Recently, I had the opportunity to travel to South Korea and visit some of largest churches in the world: Kwanglim Methodist Church with 85,000 members and Yoido Full Gospel Church with 900,000 members. We met with their senior pastors and leaders and learned about their leadership. We were, so to speak, drinking from a fire hydrant all week. The food
“Pastor, why can’t you just preach the gospel and stay away from all this controversial stuff?” It’s likely your pastor has heard this question dozens of times in recent years, yet he or she may be reticent to speak about it for fear of calling out certain members of the congregation or appearing to respond to specific criticism of recent
Before people used Enneagram types or extroversion temperaments to describe themselves, personalities were described using ancient medical terms: sanguine, melancholy, phlegmatic, and choleric. Maybe you’ve seen the words used as nouns or used descriptively about a person. Sanguines are social butterflies. They can carry on a conversation with anyone, anytime. They’ve never met a stranger, because they’re friends as soon
While United Methodists spend a great deal of time, money, and energy attempting to shape potential outcomes of the specially called 2019 General Conference in St. Louis, it is quite possible that the conference most potently rocking the Kingdom of God already took place in St. Louis over the summer. The fate of the United Methodist denomination is not unimportant;
People have different ways of approaching reality. Some are analytical, reasoned, and logical. That’s not me. Not that I can’t be analytical, reasoned and logical. I can, but those are deliberate disciplines that I practice in contrast to my instinctive way of approaching the world, which is through my feelings. I’m just a feeling kind of person. Maybe too much
Recently Wesleyan Accent spoke with Rev. Omar Al-Rikabi, an occasional Wesleyan Accent contributor and author of The Advent Mission, a new Christmastime devotional from Seedbed Publishing. Wesleyan Accent:Why the Advent “mission”? Is this about missions? Global missionaries? Do I have to give money? Hey, is this a sneaky way for churches to take an extra offering? Omar Al-Rikabi: I think it
It can be frustrating to do right. It can be hard to be faithful and to follow God, especially when you see so many others that, in your mind, are not. We see the wickedness. The greed. All the things that others are doing wrong. It can be easy to give up, to say, “why keep trying?” Why should I
“Where no counsel is, the people fall: but in the multitude of counsellors there is safety.” – Proverbs 11:14 Seek godly counsel; it will provide safety. The wisdom of others can keep you from falling. Decisions made today have the potential to impact many tomorrows. Wisdom instructs us to seek the godly counsel of others. Their insight can provide the
If you have ever been lost, you know the feeling – one minute you are fine and the next you realize you have no idea where you are or how to get back. The Bible uses the metaphor of being lost to help us to understand what it is like to be far from God. If you are a follower
The word “relational” gets thrown around a great deal when discussing evangelism. Just what that means deserves a closer examination. Allow me to illustrate one way I have in mind. I had many questions about faith before I made a decision to follow Jesus in my early 20s. One of the things that compelled me to become a disciple of
My experience in the Eternal City taught me three important things about evangelism.
Even though these men stood at a distance, Jesus saw them. Jesus made a choice to see these men.
Recently I read a moving account of one German woman’s actions and the impact that they had. A 92-year-old man living in New Jersey received a three-page letter from her in which she apologized for wrongs long past. Reading it, he wept. As the article recounts about the letter writer, “Doris Schott-Neuse…told him how her grandfather had acquired Hirschmann’s family home under the Nazis, expressing her shame
Have you ever felt like there was something that you needed to say for Jesus, but you didn’t have the words? You didn’t know what you should say or how you should say it? I’ve been there. I think we’ve all been there. At times, we talk ourselves out of witnessing to someone or saying something to someone, because of fear within us about what
Dr. Kimberly Reisman Joins World Methodist Council Delegation to Vatican
Have you ever sensed yourself waiting for Jesus to arrive into a situation or season of your life?
Recently Wesleyan Accent chatted with visual artist Katie Fisher about her project illustrating the struggle and grief written in the Old Testament book Lamentations.
Our witness for Christ is always strengthened when we become keenly aware of our journey in Christ.
We are so drawn to pessimism because pessimism at the end of the day is easier. It is easier to look down than it is to look up.
Jesus taught that if, when offering a gift to God at the altar, you remember a brother or sister has something against you, you should go and be reconciled and then return to offer your gift (Matt. 5:24). I get the impression that reconciliation is the gift God intends to give the worshipper—even before a gift has been brought to
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