Tagged: mission

Congregations, Discipleship, and Staying on Mission in the UMC

I just learned about a recently reported study by the Barna Group entitled What People Experience in Churches.  This study asked Christians questions to assess five different dimensions of church-going.  There’s some good and some bad news included in the findings of the report.  The good news is that most church-goers say they experience a […]

“The world is our parish” as basis for United Methodist unity

One of John Wesley’s famous lines is “I look on all the world as my parish.”  A lot of Methodists like this phrase, but does it contain a potential source of United Methodist unity?  I’d like to argue that it does.  I think a “world as our parish” attitude has the potential to conceptually unite […]

Polity as basis for United Methodist unity?

This week’s contender for possible source of unity for The United Methodist Church (or other denominations, with the appropriate caveats made) is polity.  Polity means the rules and structures that define the formal organization of the church.  It includes things like membership vows, definitions of ordained ministry (and the rules for becoming and remaining an […]

Numbers, Mission, and Losing Our Life for the Sake of the Gospel

My adviser, Dana Robert, and I recently wrote an article (which is available for free online – check it out) comparing growth rates of United Methodism to related denominations around the world.  We conclude that United Methodism is often growing slower than related denominations, and that this indicates a problem.  We suggest some possible explanations […]