News & Info

Conferences struggle to pay apportionments

By Kathy L. Gilbert* March 12, 2010 | NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) United Methodist churches are struggling to pay their apportioned giving in full. A UMNS photo illustration by Kathleen Barry. View in Photo Gallery is included //--> There are probably 24 million reasons United Methodist churches didn’t pay their 2009 apportionments in full. At the end of 2009, 14 of the 63 annual conferences in the United States paid 100 percent of the money asked of them by...

Churches share wisdom of generous giving

By Barbara Dunlap-Berg* 3:00 P.M. EST Mar. 12, 2010 Giving is spiritual says the Rev. Randy Flanagan, Christ United Methodist Church, Charleston, W. Va. Here church members pray during a mission trip. A UMNS photo courtesy of Randy Flanagan. View in Photo Gallery is included //--> Generous giving is not easy in a recession. It takes commitment, reaching beyond the local congregation, and the faith and courage to make hard choices. It requires emotional,...

White House focuses on faith-based groups

A UMNS Report By Linda Bloom* 1:00 P.M. EST March 12, 2010 Members of the President's Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood Partnerships included, from left, the Revs. Jim Wallis and Peg Chemberlin and Rabbi David Saperstein. UMNS photos by Bud Heckman. View in Photo Gallery is included //--> An “ambitious” 164-page report submitted to the White House this week on partnerships with faith-based organizations already is having an impact, says a...

Tiny churches have giant hearts for giving

Tiny churches have giant hearts for giving The Rev. Jim West serves two congregations near St. Louis. Caledonia United Methodist Church boasts an average attendance of 70, Bismarck UMC 30. They may be small, but they are mighty. “They have a history of always paying their apportionments,” West said. “It is important to their ethos.” He is quite sure Caledonia and Bismarck were the first two congregations in the Missouri Annual (regional) Conference to pay their ...

Veteran civil rights leader calls for reform

By Denise Johnson Stovall* 2:00 P.M. EST Feb. 18, 2010 | DALLAS (UMNS) The Rev. James Lawson pauses for a moment of prayer while visiting St. Luke “Community” United Methodist Church in Dallas. UMNS photos by Wallace Faggett. View in Photo Gallery is included //--> A United Methodist minister who trained civil rights workers during the turbulent 1960s is calling for a “movement in our nation where no one is treated unfairly.” The Rev. James M....

Racial tensions inform Tyson’s memoir

By Linda Bloom* Feb. 16, 2010 | (UMNS) 12:00 P.M. CST Historian Timothy Tyson teaches a class at Duke University. A UMNS photo by Jon Gardiner, Duke University. Timothy Tyson never forgot what happened in Oxford, N.C., the summer he turned 11. The memories of the murder there that inflamed racial tensions persisted even after the family left town when his father, the Rev. Vernon Tyson, was asked to move to another United Methodist church in Wilmington. The younger Tyson returned...

Haitian adoptions require moral discernment

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Movie lifts up racial struggle in North Carolina

A UMNS Report By Linda Bloom* Feb. 16, 2010 tag //--> Protesters call for racial justice in a scene from "Blood Done Sign My Name." UMNS photos courtesy of Paladin / Real Folk Productions. Filmmaker Jeb Stuart and historian Tim Tyson are both preacher’s kids, now in their 50s, who grew up in North Carolina at a time when attempts at racial integration still sparked tensions that could lead to violence and murder. So when Stuart read “Blood Done Sign My...

American Methodist Anniversary

American Methodist Anniversary: From Baltimore into the Life Blood of a Nation by Elliott Wright and Kevin Nelson They rode from Baltimore in the first few days of 1785, around 60 mostly young preachers infused with missionary zeal and moving confidently into the lifeblood of a new nation. Over the previous nine days, they had organized the first national Protestant...

UMCOR Responds to the Earthquake in Haiti

UMCOR Responds to the Earthquake in Haiti Contact: Melissa Hinnen, UMCOR Communications 212-870-3808   January 13, 2010 -- A major earthquake hit Port-au-Prince, Haiti yesterday, causing widespread destruction. Millions of people are affected and thousands are feared dead. The United Methodist Committee on Relief (UMCOR) has close ties with the Methodist Church in Haiti and is responding to the devastating earthquake with funding, material resources and prayers.   UMCOR...

Year-End Treasurer's Notes

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Action from Council on Bishops

:: Action from Council on Bishops Council of Bishops Adopt "God's Renewed Creation: Call to Hope and Action"    In a statement that says, "We cannot help the world until we change our way of being in it," the bishops of The United Methodist Church announced a significant call to all United Methodists, ecumenical and inter-religious partners and people of goodwill around the world. "As bishops, we know that critical issues of the day have left...

Find-A-Church Helps Put Your Best Foot Forward

Find-A-Church Helps Put Your Best Foot Forward   United Methodist Communications reports that the www.Find-A-Church.org site is receiving 400,000 pageviews a month, indicating people are using the internet more and more to search for a church near them. Your congregation's Find-A-Church page is often the first door a visitor will enter. But only 16 percent of Mississippi churches have updated their information on the site that offers churches an opportunity to share...

Family Reading Bonds at Crawford Street UMC

Family Reading Bonds at Crawford Street UMC Crawford Street United Methodist Church in Vicksburg has been hosting Family Reading Bonds, a community outreach program sponsored by theMississippi Humanities Council. The six-week program began in September and ran through October. Elementary school students and their families who are enrolled at Good Shepherd Community Center were the primary participants. The Humanities Council provided the books, a storyteller, a discussion leader, and...

Outreach efforts start paying off

By the Advocate  What actually happens when church members get out and knock on doors in their communities? Three Mississippi Conference churches recently found out. Earlier this year, Bishop Hope Morgan Ward and the cabinet encouraged local congregations to knock on doors in their communities in response to the annual conference’s theme regarding doors as a means of “radical hospitality” as the denomination seeks to re-think church.  The idea of knocking on nine...

Young Jackson pastor tackles racial reconciliation

By LaReeca Rucker The Clarion-Ledger Michelle Shrader decided to transition from speech therapist to pastor when she became aware of the class and racial divides in her Florida town. “I was really involved in leadership at an affluent, all-white church,” Shrader said, “and I was working in the school just across the tracks that had no resources and was primarily attended by children from low-income African-American families. “As my faith and leadership began to grow,...

HeARTworks wonders among Jackson’s homeless

By Melia Dicker Jackson Free Press Michael Lewis stands in front of a table covered with a sheet of canvas, which he has splattered with colorful acrylic paints in the style of Jackson Pollock. He surveys his work in silence, straightens the canvas so it lies flat and picks up a small bottle of orange paint., "I'm just gon' add a little," he says. He squeezes paint directly from the bottle and adds three large spirals along the bottom of the canvas and a few squiggly lines along...

Board of Medical Benefits considers rate increase

By the Advocate Rising costs and uncertainty about the future of the nation’s healthcare system led to an increase in the Mississippi Conference health insurance program, but the cost won’t be passed along to policy holders. The conference Board of Medical Benefits met Sept. 21 to set rates for 2010. While a 5 percent increase in costs was needed, the board chose to pay for that increase from reserves. Following the meeting, the board issued the following statement: “One...

Arise, Shine, Grow!

“You shall be like a watered garden. . .” — Isaiah 58:11 Our centering verses of scripture for the coming year will come from Isaiah’s beautiful song of promise and hope. God promises that our life in Christ will be a fruitful life. The Bible is full of images of gardens and growing things, from the Garden of Eden to the garden in the New Jerusalem with trees for the healing of the nations. It is in a garden that Jesus is raised to life and God’s richest gifts...

Our culture or our Christ ... our choice

Forbidden fruit has always been the greatest temptation of mankind. Even when all our needs are met, as in the Garden of Eden, we have this instinctive impulse for more and a resistance to boundaries, rules and guidelines. Traffic on the interstates exceeds the speed limit, whether it is 55, 70 or even 80 mph. Entertainment media calls for more action, more thrills, more violence. “Extreme” defines the appetite for more, bigger, stronger, faster. Music of the modern era is loud...