The Bishop Melvin G. Talbert Leadership Institute Fellows are being nurtured to become ethical leaders of vital congregations.

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United Methodist Women join others in bringing awareness of human trafficking to festivities in Indianapolis.

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Include God and make the effort, urges president of international hunger-relief organization.

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Two churches in the heart of Indianapolis find different ministries to feed the hungry and enable people to reach potential.

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United Methodist support helps recruit outstanding faculty and provide students with academic, cultural and spiritual guidance.

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Two churches in heart of Indianapolis find different ministries to feed the hungry and enable people to reach potential.

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From the hard soil of Tucson, Ariz., Youth Farm Project interns help the community to develop a flourishing garden and gathering place.

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That’s the question church staff want General Conference delegates to consider in weighing various reorganization proposals.

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Foods Resource Bank spins cash from crops into food security as farmers and churches make a global difference.

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Born out of the Hope for Children of Africa initiative, this mission of the United Methodist orphanage is still expanding.

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This week, I return to theseries of messages focusing on some of our distinctive Wesleyan beliefsfrom my book on that subject.
No motif in the Wesleyantradition has been more consistent than the link between Christian doctrine andChristian living. Methodists have always been strictly enjoined to maintain theunity of faith and good works, through the means of grace… The coherence offaith with ministries of love forms the discipline of Wesleyan spirituality andChristian discipleship…. Discipline was not church law; it was a way ofdiscipleship. (The United Methodist Book of Discipline)
Any truly Wesleyan vision of theChristian life includes direct, personal, sacrificial encounter with sufferingpersons – simply collecting money for someone else to work with the poor is notenough. Also, John Wesley stressed a need for understanding of the root causesof poverty. He avoided the typical moral explanations for poverty that were invogue in his day (and our day too). Wesley also didn’t mind urging governmentalofficials to do their part in response to human need. Why does the UnitedMethodist General Board of Church and Society lobby Congress? Not simply from adesire for a better functioning society but rather from our theological visionof God whose presence and love among us is always “good news to the poor” andour passionate desire to walk with this God.
Here is the summation of one ofWesley’s diatribes against wealth:
Heathen custom is nothing to us.We follow no men any farther than they are followers of Christ. Hear ye him.Yea, today, while it is called today, hear and obey his voice. At this hour andfrom this hour do his will; fulfill his word in this and in all things. Ientreat you, in the name of the Lord Jesus, act up to the dignity of yourcalling. No more sloth! Whatsoever your hand findeth to do, do it with yourmight. No more waste! Cut off every expense which fashion, caprice, or fleshand blood demand. No more covetousness! But employ whatever God has entrustedyou with in doing good, all possible good, in every possible kind and degree,to the household of faith, to all men. [1]
Wesley’s 1739 decision to go outand preach in the fields to the masses and engage in the innovative practice of“field preaching” in the open air was his dramatic attempt to take the gospelto England’s new urban poor, just as he had worked among the poor at Oxford fora decade before. He defined the gospel as “good news to the poor” (Luke 4).Right up to the very end of his life, John Wesley worked to set right what waswrong with the world, supporting the Strangers’ Friend Society to helpnewcomers to England’s great cities. He worked to end the scourge of slavery,as in his famous last letter to William Wilberforce in 1791. Just four yearsbefore his death he welcomed Sarah Mallet as a preacher; the first officiallysanctioned female preacher of Methodism. He gave away all that he made from hisbooks and writings, dying a pauper. Six poor men bore Wesley’s body to itsgrave.

-- Adapted from William H. Willimon, UnitedMethodist Beliefs: An Introduction, Westminster/John Knox Press,2006.[1] Works, 2:279.

United Methodist leaders say the decision puts the onus on the denomination to do justice in its hiring practices.

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Concerns raised that the proposed changes would give too much power to bishops and damage the denomination’s ‘separation of powers.’

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Delegates consider issues from reorganization to roles of bishops to an operating budget that is smaller than in the previous quadrennium.

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An incubator for life-changing ministries, Spark12 allows millennials to hone leadership skills, begin new service ventures.

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During the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, a student reflects on how living with other faiths and cultures strengthens her own.

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Methodist Federation for Social Action is the only unofficial caucus to submit its own reorganization to General Conference.

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Our Lord Jesus preached peace, but “not as the world gives.” Peaceful Jesus was from the first a disturber of the status quo. Alas, too often Jesus’ followers have been on the side of peace at any cost, peace as the world gives in opposition to Jesus.
A remarkable moment in church history occurred right here in Alabama in the ministry of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.As you know, Dr. King was discovered here in Alabama while he was a Baptist pastor in Montgomery where the church called him to the ministry of Disturber of the Peace, the “peace” wrought by people like George Wallace and Bull Connor.I’ve got a copy of, “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” in which Martin Luther King, Jr. justifies why he has organized marches and sit-ins that “disturbed the peace.”Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn’t negotiation a better path?” You are quite right in calling for negotiation . . . Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks so to dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored.King explains that while he opposes violent tension, he believes there is “a type of constructive, nonviolent tension… the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood.
The purpose of King’s protests was “to create a situation so crisis-packed that it will inevitably open the door to negotiation.”[1] The liberal recipients of King’s letter (one of whom was our bishop) hoped that Birmingham would desegregate without a fight. King eloquently told them they were wrong.[2]
The peace that King disturbed was no peace, but instead Birmingham’s police state, constructed by powerful people in order to oppress and terrorize black citizens. No transformation without disruption.
In my experience, churches always hope that it is possible to be faithful to the mandates of Jesus Christ without the pain of disruption and dislocation. We pastors tend to be reconcilers and peacemakers who are uncomfortable with disruptions.This day let’s remember that Jesus Christ was unable to work our redemption without a disruption of the status quo that eventually led to his crucifixion in a vain attempt to silence him.
Let’s remember, as we go about our attempts to be faithful to Jesus, that few good works meet no resistance, and few transformations occur without disruption. As I’ve studied pastors who transform congregations I’ve noted that these pastors expect there to be resistance and this disruption and they learn to creatively use this dislocation as leverage in their leadership of change.
It’s good to be reminded, by recalling our history, that change is never painless, particularly if we are changing something that is sinful. One of the great blessings of being in the North Alabama Conference is that a few of our elders engaged in social activism and various forms of civil disobedience back in the Sixties and they are still around to tell us about it. Whenever I encounter institutional resistance, whether it be in our church at large or in an individual congregation, I recall the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. when he was told to ease up on Alabama. In his sermon, “Our God is Marching On,” King vowed, “No, we will not allow Alabama to return to normal.”
Of course for us Christians, the most striking example of disruption, dislocation, and painful challenge to our status quo is Jesus Christ. Since Jesus appeared among us, we’ve never been able to “return to normal.” And one of the ways Jesus continues to disrupt us in order to save us is through faithful disrupters like one-time-Alabama- pastor, Martin Luther King, Jr.

Will Willimon

Lay missionary planting network project works to develop new faith fellowships, churches in Oklahoma Indian Missionary Conference.

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Despite obstacles, Hennepin Avenue church in Minneapolis works toward innovative project to provide food and jobs.

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