Lent: Interview with Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett

Wesleyan Accent shares the opportunity to explore the Lenten season with Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett, who serves the Birmingham Episcopal Area of the Southeastern Jurisdiction of the United Methodist Church in the United States.   Wesleyan Accent: Growing up, Ash Wednesday was something vaguely Catholic-ish printed on the calendar; I didn’t observe it until later in life. What role has Ash Wednesday played

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When Jesus Gets Angry by Carolyn Moore

Find Mark 1:41 in your Bible. How does that line read in your version? How did Jesus feel about this leper who asked for healing? Some versions say Jesus was filled with compassion for the leper who came to him for healing. My version (NIV) and a few other versions say Jesus was indignant. By my experience, there is a

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Bucking the System by Jeff Rudy

Why didn’t Jesus take up the sword? Why isn’t that the means by which to overcome evil? Walter Wink says something quite remarkable about Jesus’ point here: “Violent revolution fails because it is not revolutionary enough. It changes the rulers but not the rules, the ends but not the means.”

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Dying Well by Faith Parry

The early Methodists were known as people who died well. They had grace and assurance of God’s love and forgiveness for them, so they did not fear death. Furthermore, Wesley made it a point to share the stories of those who died and went on to glory.

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Why Pilgrimage Is Part Of Discipleship: Discovering Lindisfarne by Tammie Grimm

Northumbria. Nether Springs. Lindisfarne. Holy Island. For years I casually entertained the hopes I might visit the Northumbrian Community that produced Celtic Daily Prayer. Inquiries to the community recommended a minimum stay of two nights and three days. Required trips to the United Kingdom for PhD residency never quite afforded the wiggle room on either end to steal away for

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The Problem With Praying For Open Doors by Elizabeth Glass Turner

One of the prayers I heard a lot growing up was a simple if loaded take on, “thy will be done.” Praying, “thy will be done,” is not only biblical, Jesus himself prayed it in the Garden of Gethsemane, which is a pretty compelling model to follow. The prayer I heard repeatedly was this: “open and close doors as You

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Real Prayers For Real People by Carolyn Moore

I didn’t immediately fall in love with the Psalms. I found them to be hard to understand and a little dusty. Then some hard things happened in my life and I landed on a few Psalms that became prayers when I didn’t know what to pray. When my mother died, Psalm 42 became my lifeline. Psalm 116 was my testimony in a season when

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Scripture You Forgot You Knew by Elizabeth Glass Turner

It happens to all of us. An old song or movie comes on, and somewhere, out of the depths of your dusty brain, a reflex kicks in. Before you know it, you’re singing words you didn’t know you remembered, or you’re quoting a line right before the actor says it. It’s like muscle memory, hidden deep beneath years of doctor

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The Healing Power Of Honoring Others by Elizabeth Glass Turner

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

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When You Don’t Have The Words by Andy Stoddard

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

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