Tagged: unity

Want a more tolerant, united world? Make some friends.

As those who have been reading this blog for a while may remember, I wrote a long series of blog posts last summer discussing the problem of unity in The United Methodist Church.  I think unity is a problem in the church, but I also think it’s a general problem in society.  How do we […]

Playing house vs. playing Legos

I would like to suggest two metaphors describing how societal unity has functioned in the past and how societal unity might function in the future.  In the past, societal unity has been like playing house.  In the world of what comes next, I think societal unity needs to be like playing Legos. Playing house is […]

Three questions about church growth for the UMC

On Monday of this week, I was privileged to have a unique opportunity.  My advisor, Dr. Dana L. Robert, and I made a presentation to the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) of The United Methodist Church at the annual meeting of their board of directors.  This was a great experience: I was honored by […]

Lay Itinerancy

When last I wrote about unity in The United Methodist Church, I suggested that connectionalism, or a web of relationships between pastors and members across churches, was the true source of denominational unity.  If one accepts that answer, then the question for those who want to promote denominational unity becomes how one can foster true […]

Connectionalism as basis for United Methodist unity

For the last several weeks, I’ve been taking a rather long detour from what had been my topic for much of the summer, the sources of unity in The United Methodist Church, to talk about a related but still somewhat tangential topic: the aggregate model of unity I’ve introduced.  Today, I’m finally going to connect […]

Networks and bridge-builders in the making of unity

For the last two weeks, I’ve been talking about something I’ve called the aggregate model of unity: a model of unity that depends not upon some characteristic shared by all as the basis of unity, but rather sees unity as being built up through a bunch of overlapping social circles.  Today, I want to talk […]

Relationships and unity

Last week, in my on-going exploration of unity in The United Methodist Church (and, by extension, contemporary society more broadly), I introduced a model of unity based not on some shared characteristic that applied to all in a group, but rather a bunch of overlapping characteristics.  I called this model unity through relationship and networks, […]

Unity without sameness?

In my past several blog posts, I’ve been examining various possible sources of unity for The United Methodist Church.  One assumption behind these posts so far has been that it may be possible to find something(s) that ties together all United Methodists and that unity in the denomination depends upon finding such thing(s).  I’ve certainly […]

“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 […]

Singing as basis for United Methodist unity

This week’s possibility for source of unity of United Methodism is singing.  Whereas I’ve pointed out problems with the three previous sources of unity I’ve examined (theology, history, and polity), I would like to suggest that singing is a potentially promising source of United Methodist unity (though not without its own problems as well). It’s […]