What I’ve Learned Working with Refugees and Immigrants: Interview with Josh White

A Note From The Editor: Recently Wesleyan Accent was able to chat with Youth Specialist Josh White about his role in caring for unaccompanied alien children who arrive in the United States. He also operates EQ Roasters, a small fair-trade coffee roasting enterprise aimed at encouraging economic stability in nations from which many unaccompanied minors come. An avid musician, his

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How Artists Do Theology: The Resurrection by Philip Tallon

Piero della Francesca gets thunderingly right what so many Christians get so stunning wrong. Raised on the first day of the week – a day any faithful Jew would understand as the first day of creation – God in Christ has begun the re-creation of this world. This work of making all things new is not complete, but it has

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Anxiety In Worship by Elizabeth Moyer

Someone living with an anxiety disorder (or any medical condition) that makes being in loud, dark areas or separated from family unendurable does not feel welcomed. This is not a commentary on the theology or religiosity of the “turn up the volume and dim the lights, no children allowed” movement. The concern here is how the Body of Christ meets

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The Celtic Cross by Tammie Grimm

With its distinctive orb that surrounds the intersecting arms that form the right angles of the Latin cross, most of us recognize the shape and design of the traditional Celtic cross. No matter our level of familiarity with the prayers, traditions and other customs of the medieval Celtic Christians, the iconic artwork of the cross is no ancient relic relegated

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Jesus Weeps, Our Tears to See by Jeff Rudy

These hymns, like the psalms, come from or speak to different experiences – some quite specific, others more general – and they express a wide variety of feelings toward God, ranging from thanksgiving and adoration to supplication to bitter grief. The hymn I came upon that had a reference to Jesus weeping was under the heading of “For a Child

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Steps For Small Church Revitalization by Elizabeth Glass Turner

Most churches aren’t big. Most churches say they want to grow. Many pastors hope to serve at big or growing churches. Most pastors won’t. It’s simply a matter of numbers in the United States: there aren’t that many megachurches. If you happen to be the pastor of one, you can sell a lot of books to pastors who want to

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What If I Get Nothing Out of Lent? by Jeff Rudy

And so, among other things I’m giving up for Lent, I’m trying to give up the search to find some other hidden meaning. Perhaps I won’t get anything out of it. We don’t enter into the Lenten season practicing disciplines in order to achieve a particular return. It’s not an investment. Fasting and praying are not disciplines that we engage

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Finding Holy In The Everyday by Carrie Carter

I’m supposed to be sitting here writing something brilliant and thought-provoking. You (my audience) are well-versed in theology, social ethics, and various philosophies. You have high expectations, or you wouldn’t be here. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy a good theological debate and I am passionate about the current social crises, but right now, I’m just really loving the font

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Searching For Easter by Bill McAlilly

This is a portion of the sermon preached on December 27, 2013, at the funeral service for Bishop McAlilly’s nephew Gale Stauffer, who was killed in the line of duty December 23, serving on the Police Force of the city of Tupelo, Mississippi. … little did we know that on this day of days, we would find ourselves moving so

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Beforehand Grace by Bryan Collier

Prevenient grace does not depend on any power or merit in man; no, not in any degree, neither in whole, nor in part. It does not in any wise depend either on the good works or righteousness of the receiver; not on anything he has done or anything he is. It does not depend on his endeavors. It does not

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Want To Know More About John Wesley? by Andrew Thompson

I received an e-mail from a pastor in Tennessee a few days ago posing this question: A church member asked me to recommend a biography on John Wesley, and I didn’t know what to suggest. Wondering if you could suggest something? That’s not an infrequent request to get for a seminary professor who teaches Methodist history. When I get an

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How We Die by Elizabeth Glass Turner

I was thirty-two years old when a woman took my advice on how to die. Sitting in her low living room banked with windows that overlooked butterfly-laden bushes, I watched her shallow breaths. She had lost strength and energy: her frame seemed diminished, as if her soul were clinging to her body by mere tendrils. While disease sapped her vitality,

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A New Way Of Counting by Matt Sigler

The weight of Christian worship history testifies that the Sunday service is primarily a gathering of, and for, the faithful. This is not to say that we shouldn’t consider how our worship services can best speak in the language of our local contexts. It isn’t to say that we shouldn’t consider if our gatherings are marked with radical hospitality and

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“Stay In Love With God”: Accuracy And Adequacy by Ken Loyer

I have heard numerous people in various ecclesial and academic contexts use this reformulation as if it were the direct equivalent of the original. What I have not heard, however, is much in the way of critical reflection upon such usage. “Stay in love with God” is perhaps easier to say (and memorize) and sounds more modern than the rather

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Growing Deeply by Bill McAlilly

For six years I lived among live oak trees on the Mississippi Gulf Coast in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. In fact, weekly, I drove down Highway 90 between Bay St. Louis and Ocean Springs, Mississippi – the “beach road” as we natives call it, where there were hundreds if not thousands of live oak trees that are massive in

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Wesleyans Sing In The New Year by Ellsworth Kalas

We Methodists don’t “believe” in backsliding, as some have accused us, but we’re honest enough to confess a fact when it stares us in the face, and we’re sensitive enough to our spiritual condition that we can tell the difference.

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