Follow Jesus. Lead the church. Change the world.
A few years ago, our conference worked with Paul Borden to develop the Matthew 28 Initiative. This initiative is “a strategy for transforming congregations to greater fruitfulness in making disciples of Jesus Christ.” This is the third year of Matthew 28 in our conference. As I understand it, there are approximately 45 churches in the … Read more
One of the highlights at this year’s annual conference was Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection (COR). Adam led three presentations. We attended COR’s Leadership Institute in 2008 and thoroughly enjoyed it (see post here). Here are some of the highlights from Adam’s annual conference presentations … What Leaders … Read more
A few weeks ago, we completed a long journey when we were ordained in the UMC. Now that we’ve had some time for it to sink in, we can start thinking about life beyond “the process” (i.e., the ordination process). For many years, the process has been such a central part of our lives. In … Read more
In the days and weeks leading up to last Saturday’s Ordination Service, I prayed for a “double portion” of God’s Spirit (a reference to Elisha’s request at the anticipated exit of Elijah). It’s also a play on words, a celebration of the fact that both of us were ordained! Last Saturday, we were ordained elders … Read more
We are at annual conference this week. It’s an annual conference that will forever be engraved on our hearts and minds. It began Wednesday morning and will conclude tomorrow afternoon with the Ordination Service where we both will be ordained along with several others. I had hoped to blog during annual conference, but this has … Read more
Over the weekend, I remembered that after this Saturday’s ordination service, we will receive a certificate stating that we are ordained elders in the UMC. It made me wonder where our other official certificates/diplomas (mainly, academics degrees) are. What I found struck me as kind of funny. Our M.Div. diplomas remain in envelopes hidden in … Read more
We learned today that some of next week’s sessions of annual conference will stream live from the conference website, a first for our conference! Annual conference begins Wednesday, June 8 and goes through Saturday, June 11. Of special note for us is that the Ordination service will stream live! Ordinands will also be involved in … Read more
Over the last few months, I’ve been reviewing and reflecting on the historical questions that those being ordained have been asked since 1784 in the American Methodist church (see Wesley’s Historic Questions and The Historic Questions 2.0). Today, I spent some time reading through the liturgy for the ordination of elders as printed in The … Read more
Judging Amy was a TV show that ran from 1999 to 2005. It was one of two TV shows we watched at the time (the other was JAG). Recently, I was reminded of an episode we recorded on January 6, 2004. In this episode, called Christenings, The Gray family is preparing for baptism with a … Read more
We have been thinking about ordination for a long time, of course, but recently, I’ve been pondering what happens at ordination, spiritually (see Theology of Ordination for more reflection on the meaning of ordination). Practically speaking, ordination will take place at the Service of Commissioning and Ordination, the final service of annual conference, which meets … Read more