisting in. Tug loose threads expectantly, be on the lookout even if you’re not sure what you’re looking for. Be wise in who you let into your heart, but trust that as you grow in self-knowledge, self-awareness, and maturity, that the Holy Spirit will collide into your day with people you didn’t expect but profoundly need. Fast from relationships that are all in your own image – a reflection of yourself. And then do the work of caring for those answers to prayer so that as you continue to grow and sharpen each other, you are tending to God’s beautifully given answers to persistent, expectant prayers.


Featured image courtesy Jeremy Yap on Unsplash.

ENCORE: Integrative Approaches to Mental Health and Evangelism

Dr. Pete Bellini is the Professor of Evangelization AT United Theological Seminary in Dayton, Ohio. He can be reached at pbellini@united.edu.
To find his books, HERE
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ENCORE: Faith-Sharing New Testament 25th Anniversary Edition

To order your copy of the Faith-Sharing New Testament:
https://worldmethodist.org/resources/online-store-2/

The Plain Truth Videos playlist on YouTube

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