United Methodists will begin a trial Tuesday (June 21) against a Wisconsin minister who’s accused of breaking church rules by celebrating a same-sex marriage and being in a lesbian relationship.
The Rev. Amy DeLong, 44, of Osceola, Wis., could be defrocked if the 13-member jury composed of local clergy finds her guilty of either charge.
Also in 2009, Arcus gave the communications firm of Douglas Gould and Company a grant of $194,200 to provide communications support to both the UM Reconciling Ministries Network and Lutherans Concerned to assist their efforts “to advance the full inclusion of LGBT people in the United Methodist Church and in the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.”
Here are several other Arcus grants from last year:
Church Divinity School of the Pacific: $404,351 “to develop official rites for the blessing of same-gender relationships within the Episcopal Church….”
When Ronnie writes of prisoners who “have given up,” who “are waiting to die” or who “just want to die,” he knows well of whom he is speaking. With equal confidence, the inmate of Riverbend Maximum Security Institution writes, “The good news is that Jesus doesn’t give up on any of these people. Nor should we.”
Ronnie’s brief reflection on John 17, including his personal journey of more than 40 years to discover “Jesus is love; Jesus is real,” is part of the 2011 Lenten Devotional published by Christ United Methodist Church in Franklin, Tenn. Fifteen current and former inmates of the maximum-security prison wrote more than half of the entries in the booklet. The rest came from church staff members and other sources.
Karen Vander Molen, a church member active in prison ministry, and the Rev. Mark Price, minister of spiritual formation, coordinated the project. It began as Price was considering who might write the Lenten devotional.
When Chad Holtz lost his old belief in hell, he also lost his job.
The pastor of a rural United Methodist church in North Carolina wrote a note on his Facebook page supporting a new book by Rob Bell, a prominent young evangelical pastor and critic of the traditional view of hell as a place of eternal torment for billions of damned souls.
Two days later, Holtz was told complaints from church members prompted his dismissal from Marrow’s Chapel in Henderson.
This year, the United Methodist Church is recommending that persons conduct an alcohol-free Lent.
This practice would bring about spiritual benefits as persons think about the sacrifice of Jesus in his crucifixion, consider how much importance the use of beverage alcohol has in their lives, and free up money that would have been spent on beverage alcohol to be used for the relief of human suffering. This is in keeping with the historic stance of the Methodist movement, and offers to people an opportunity to consider how the way they live their lives impacts the world around them in positive or negative ways.
In our local congregation in Bath, we support the church’s position in several ways. We support and affirm several of our members in recovery from alcohol addiction, both in our congregational gatherings as well as in small groups; our facilities are always available at no cost for recovery groups to meet; and like all other Methodist churches, our communion services are conducted using unfermented grape juice, so that all persons can participate.
“It isn’t that alcohol in and of itself is bad; Jesus drank wine…” [the Rev. James Howell] said. “We emphasize the role it plays in our lives.”
Part of that discussion, Howell and others have found, involves acknowledging a fact that some Methodists prefer not to talk about: some Methodists drink””even if many don’t like to admit it.
From teetotaling Baptists to Episcopalians who uncork champagne in the parish hall, what to do with the bottle can be a tricky question for religious groups to answer””especially during holy periods or holidays.
When two congregations with declining membership and attendance merge, the resulting church must make changes, says a member of the rebirth team for a merged church in Winona, Minn.
Corwin Osterloh believes the two churches have much more work to do.
“Two congregations with declining membership are still going down the same path,” said Osterloh, a member of Central United Methodist Church, which merged in July 2010 with McKinley United Methodist Church.
“We really started talking about the fact that what we were doing wasn’t working.”
In Tokyo, the Rev. Claudia Genung Yamamoto, a United Methodist missionary, discarded her planned Sunday sermon text at West Tokyo Union Church, where she has served as pastor for nearly 17 years.
Instead of speaking about the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness, she focused on Psalm 46: “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam and the mountains quake with their surging.”
Lord God, who didst inspire thy servants John and Charles Wesley with burning zeal for the sanctification of souls, and didst endow them with eloquence in speech and song: Kindle in thy Church, we beseech thee, such fervor, that those whose faith has cooled may be warmed, and those who have not known thy Christ may turn to him and be saved; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever.
Now that [the Rev. Lee] Bines is stationed in Moncks Corner, he’s turned his energies toward the troubled youth in the rural schools of Berkeley County. Those are the schools with the highest dropout rates, poorest population and most black students, a special area of concern to a black pastor.
Bines was trying to motivate about 50 young people at a luncheon Thursday afternoon. It was part of what he called the fourth annual Young Brothers to Men Summit, which continues through Sunday at Wesley United Methodist Church at Highways 6 and 315.
The summit, which also was sponsored by the Delta Alpha chapter of the Phi Alpha Fraternity, brings together educators, counselors, lawmakers and representatives of the juvenile justice system to encourage each other to keep trying to reach troubled youth. For instance, one of today’s topics is “Breaking Strongholds: Confronting and Resolving Violence in the Youth Culture,” with Moncks Corner Police Chief Chad Caldwell and staff from Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville.
While The United Methodist Church’s U.S. membership has continued to shrink, its growth elsewhere in the world has put it over the 12 million-member mark for the first time, newly released statistics show.
The church’s membership in Africa, Europe and Asia grew from 3.5 million to 4.4 million in the five years ending in 2009, according to the United Methodist Council on Finance and Administration.
In that time, worldwide membership increased from almost 11.6 million to nearly 12.1 million.
The Commission recognises that, if the goal of fuller communion is to be realised, in the course of the next two years significant work will need to be undertaken on some specific areas. These include issues relating to the interchangeability of ordained ministries and the ministry of oversight (episkope). Our hope is to find ways in which, in every place, the churches of our two world families may work as one in the urgent task of mission.
The Commission took careful note of the bilateral conversations between our communions. These are taking place in the United States, England, Ireland, and New Zealand, and in Canada and Australia between Anglicans and the united or uniting churches. In listening to the experience of two United Churches (Church of South India/Church of North India) the Commission has become more aware that questions of identity and belonging to wider Christian fellowships require ongoing attention. The Commission would welcome hearing news of any other bilateral conversations.
…somewhere around the 10 year point in my own youth ministry experience, I began to realize that I was teaching on some of the same topics over and over again, and there was really no plan guiding me. Looking over the messages I had delivered over the previous three years, I discovered that we spent almost six times as much time in the New Testament as we did in the Old Testament; that we spent more time studying general topics than we spent studying specific biblical texts; and that our teaching curriculum was more a reflection of my training and biases than it was a reflection of the whole counsel of God.
I took my concerns to our volunteers and we began with the basic premise that we might have a student in our ministry for three years. On the basis of that assumption, and with input from our pastor and some members of our Youth Advisory Team, we developed a curriculum plan of topics and texts that we wanted our teenagers to be exposed to prior to graduation. For students who were in our youth group from grades 7-12, we decided there was no harm in their repeating the cycle a second time as long as we used different lesson plans.
At the same time mainstream denominations lose thousands of members per year, churches such as Crosspoint are growing rapidly ”” 15 percent of all U.S. churches identified themselves as nondenominational this year, up from 5 percent a decade ago. A third dropped out of major denominations at some point.
Their members are attracted by worship style, particular church missions or friends in the congregation.
“They no longer see the denomination as anything that has relevance to them,” said Scott Thumma, a religion sociology professor at Hartford Seminary in Hartford, Conn. He’s compiling a list of nondenominational churches for the 2010 Religious Congregations and Membership Study. “The whole complexion of organized religion is in flux.”
The United Methodist church in Sunset Park, Brooklyn, is anything but united.
Two pastors preach from the same pulpit and live in the same parsonage next door, but they are barely on speaking terms and openly criticize each other’s approach to the faith.
In the church’s social hall, two camps eye each other suspiciously as one finishes its meal of rice and beans while the other prepares steaming pans of chicken lo mein.
Two very different congregations share the soaring brick building on Fourth Avenue: a small cadre of about 30 Spanish-speaking people who have worshiped there for decades and a fledgling throng of more than 1,000 Chinese immigrants that expands week by week ”” the fastest-growing Methodist congregation in New York City.
The Latinos say they feel steamrolled and under threat, while their tenants, the Chinese, say they feel stifled and unappreciated. Mediators have been sent in, to little effect. This holiday season, there are even two competing Christmas trees.
Members of Foundry United Methodist Church in Washington D.C. voted 367 to 8 on Sept. 26 to allow same-gender marriages to be performed in its building. Foundry is among many congregations in Washington that have been discussing same-sex marriages since the city passed the Marriage Equality Act last March.
The Book of Discipline, the denomination’s rulebook, says it is a chargeable offense for a clergyperson to conduct a holy union or marriage for gays and lesbians.
The recession has finally caught up with churches.
After two years of treading water, more Protestant congregations have seen their Sunday collections drop this year.
Pastors blame high unemployment and a drop in per-capita giving by members. To make ends meet, churches have laid off staff and frozen salaries, put off major capital projects and cut back on programs. At the same time, more of their congregation members and neighbors are asking for help with basic needs such as paying the rent and buying groceries.
Mary E. Gilbert often drove right by the large, intimidating church buildings in her community, never stopping to go inside because she feared she would not be accepted or welcomed.
God would invite her in, if He was there, but would the all-white congregation be as hospitable? The thought kept her away.
The 26-year-old Jackson State University student recently shared her feelings with a diverse congregation at Central United Methodist Church.
Sunday Morning Segregation: How much has changed since the days of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was the latest topic of The Medgar Evers/Ella Baker Civil Rights Lecture Series.
Parish ministry can be a lonely vocation. The “set-apartness” of the pastoral role, the effects of geographical isolation, and the time demands of congregational life can all conspire to make the parish feel like what the old spiritual calls “the lonesome valley.” And yet Jesus walked that same lonesome valley, and, through him, even the loneliness of ministry can become a source of beauty and communion. Hear Jeremy Troxler, director of the Thriving Rural Communities initiative, discuss the loneliness of rural, and all, ministry.
The United Methodist Church’s public policy agency can advocate on causes beyond alcoholism and temperance without violating the terms of its endowment, a District of Columbia judge ruled on Wednesday (Oct. 6).
Superior Court Judge Rhonda Reid Winston’s decision is the latest twist in a long-running debate in the UMC about how its General Board of Church and Society is funded and the positions it takes on political issues.
“This matter has been an enormous, unnecessary distraction,” Jim Winkler, the board’s chief executive, said in a statement. The board has for decades fought “predatory enterprises” such as alcohol, tobacco and gambling, he said.
In a letter to all conference members supporting the election of Mr. [Bill] Brownson, resident Bishop Bruce R. Ough wrote, “He was the only candidate ready right now to assist CFA and the Conference to address the financial constraints that are threatening our mission capacity”¦ I am fully cognizant that some persons will seize upon my participation and support of Bill’s nomination as advocacy of a homosexual lifestyle. The only agenda I have had in the entire search process has been for a financially challenged West Ohio Conference to have a superior CFO.”
Despite a process carefully planned by the conference’s Unity Task Force to ensure fair, informed, and civil debate, many believe the decisive factor in the debate was a seemingly intentional strategy crafted by the CFA outside the agreed upon debate process. These actions included:
Ӣ Presenting Mr. Brownson to lobby with youth and young adult members of the conference prior to the vote with no provision for presentation of an opposing view.
”¢ Using the conference treasurer’s report to repeatedly affirm and endorse Mr. Brownson. The conference treasurer compared the conference to an airliner flying in a storm on one engine. Without Mr. Brownson’s election, the last engine would be gone and disaster would be certain….
First, the bad news: The United Methodist Church needs to change its operations denomination-wide to address financial challenges and be more relevant in its ministry around the globe.
Then, the good news: Despite these challenges, many churches of varied sizes and settings have found ways to grow and thrive.
Those are the findings of two studies by independent researchers released this week by the denomination’s Call to Action Steering Team. The reports included an “Operational Assessment of the Connectional Church” and a “Congregational Vitality” overview.
The ten year average for POF is 2638. We have surpassed the ten year average over the past two years. Among most Conferences, the goal is simply to slow the decline. North Alabama has dared to pray for more. And it is deeply gratifying to see visible evidence of the Holy Spirit moving among us. Behind every one of these numbers is a family reached, a person saved, a soul that is welcomed and included into the family of faith. And behind every number is a congregation and a pastor who is not threatened by our Wesleyan ethos of accountability and growth but is excited that we are focused on “the main thing” ”“ salvation of the world in Jesus Christ.
“You only count what is important and whatever you count becomes important,” says one of our slogans. By counting every week the new life that God gives us, we are making that new life the engine that is driving our church life. Not content to care for the needs of who is already there, our churches are reaching out to those who are not.
Faith in a crucified Christ allows Hauerwas to continue his work with what seems like indefatigable energy. It also inspired him to argue that the “we” in a “we are at war” response to the events of Sept. 11, 2001, could not possibly be a Christian “we.” One might suggest that such a challenge was not a far cry from Stanley Hauerwas, age 7, who innocently challenged the etiquette of the water kegs available for bricklayers with one cup designated for white and another for black workers. Young Hauerwas drank indiscriminately from either one. The difference now, 60 or so years later, is that Hauerwas intentionally chooses to drink from the cup that unites us all as sons and daughters of God, no matter the consequences.
Yes, evangelicals do have more retention of youth than mainline churches. But it is unfair to say that this is because evangelicals care more about keeping them. As someone who grew up as an evangelical and who is now in a mainline denomination, I see a different way of analyzing this trend. Rather than evangelicals caring more, they engage in the business of scaring more (sorry for the pun, it just worked well.)
Mainline denominations are uninterested in telling youth that they are going to burn in Hell if they don’t commit to Christianity and regularly come to church. Evangelicals, on the other hand, do. Mainline denominations are uninterested in guilting their members into attending; evangelicals see no problem with this. It’s a matter of philosophy. Evangelicals are consequentialists when it comes to youth formation”“the end justifies the means. Mainline denominations are typically deontologists”“if the means are not right, the action is wrong, even if good comes from it….
The church recently concluded a study of more than 32,000 Methodist congregations across North America, seeking the “key factors impacting vital congregations.” The study surveyed everybody from bishops to district superintendents to people in the pews.
Working with New York-based Towers Watson consultants, researchers constructed a “vitality index” to measure each church and concluded “that all kinds of UMC churches are vital — small, large, across
geographies, and church setting.”
The report identified four key areas that fuel vitality: small groups and programs; worship services that mix traditional and contemporary styles with an emphasis on relevant sermons; pastors who work hard on mentorship and cultivation of the laity; and an emphasis on effective lay leadership.
These four factors “are consistent regardless of church size, predominant ethnicity, and jurisdiction,” the study concluded.
THE Archbishop of Canterbury (above) told the Methodist Conference on Tuesday that “a sense of urgency of who Jesus is” must be at the heart of the Anglican-Methodist Covenant.
Dr Williams said that the Covenant, signed in 2003, was “unfinished busiÂness”, and they were now working out how to “settle in for the long haul”.
It was the second time the ArchÂbishop has addressed the Methodist Conference ”” the first was in 2004.
Dr Williams took the examples of St Peter and St Paul to show how the Church of England and the Methodist Church should handle disagreements. He contrasted St Peter’s willingness to compromise with St Paul’s confronÂtÂational approach. The apostolic witness embraced both approaches, Dr Williams said. But, he went on, neither “compromise for the sake of a quiet life” nor “confrontation for the sake of feeling righteous” were fully biblical approaches.
Denominations appear to have fallen on difficult times. Theological controversies over core Christian beliefs have weakened some denominations. Others have succumbed to classic liberalism. A handful of denominations have reaffirmed their commitment to theological orthodoxy, but even many once-growing conservative denominations have experienced difficult days. All in all, membership in 23 of the 25 largest Christian denominations is declining (the exceptions being the Assemblies of God and the Church of God).
The 2008 American Religious Identification Survey (ARIS) found that the percentage of Americans who self-identify as Christians decreased from 86 percent in a 1990 study to 76 percent in 2008. Much of the loss does seem located in large mainline denominations. At the same time, the ARIS indicated that nondenominational churches have steadily grown since 2001””and that self-identified evangelicals have increased in number. But it seems that denominations have not shared in the growth.
According to many church leaders, denominations are not fading away””they are actually inhibiting growth. I have heard many pastors denounce denominations as hindering more than helping their churches’ mission. Others carp at wasteful spending, bureaucratic ineffectiveness, or structural redundancies; these objections seem to have gained adherents in an economic climate of pinching every penny. Loyalty to a denomination has declined and in some cases disappeared.
Meanwhile, many of the better-known churches in America today have no denominational affiliation….
Hannah’s Child: A Theologian’s Memoir has been out for not quite a month, but in that time I have received more letters about the book than any book I have ever written. I am not sure why that is the case, but it seems that I have struck a nerve. That I come from the working classes evokes for many a sympathetic reading. Others respond to my having lived for over twenty years with a wife that suffered from bipolar illness. The significance of friendship for sustaining my life also seems significant to many readers. The response I find most surprising is the surprise many express about my surprise that I am a Christian.
That a theologian should be surprised about being a Christian may seem strange, particularly among folk who have little sympathy with Christianity. They often assume that theologians by definition must believe in what they think about. That, of course, is a deep mistake made, particularly in recent times. Many who become theologians in our time think their task is to try to determine how much of what has passed for Christianity they still need to believe and yet still be able to think of themselves as Christians. I discovered, however, that I did not know enough about Christianity to know what I was disbelieving….
I became a theologian because I could not be saved.
I was baptized at Pleasant Mound Methodist Church in ”” you will not be surprised ”” Pleasant Mound, Texas. Pleasant Mound Methodist was Methodist, but like most folks in that area, we were really Baptist, which meant that even though you had been baptized and become a member of the church, you still had to be “saved.” Baptism and membership were Sunday morning events. Saving was for Sunday nights. Sunday night was an hour hymn sing, a time for “personal prayer” at the altar rail, a forty-five minute to an hour sermon, and then a call to the altar for those convicted of their sin.
If you came to the altar, it was assumed that you had struck up a new relationship with God that was somehow equivalent to being saved. I wanted to be saved, but I did not think you should fake it.
I am not sure how old I was when I began to worry about being saved, but it was sometime in my early teens. I had begun to date a young woman who also went to Pleasant Mound, which meant I was beginning to sin. I was pretty sure I needed saving, but I just did not think I should try to force God’s hand. All this was complicated for me because the church was at the center of my family’s life.
Our minister was Brother Zimmerman. Brother Zimmerman had actually gone to college and maybe seminary, but he preferred to be called “Brother” to show, I suspect, that even though he was educated he was not all that different from the rest of us. He was thin as a rail because he gave everything he had to being a minister. I remember him as a lovely, kind man, but he believed we did need to be saved.