I spent three days in Ohio last week at Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church's Change The World Conference. I went as part of the Reynolds Leadership Program which sends 25 pastors from North Carolina to various training events four times per year.Ginghamsburg is a...

Here's a disclaimer to this post: I never went through confirmation class as an adolescent.So I don't have any memories of nine months of classes, meetings with mentors, and then a holy moment of joining the church just in time to graduate from sixth grade. I just...

On Monday, I posted about my attendance at The Leading Edge, a gathering of the pastors of the 100 largest United Methodist churches in the United States based on average worship attendance. A benefactor underwrote most of the cost of the meeting, so we were able to...

In yesterday's post, I drew a link between a church's complexity and its mediocrity.Unfortunately, the typical Methodist Church is an inherently complex being. Here are just a few examples of the intricacies of the system:The pastor-in-charge reports to four different...

I am in Lake Junaluska, NC for a few days this week at the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference of the United Methodist Church. You can read about it here.Any time I am around this many Methodists, I invariably think about Asbury Seminary. Graduating from that...