By Melissa Lauber The newest congregation of the Baltimore-Washington Conference – Community With A Cause UMC in Southern Maryland – may also be its most unabashedly welcoming. Visitors are met with vibrant greetings. People coming into the worship, even after it begins...
By Melissa Lauber “Dream big.” Leading a church of 19 members in a little town in West Virginia, Pastor Dick Voorhaar is not the first one that people might think of when they consider ambitious plans. But years of faith have taught Voorhaar, 82, that God-sized dreams are the...
By Melissa Lauber Sometimes the Holy Spirit catches you off-guard. It’s amazing to me how often God’s voice speaks through everyday United Methodists, who open their hearts to the sacred and then humbly share their response with the world. Most recently, I...
By Neal Christie “It is almost always a little bit exciting to start a new project, especially when building something from the ground up. At some point, however, the newness starts to wear off and you look around at the long road ahead of you and the task can feel...
By Neal Christie What would compel a group of twenty-five Frostburg University students to board a bus at the break of dawn one Saturday morning and drive to Washington, D.C.? And why would a group of Howard University students wait in the cold, under a tent outside, to welcome students they had...
By Rev. Bonnie McCubbin Lovely Lane, where the Rev. John Goucher was once the pastor, holds a special place in the story of the Korean Methodist Church. Goucher financed the sending of Methodist missionaries, who brought the Methodist Church to Korea in 1885. On Nov. 6, eleven bishops from the...
Invisible, forgotten, the asterisk problem. These are often the qualifiers that precede news articles addressing the current reality for Native American populations within the United States. But those descriptors are as much a part of the problem as the problems they seek to address.
Hope. That one idea can summarize a lifetime of intention and faith. It’s the foundation of the Psalms, and galvanizes the Church to seek and act for justice. The United Methodist Council of Bishops met Nov. 2-5 and Bishop LaTrelle Easterling, the episcopal leader of the...
By Melissa Lauber Baptism is an outward expression of an inward commitment to God. When the church baptizes children, they welcome them into the family of God, claiming their lives as blessed by Christ, vowing to watch over them as they grow in faith. At Asbury UMC in Jessup, the members take...
“God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in times of trouble.” -- Psalm 46: 1 (NLT) It is with a heavy heart that I share the following news. Earlier today, a young man from Fort Hill High School in Cumberland was reportedly involved in a stabbing incident and...
