Wesleyan Accent Archive | World Methodist Evangelism

How Your Local Church Can Engage Immigrants: Interview with Rev. Zach Szmara

Zach Szmara June 26, 2017

Recently Wesleyan Accent Editor Elizabeth Glass Turner chatted with Rev. Zach Szmara, the founder of one of the first immigration legal clinics within a church building, about sanctuary, immigration law, and cross-cultural ministry at home. Rev. Szmara is the Lead Pastor of The Bridge in Logansport, Indiana, a congregation within The Wesleyan Church. He is the National Director of Immigrant Connection – a growing

Nothing Sacred: Sacrilege In The Public Square by Elizabeth Glass Turner

elizabeth.turner June 22, 2017

It’s happened again and again. Do they give out “Webby Awards” for“Best Social Networking Campaign Aimed at Disenfranchised Young Men Searching for Meaning and Manhood in a Post-Religious Context”? In the 90’s, radicalization looked like bored, angry, white, oddball suburban teenagers shooting up their classmates as they latched onto whatever Nihilistic philosophy made sense of their bullied, middle-class ennui. Now

The Difference Between Evangelism and Conversion by Kim Reisman

Kim Reisman June 21, 2017

It is better to stop worrying about the results of our evangelizing and instead worry about whether we have truly made the gospel known in our relationships with others.

Your Cross to Bear by Kim Reisman

Kim Reisman June 21, 2017

Deep and authentic faith is meaningful; but can be costly, challenging, even frightening.

What to Do with Your Shortcomings by Kim Reisman

Kim Reisman June 19, 2017

If you reflect on your spiritual walk, how do Peter’s various responses to Jesus resonate with your experience?

A Better Place (Part 2) by Cole Bodkin

Cole Bodkin June 19, 2017

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

Christian Community: Why I Can’t Give Up on Church by James Petticrew

James Petticrew June 15, 2017

There are some things that I know I should believe with my head, but I struggle because I don’t experience them in my heart.

Let Your Longings Work for You by Carolyn Moore

Carolyn Moore June 14, 2017

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

The Risk of Following Closely by Kim Reisman

Kim Reisman June 14, 2017

Yet, for our faith to be real, for it to be authentic, we must risk moving out of the shadows. So the question is, how close to the fire will we get?

The Value Of Godly Grief by Andy Stoddard

Andy Stoddard June 12, 2017

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.

Yes… And: The Grace Of Improv by Jennifer Moxley

Jennifer Moxley May 11, 2015

To say yes is to listen when another person is hurting or needs to process a current life crisis.

To say and is to add a word of encouragement, consolation, or solidarity. Eventually trust is earned as each person allows themselves to be more and more vulnerable when more of their life is shared and accepted. These real and open

Pastor, Interrupted: The Journey Of Nearly Dying by Kelcy Steele

Kelcy Steele May 7, 2015

And as they were in conversation, all I could see was the blurriness of death, being detached from this world and reaching the light of the union with the Creator.

What Does The Lord Require Of You? by Maxie Dunnam

Maxie Dunnam May 6, 2015

I know that issues are more complex than these assertions, but I’m weary of excusing ourselves because the issue is so complex. Education is clearly a justice/mercy issue. That’s the reason why our church in Memphis has made a missional commitment to doing justice in relation to education.

Preach This, Tweet That: What Black Millenials Are Looking For From The Preacher by Dominique Robinson

Dominique Robinson May 4, 2015

Preaching has always been a lively communal dialogue between the preacher, God and the congregants within the Black Church tradition; however, technology and social media have invaded this dialogue for Black Millennials. Their idea of interactive preaching goes beyond the “preacher, music and frenzy” that W.E.B. DuBois refers to Black Millennials want church as they know it to reach beyond

Eating A Meal: Nourishment For Resurrection Life by Cole Bodkin

Cole Bodkin May 2, 2015

While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself.

Theodicy Lived Out by MJ Kirby

MJ Kirby April 30, 2015

Our youngest, Duke, was one of these tender branches grafted into the faith that had been nurtured in him from birth.

Duke took the oath he was making seriously.

A week prior our son wrestled with whether or not he was actually ready to make such a hefty proclamation. His reservation? An unanswered (and I would add unanswerable) question that

Invisible Growth: Because Evil Doesn’t Win by Elizabeth Glass Turner

elizabeth.turner April 29, 2015

Do you remember standing tall and straight against a door jamb etched with pencil markings as a child? Was there a spot in the family home marking years of growth? Perhaps you had a growth chart, able to be folded away and moved as you relocated. If measuring height was part of your childhood, you’ll know that feeling in your

Rewriting The Story by MJ Kirby

MJ Kirby April 27, 2015

So, why do we make this annual trek to mark Jeremy’s birth, death, Christmas, Easter and other special occasions? I guess somehow in the ritual of the rhythm of returning to the grave we find comfort as we remember. We seek closure. We find consistency. We seek to make sense out of a situation that otherwise makes little to no

Easter: Bonus Material by Claire Matheny

Claire Matheny April 25, 2015

But here at the site of the empty tomb is our leap beyond lip service. When we take up the mantle from Mary and open our mouth to the truth. There is something bursting below the surface. A little seed of germination. This is Easter…we are the outliers who believe that despite all the impossibility of being raised from death

Staring Into Loss: The Tomb by Michael Smith

Michael Smith April 23, 2015

Now that light has dawned, one cannot simply stand and look at a symbol of defeat and the past. New life has broken in and we are not allowed to just look; we are invited and commissioned to go and tell.

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