By Melissa Lauber Over the past several months, God has been showing up at Journey UMC in Temple Hills “in all kinds of unexpected ways,” said the Rev. Michael Parker. On Dec. 18, Parker stood on the front lawn of a former parsonage and consecrated it to become home for a family in...
By Neal Christie The disparity between how we feel and how we ought to feel, leads to confusion where we were shaped by memories of holidays marked by endings: fractured relationships and unresolved conflicts, family and friends who have passed on, situations where we did not feel safe or...
“And it came to pass in those days, that there went out a decree” – that all 81 Methodist preachers should ride to Baltimore for a Christmas Conference. . . The year was 1784, when the Rev. Thomas Coke met with Francis Asbury at Barratt’s Chapel near Dover, Del., to...
On Dec. 13, the Rev. Neal Christie, the BWC’s Executive Minister of Connected Engagement, spoke on behalf of Bishop LaTrelle Easterling at a rally on Capitol Hill focusing on the moral imperatives of the 2021 Build Back Better Budget and the need not to overlook this...
From Bishop LaTrelle Easterling "Truly He taught us to love one another;His law is Love and His gospel is Peace;Chains shall he break, for the slave is our brother, And in his name all oppression shall cease, Sweet hymns of joy in grateful Chorus raise we; Let all within us praise his...
From United Methodist CommunicationsOffice of Public Information A United Methodist Ad Hoc Committee is encouraging congregations to vote against a proposed Boy Scouts of America (BSA) reorganization plan, following months of negotiations that have failed to yield a settlement thus far...
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...
