guest post by Leah Hartman Instead, I am content and at peace. As a child lies quietly in its mother’s arms, so my heart is quiet within me. Psalm 131:2 (GNT) Being an Active Child My daughter, Claire, is what they call an “active” baby. That’s the nice way of saying she doesn’t nap.…
Welcome to this week’s edition of Lingering Leaves – our most memorable posts from around the web. This week: the Superbowl competition is more than just football, communing with the Church Fathers, Rolling Stone’s new cover star, seminary, and Sundance. The Church Congregations in Denver and Seattle develop a friendly food drive competition alongside the…
tab·u·la ra·sa noun: The mind before it receives the impressions gained from experience; an opportunity for a fresh start; an opportunity to start over without prejudice; the mind in its hypothetical primary blank or empty state before receiving outside impressions. Late in the evening, December 31, our New Year’s party in Orlando spilled outside for…
Welcome to this week’s edition of Lingering Leaves – our most memorable posts from around the web. This week: True Love (doesn’t?) Wait, Mid-Year Moves in the UMC, Social Holiness, Iconoclasm, and the World’s Everyday Heroes. The Church United Methodist Pastor Christy Thomas shares five advantages to a mid-year move as a UM pastor, on…
The successful expansion of any movement is in direct proportion to its success in mobilizing and occupying its total membership in constant propagation of its beliefs. (The Strachan Theorem, from Richard Peace, Small Group Evangelism – A Training Program for Reaching Out with the Gospel) There are two streams of disciple making which could be…
Here are a few notable posts from several sources as we finish up another week of this new year. Thoughts about topics ranging from social principles in the UMC, unsafe labor conditions in Bangladesh, Ron Burgundy…and some thoughts to take us to Epiphany and beyond! Take a look. Tell us what you think. The Church Elizabeth Wellington reports on…
Many of our congregations marked the Baptism of Christ this Sunday. Whether your congregation engaged this event or not, you might like to do so now through a practice called Visio Divina. “While Lectio Divina is a method of praying with scripture, Visio Divina (Latin for “divine seeing”) is a method for praying with images…
Part of my calling is to help churches and individuals equip disciples and connect faith to real life through Christian education ministries. The culture has changed: through technology, changing family structures, increasing diversity and many other factors, the society we grew up in is looking quite different, isn’t it? Not necessarily a bad thing, it…
A Meditation for the Fourth Week of Advent I was reading an Advent devotion this morning which sought to capture Mary’s emotions. Joseph was preparing to divorce her quietly because of her pregnancy. She felt alone, bearing a mysterious child in her womb, with only God’s promise to cling to. The final words of the reading encouraged…
Here are a few notable ponderances from the internet world this third week of Advent. Thoughts about topics including women in ministry, personhood, the Pope, contemporary art, and Advent blessing. May they enhance your waiting, resting, rejoicing, praying. The Church Jeremiah Gibbs shares 4 reasons why ordaining women is no longer an optional concept for the church,…
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