Both of the churches we serve participate in the Sierra Leone Initiative, which allows us to partner with United Methodist churches in Sierra Leone. Two guests from Sierra Leone are currently touring churches in our conference, reporting on the work in their country. We met both of them this past weekend, and one of them,… Continue Reading »
Lent is an ideal time for personal reflection and self-examination. It’s also a great time to remember the importance of accountability. Recently, I came across a list of twenty-one daily accountability questions used by John and Charles Wesley during their days in the Holy Club at Oxford University. It’s a pretty intense list of reflective… Continue Reading »
One of the highlights of the Bishop’s Retreat, which ended yesterday in Lancaster, PA, was the kids getting to meet Bishop Jeremiah Park, and his wife, Lisa, who are both from Korea. We took a photo with the Parks after the closing communion service. Unfortunately, we had to crop the right side of the picture… Continue Reading »
On Monday evening at the Bishop’s Retreat, Randy led a time of prayer and reflection, looking at 1 Kings 19.1-9a. He asked “What are you running from?” and “What are you running to?” On Tuesday evening, I concluded our look at Elijah with 1 Kings 19.9b-15a, which begins with Elijah in a cave where he… Continue Reading »
Today, Rev. Adam Hamilton, pastor of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kansas, delivered the sermon at the Inaugural prayer Service at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C. President Barack Obama, and other national leaders, gathered in this traditional service that dates back to George Washington. You can read the transcript of… Continue Reading »
Last night, at the end of the first session of our Bishop’s Retreat, I led our clergy family in a time of prayer and reflection. Here’s the gist of what I said. Leadership and ministry often involves a lot of running. Unfortunately, too much running makes it hard to have a healthy soul! And, a… Continue Reading »
Bishop William Willimon is coming to the Susquehanna Conference next week as a guest speaker at the Bishop’s Retreat for our clergy family. Bishop Willimon recently retired from serving as bishop of the North Alabama Conference. He has since returned to Duke, where he taught for twenty years before being elected bishop in 2004. He… Continue Reading »
I recently started reading through Francis Asbury’s journal (see my previous post). I’m still only on page 50 of Volume 1 (of 3), but one thing that strikes me is how much Asbury writes about preaching, and how much he talks about his preaching in experiential terms. Here are a number of examples of how… Continue Reading »
For a while now, I’ve been casually reading American Saint: Francis Asbury and the Methodists by John Wigger. I’m enjoying it, but I also recently began reading Asbury’s three-volume journal (Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3). Asbury begins his journal talking about a conference that took place on August 7, 1771 where he made himself… Continue Reading »
A little over a year ago, I wrote about our conference’s Matthew 28 Initiative. I wrote that post on the eve of our consultation weekend in September 2011, and I recently realized I haven’t written anything about it since then! The consultation, which was conducted by Rev. Roz Mason (Consultant), Rev. Rich Morris (Coach), and… Continue Reading »