2016 United Methodist General Conference Recap by Elizabeth Glass Turner

United Methodists and many others followed the 2016 General Conference in Portland with fervent interest. Whether you watched live streaming (a primer in do’s and don’ts of parliamentary procedure), caught a few random comments on social networks or read daily summaries from the United Methodist News Service or the UM Reporter, by now there are a lot of perspectives on

Read More ⟶

Huldah and Keepers of the Word by Jennifer Moxley

Because as comforting as it is to know that I stand in a long line of mothers without children, ultimately their stories of temporary infertility are not helpful. I have prayed until I looked drunk. Nothing. My husband has prayed on my behalf. Still nothing.

Read More ⟶

Be Careful What You Wish For by Justus Hunter

Here we see the peril and the promise called-ones. The twelve come. They gather the stones at your feet. They heap those stones, stones of remembrance, stones your children’s children will ask about. But the names and the images of the called-ones are forgotten. They are wiped away like rough edges of stone in the bed of the Jordan. The

Read More ⟶

From Aldersgate to Holland Road by Michael Smith

For me, as a Methodist, this is an important day to celebrate. It is important to tell the story of what God can do in a person’s heart, and because of that work, the world could be forever changed. As people who are walking the road of faith, let us point out particular places and stops along the way where

Read More ⟶

A Full Basin: The Purpose Of Orthodoxy by Elizabeth Glass Turner

Orthodoxy gets a bad rap these days. At a time when distinction is seen as an evil – this or that, one or the other – orthodoxy is seen as presumptive, divisive and unwarranted. To say one thing is right or rightful is to deny the right or rightfulness of something else – an inconceivable vanity, a tired, predictable power-play

Read More ⟶

What A Successful Conference Looks Like by Elizabeth Glass Turner

It is the season of punditry. So goes life as a U.S. citizen who belongs to The United Methodist Church. General Conference cycles match up with the presidential election cycle: every four years, we encounter heated tempers, technicolor bluster and threats to move to Canada. This year the hype in the United States is reaching near radioactive levels of intensity.

Read More ⟶

The Shape of Discipleship by Maxie Dunnam

The intercessory life is a pattern for our interior growth in prayer that is abiding in Christ, and the outward expression of a missional Christ life in the world. It is a dynamic balance of paying attention to our personal spiritual maturity, and the call of Christ to minister as servants in the world.

Read More ⟶

Church Growth: Fruitful Or Cancer?

Today’s post is a compelling piece written anonymously by a successful pastor.   The Ideology of a Cancer Cell I rarely have those moments I would unquestioningly call, “divine.” I’ve never been one to see the fingerprints of God on everything around me. So when something happens in my life that just seems divinely orchestrated, I have to latch on

Read More ⟶

A Better Place (Part 2) by Cole Bodkin

What is the better place? As seen in the last post, the three most popular sketches of the Christian “better place”—heaven-centered, human-centered, and world-centered—have been various soteriological attempts to depict both our hope and mission. (Soteriology, as you may remember, refers in theology to the theology of salvation.) However, as John C. Nugent argues in his book Endangered Gospel: How Fixing the World

Read More ⟶

Let Your Longings Work for You by Carolyn Moore

Go to the Limits of Your Longing -Rainer Maria Rilke God speaks to each of us as he makes us, then walks with us silently out of the night. These are the words we dimly hear: You, sent out beyond your recall, go to the limits of your longing. Embody me. Flare up like a flame and make big shadows

Read More ⟶

The Value Of Godly Grief by Andy Stoddard

Have you ever felt really badly about something you’ve done wrong?  Have you ever in some way harmed another person or harmed your walk with God?  Have you ever done something that you just know you should not have done, and then you realize it.  And wow.  You feel terrible.  You just feel awful.  You want to make it right.

Read More ⟶

The Better Place (Part 1) by Cole Bodkin

Airborne illness. War. Overpopulation. Mass chaos. Environmental disaster. Oppressive dictators. All of these – and more – are cataclysmic triggers for a dystopian society. If you’re catching up with American publishing, television, and film, the genre of “dystopia” has flooded the entertainment industry. For many, it’s becoming a little repetitive and mundane; but like it or not, people are fascinated,

Read More ⟶

Subscribe

Get articles delivered directly to your inbox as soon as they come out.