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Wednesday 07. of May 2008
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Preliminary Assessment of General Conference 2008 |
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General Conference is over—that we know. General Conference actually ended on Friday, May 2, as scheduled, beating the midnight clock. That is good. What is not so good is that in the rush to the end numbers of...
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Friday 02. of May 2008
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Thursday 01. of May 2008
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Thursday 01. of May 2008
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Thursday 01. of May 2008
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Monday 28. of April 2008
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Sunday 27. of April 2008
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Friday 25. of April 2008
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April 25th Report From General Conference |
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We are now in the third day of General Conference. We have worshiped together, shared communion together (twice), spoken at length of good things happening in the church, and spoken to numbers of people in the...
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Thursday 24. of April 2008
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April 24th Report From General Conference |
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So far, so good! With a massed choir, pomp and ceremony, and references to transforming the world for Christ, the 2008 United Methodist General Conference opened at Fort Worth Wednesday evening (April 23). About 6,500...
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Friday 18. of April 2008
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Should Church Agency Staff Be Christians? |
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For almost all United Methodist churches it is assumed that persons who serve on church staffs should be Christian believers. It is difficult to be in ministry in the name of Jesus Christ if some on the ministry team do not...
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Monday 14. of April 2008
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Recommended Candidates for Judicial Council |
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The single most important decision facing the 2008 General Conference (GC) may be the election of Judicial Council members. GC must elect two lay and three clergy for eight-year terms.
Why is this so...
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Friday 11. of April 2008
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Church Membership and Ruling 1032 |
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It is hard to believe that one pastor's decision in Virginia about the meaning of membership would suddenly plunge the UMC into a possible constitutional crisis. A man attending Rev. Ed Johnson's church desired to become a...
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Thursday 10. of April 2008
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The Law of Diminishing Returns |
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THE LAW OF DIMINISHING RETURNS
If church growth were to be measured by the number of resolutions a denomination passes United Methodism would long since have passed Southern Baptists, Roman Catholics, and everyone else in...
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Wednesday 09. of April 2008
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What About a New Hymnal? |
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For the past twenty years The United Methodist Hymnal (UMH) has served as a source of unity within United Methodism. Despite a number of divisive forces at work in the denomination there have not been major...
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Tuesday 08. of April 2008
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The Global Nature of Church |
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Perhaps no other issue before the 2008 General Conference has the potential to impact the future of United Methodism more than the report and the proposed legislation from the Task Force on the Global Nature of the Church....
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Tuesday 08. of April 2008
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On Gender Identity |
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When the Judicial Council upheld the bishop’s decision that a transgender pastor (Rev. Ann Gordon of Baltimore-Washington Conference who became Rev. Drew Phoenix) remains eligible to serve a church, it presented United Methodism...
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Sunday 30. of March 2008
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What Shall Be Done with the Ministry Study? |
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What shall be done with the Ministry Study? The study takes up 32 pages in the DCA and represents lots of time and money and energy. The hope was that after many other study commissions and years of discussing how...
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Thursday 27. of March 2008
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Will the UMC be World-Wide? |
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The Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table are asking General Conference to consider separating U.S. United Methodists organizationally from United Methodists in other parts of the world. (See the proposals on p. 437...
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Tuesday 25. of March 2008
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Wednesday 19. of March 2008
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Prohibiting Discrimination? |
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A petition before General Conference that was introduced simultaneously in a number of annual conferences would add a clause to para. 214 in the Discipline stating that no person shall be excluded from the United Methodist Church...
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Wednesday 19. of March 2008
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A Message from Africa |
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In October, 2007, at a conference in Memphis, the Rev. Jerry Kulah delivered an unforgettable message to the United Methodist Church. Rev. Kulah is the District Superintendent of the Monrovia District in Liberia. His...
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Friday 14. of March 2008
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The Mission of the United Methodist Church |
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The Council of Bishops has submitted a petition to General Conference that would change the mission statement of our denomination. Currently paragraph 120 of our 2004 Book of Discipline declares simply that "The Mission of...
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Thursday 13. of March 2008
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Conversion and The Mission of the Church |
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A General Conference petition to expand the mission of the church would add the words “for the transformation of the world…” so that the mission statement would read: The purpose of the annual conference is to make disciples of...
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Saturday 08. of March 2008
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Time for a United Methodist Committee on Faith and Order |
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One of the intriguing proposals before General Conference asks for a new Committee on Faith and Order which while functioning with the authority of an independent committee would nevertheless reside under the auspices of the...
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Friday 07. of March 2008
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Responsible Stewardship for the UMC |
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The audited financial statements of our United Methodist general boards and agencies present some interesting information. As of the end of 2006, our general boards and agencies had unrestricted net assets of over $292...
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Saturday 01. of March 2008
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On Holy Conferencing |
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Bishops and others working with General Conference are to be commended for urging a new tone of civility in the debates leading up to and during General Conference. In a nation where political, social and religious...
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Saturday 01. of March 2008
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A New Social Creed |
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The General Board of Church and Society will ask you at General Conference to replace the current Social Creed (paragraph 166) with a new one (P. 197 of Volume 2 of the advance DCA). There is nothing wrong with the new...
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Friday 22. of February 2008
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Judicial Council Elections |
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The single most important decision facing delegates to the 2008 General Conference may be the election of Judicial Council members. General Conference must elect two lay and three clergy for four-year terms.
Until...
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Thursday 21. of February 2008
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United Methodist Integrity and The Judicial Council |
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The appeals have gone out that civil discourse and holy conferencing prevail at the 2008 General Conference, and that the conference not get bogged down on controversial issues that might divide us—like homosexuality. The...
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Monday 18. of February 2008
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This Book Will Be Great Preparation For GC! |
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Within the next week each delegate to General Conference will receive a copy of a new book entitled, "Reclaiming the Wesleyan Social Witness: Offering Christ." I reviewed a galley copy several months ago and commend this...
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Monday 11. of February 2008
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Sunday 10. of February 2008
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The Ministerial Education Fund (MEF) and the Seminaries |
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The amount apportioned for the Ministerial Education Fund (MEF) in the 2005-2008 quadrennium was over $113 million dollars. The average UM seminary is receiving over $1 million per year from this fund. Yet, we have a...
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Tuesday 05. of February 2008
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What About Guaranteed Appointments? |
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One of the intriguing pieces of legislation that will be before the General Conference would amend para. 334 so that “guaranteed appointment” for pastors would no longer be a right but a privilege. ...
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Wednesday 30. of January 2008
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The Ministerial Education Fund and the Seminaries |
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As the cost of seminary education grows more and more, graduates face ministry with burdensome debt. One report indicates that a year at Chandler is now costing in the $30,000 range.
This was never supposed...
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Tuesday 29. of January 2008
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The Church and Abortion |
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One of the most divisive issues facing society, as well as the church, is the issue of abortion. While many people, on either side of the abortion issue, would like for the Social Principles to state more firmly either a...
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Monday 28. of January 2008
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Human Sexuality and General Conference |
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As Yogi Berra would say, "It's going to be deja vu all over again." The General Board of Church and Society (GBCS) will attempt to remove from the Discipline any critical language regarding homosexual activity. In...
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Friday 25. of January 2008
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Protecting and Preserving Marriage |
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The United Methodist Church has had a proud history of supporting marriage. Our denomination has celebrated Christian Home Month, Mother's Day, Marriage Encounter, and Marriage Enrichment. We have preached against...
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Monday 21. of January 2008
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Abortion and General Conference |
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As usual, abortion will be a major issue at the upcoming General Conference. The official UM standard (par. 161J of the 2004 Book of Discipline) declares that "our belief in the sanctity of unborn human life makes us...
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Wednesday 09. of January 2008
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The Crisis in Ministerial Recruitment |
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Much has been spoken and written about the crisis in ministerial recruitment. For numbers of people, evangelicals and others, a major part of the problem has to do not just with the confusing and in many ways demeaning...
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Thursday 03. of January 2008
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A New Social Creed |
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Members of the 2008 General Conference will be asked to accept a new version of the Social Creed for the denomination.
The very first version of the Social Creed (for any denomination) was adopted by the Methodist Episcopal...
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Saturday 22. of December 2007
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The UMC is Changing! |
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The United Methodist Church is changing! The liberal dominated Western
Jurisdiction has lost about half its membership, even though it includes
some of America's fastest growing states, like California and Arizona. ...
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