I was recently visiting my son who is away studying at University, and we attended Sunday worship at a church near his school. After the service, quite a few people stopped us to thank us for showing up to church. The congregation was made up of mostly older members who seemed thankful, relieved, and overjoyed that people from a younger
“Ruth’s life is not living up to her expectations. She is a childless widow, living in a foreign land, dependent on the favor of strangers. Enter the Redeemer – the one who can rewrite the ending of a story gone wrong, buying back tragedy and making way for restoration.”
It is October, which for pastors is Clergy Appreciation Month. Recently I polled clergy on their experiences of Pastor Appreciation in the midst of ministry. The results managed to surprise me. I was curious to know answers to what I thought was a fairly straightforward, simple question: what’s one of the most meaningful gifts or gestures you received for Pastor
As a Mexican, I did not know I was a Hispanic, too. The term “Hispanic” refers to people from Spanish-speaking countries and, in the United States, it is a technical demographic label or distinction used to identify people from a Spanish-speaking origin. Since in Mexico the primary language is Spanish, the term “Hispanic” is not commonly used to identify Spanish-speaking
I love browsing bookstores. Whenever I learn about a new book, I’m frequently excited simply because it’s NEW, and I forget that it actually isn’t new at all. Instead, every new book is the culmination of a journey, with time spent thinking, researching, writing, and rewriting. That exactly describes the journey of WME’s “new” resource, Embrace: Showing and Sharing the
WME is excited to build on our successful launch of The Residency in Mission (RIM). Annie Kate Leinius will serve as the 2020 Resident in Mission in New Zealand. She joins Eliza Edge (2019-2020 RIM), who began her service in New Zealand in August. Annie Kate is working now to build financial and prayer support for her residency. In addition,
When change “just happens,” it never happens to move the organization’s goals forward.
“Today, patience is one of the greatest gifts we can give others.”
Isn’t it true that life will not always turn out the way you want? Maybe you don’t get the promotion you think you deserve or you are struggling with your health. Maybe your marriage doesn’t turn out the way you imagined even though you feel you have worked hard for it and done everything you possibly can. The truth is that we
I grew up in a faith community where abuse was not spoken of, where sex was a taboo topic in any context. So as one can imagine, my understanding of sexual abuse was quite simplistic well into adulthood. How could a man or woman of God do such horrific things? I confess that it was easy to feel smug
Dear Friends of World Methodist Evangelism, World Methodist Evangelism has been blessed with strong leadership since its inception. Sir Alan Walker of Australia, provided inspired early direction (1978-1988), launching the first International Christian Youth Conference on Evangelism – now known as Metanoia – in 1980. In 1989, Dr. H. Eddie Fox became WME’s first full-time Executive Director and significantly expanded
official website Members 0 K+ Congregations 0 + The Chinese Methodist Church of Australia is a beautiful example of a “missionary church.” It grew out of the dedicated work of Methodists from Singapore and Malaysia who established the first congregation in 1986. Today, the CMCA has 1,482 members in 26 congregations, featuring mainly Mandarin-speaking services alongside several English-speaking ones. We
In the Philippines, our Christmas season starts on September 1 and ends around the second week of January the following year. Being a predominantly Catholic country, Christmas decorations are usually taken down after “Three Kings”, referring to when the Wise Men visited Jesus at the house and brought gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh as narrated in the Gospel of
official website Members 0 K+ Congregations 0 K+ The Methodist presence in Brazil dates back to 1867. Today, it is a vibrant, autonomous church consisting of over 262,424 members across more than 1,101 congregations. At World Methodist Evangelism, we are especially grateful for our partnership with the Brazilian church, as three members of our own WME team – Paulo and Juliana
There are some experiences or encounters that are so solidly lodged in our memory they continue to invade our consciousness – to haunt us – to help us or to hinder our Christian walk, to call and challenge us to be more than we are. John Birkbeck is a person around whom for me a whole cluster of memories is
official website Members 0 K+ Congregations 0 + The Iglesia Evangélica Metodista en Bolivia consists of 9,190 members worshiping in 194 congregations. While it was founded by American missionaries in 1906, it underwent a radical transformation in 1969 to become an autonomous, indigenous-led church. Today, it is a church that looks and sounds like its nation, with a majority of
official website Members 0 K+ Congregations 0 + If you’ve ever visited Sweden, you know it’s breathtakingly beautiful. Deep forests. Thousands of islands. Long summer evenings. But it’s also one of the most secular nations in the world. For many people, faith is viewed as something private, or even unnecessary. And yet, the gospel continues to take root. Back in
official website Members 0 K+ Congregations 0 + Methodism arrived in Argentina in 1836, when a missionary named John Dempster arrived in Buenos Aires from New York. In 1843, the first Methodist sanctuary in all of South America was dedicated there. But here’s the twist: for decades, it was against local regulations to preach the gospel in Spanish. Methodists could minister
In my two previous articles (read part 1 here and part 2 here) we focused on two of the big truths the three wise men can teach us. One, only the wise know their wisdom is incomplete and limited. Two, the wise men not only know their wisdom is incomplete they know they can’t save themselves. Those who are wise always know that their wisdom
In our world today, we embrace each other for so many reasons – celebration, greeting, sadness, grief, joy, affection, good-bye, and more. An embrace is a beautiful symbol of our human connection. My favorite version is when my sweet granddaughter sees me and runs into my arms. Something passes between us in an embrace, something unspoken, yet deeply real and
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