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Juicy Ecumenism – The Institute on Religion & Democracy's Blog

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Tag Archives: John Lomperis

Liberal United Methodists “Not Optimistic” about Future of Denomination

18 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by John Lomperis in News

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Institute on Religion and Democracy, John Lomperis, Methodist Federation for Social Action, New York Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church, Reconciling Ministries Network, United Methodist

Photo Credit: SwedentoAfrica.com

Photo Credit: SwedentoAfrica.com

By John Lomperis (@JohnLomperis)

As more and more liberal United Methodists admit that they are “not optimistic” about the direction of our denomination, they are increasingly mulling over their future options.

“[T]here is there is no indication that given the present structure of our United Methodist Church the official policies and positions” which affirm biblical standards on sexual morality “will change.”

That declaration was made in a resolution adopted in 2012 by the heterodox-dominated New York Conference of the United Methodist Church and reaffirmed by the 2013 session of the same conference last month.

Meanwhile, in its March Katalyst newsletter, the Reconciling Ministries Network (RMN), the main caucus agitating for United Methodist endorsement of homosexual practice (as well as other varieties of sex outside of man-woman marriage), revealed that through a recent large-scale survey, they have learned that now its own constituency is divided in half between those who are committed to staying within the denomination and angrily fighting other United Methodists to the bitter end and others who say, in one representative comment, that they are “[d]one waiting four more years” for the next United Methodist General Conference to  liberalize church policies and that “RMN should be helping people talk about separation.”

Our denomination’s last governing General Conference, which met in Tampa, Florida, in 2012, was dubbed by heterodox activists as “the most conservative General Conference ever,” affirming biblical standards for sexual morality by a GROWING majority, and with many further points of evangelical reform only being stymied (until next time) by indefensibly Machiavellian, anti-Golden-Rule tactics shamelessly adopted by the liberal protest caucuses.

As we have reported earlier, in response to the United Methodist Church increasingly being liberated from the theological liberalism which has oppressively dominated our denomination for decades, last year two of the most heterodox-dominated United Methodist conferences, New York and California-Nevada, adopted identically entitled resolutions calling for “A Study Committee for an Inclusive Conference” to promote structural alternatives for heterodox United Methodists. The California-Nevada resolution openly mentions the creation of a new, liberal Methodist denomination as one option for such an alternative structure, while the 2012 New York resolution drew encouragement from other oldline denominations that have caved in to the sexual revolution.

Liberal New York City-area United Methodists are now making clear that such talk is more substantial and sustained among heterodox United Methodists than a short-lived emotional outburst.

The New York Annual Conference Study Committee on a More Inclusive Church was structured to exclude supporters of biblical teaching on sexual morality. After a year of regular meetings, this Study Committee is maturing into its next stage. Its 2013 resolution, adopted by the Annual Conference session, reiterated the 2012 resolution’s protest of General Conference’s orthodoxy on sexual morality, expressed fear over what future General Conferences may do, and called for all United Methodist congregations in the conference to send a representative to a November 16 forum to discuss the evolving, heterodox-led movement for structural alternatives.

On the one hand, the Study Committee expresses a commitment to making the United Methodist Church more sexually liberal, and neither its report nor its resolutions explicitly endorse schism as a possibility.

But on the other hand, the Study Committee’s report states “We are not optimistic that there will be a timely openness to change that would make greater LBGT inclusiveness possible, given the present disposition of the General Conference….” The report shares that the Study Committee “took comfort and courage from” looking at how John Wesley’s strong prejudice against church schism was balanced with his conviction that he “should be under an absolute necessity to separate from” a body of Christians if the price of remaining was “lying and hypocrisy,” preaching contrary to his own beliefs, or other perceived sins of commission or omission. Thus, the group is “consider[ing] ways we might remain in communion with The United Methodist Church, but with the ability to establish enough room for the inclusiveness to which we are committed.” In these efforts, they are “actively networking with other Jurisdictions and Conferences across the connection that share our goals” of “loyalty to our denomination, tempered by our growing unwillingness to participate in the on‐going and in our view discriminatory exclusion” of homosexually active clergy candidates.

Of course, an independent new denomination could both be “in communion” with the United Methodist Church while doing whatever it pleases in terms of its internal policies on sexual morality and other matters. It is not clear what other long-term, sustainable, and politically realistic options would meet the standard of both “remain[ing] in communion with The United Methodist Church” and “establishing enough room” to have official, sexually liberal policies.

For over four decades, activists in the “Reconciling” movement have devoted massive amounts of time, energy, and money to try to get General Conference to directly liberalize our denomination’s governing Book of Discipline – only to lose a large and growing amount of ground on that front.

A few years ago, such liberal activists eagerly championed the informally nicknamed “Global Segregation Plan,” which would have given United Methodists in the United States some freedom to set their own policies without the input of largely orthodox African United Methodists. But that plan went down in flames as evangelical United Methodists in America understood why sexually liberals were so eager for it while United Methodists in Sub-Saharan Africa understood that its primary practical effect would be to drastically squelch their voice in denominational affairs. An effort by the Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA), a liberal caucus group, to revive a version of this plan at the 2012 General Conference received a grand total of five supportive votes in a committee of 62 delegates.

At last summer’s Northeastern Jurisdictional Conference, a liberal clergywoman’s resolution to “Eliminate Jurisdictional Conferences” was referred to that jurisdiction’s College of Bishops. At last month’s New York Annual Conference session, the conference Study Committee on a More Inclusive Church submitted a resolution “expressing concern” that the Northeastern bishops have not prioritized this and demanding to know why they are taking so long. But even if cleverly framed as an effort “to eliminate jurisdictional conferences,” such proposals to create a new national US-only church structure devoid of international input amount to little more than thinly disguised attempts to resurrect the already rather dead Global Segregation Plan.

In any case, it will be interesting to see what happens with such conversations increasingly taking place throughout what can already be fairly described as the Not-So-United Methodist Church.

United Methodist Annual Conference Evangelical Groups, Banquets Offer Fellowship, Inspiration

15 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by John Lomperis in News

≈ Comments Off on United Methodist Annual Conference Evangelical Groups, Banquets Offer Fellowship, Inspiration

Tags

Cal-Pac Renewal, East Ohio Evangelical Fellowship, Eastern Pennsylvania Evangelical Connection, Evangelical Fellowship of West Ohio, Evangelical Fellowship Within the Virginia Conference of the United Methodist Church, Florida United Methodist Evangelicals (FLUME), Good News, Indiana Conference Confessing Movement, Institute on Religion and Democracy, John Lomperis, Mark Tooley, Methodist Renewal Movement, Mississippi Fellowship of United Methodist Evangelicals (MSFUME), New England Evangelical Renewal Fellowship (ERF), New York Conference Wesley Fellowship, NICEA, Renewal & Evangelism in Upper New York (REUNY), Rev. Tom Lambrecht, REVIVE! / Methodist Laity Reform Movement, United Methodist, Western North Carolina Conference Evangelical Movement (WNCCEM), WPA Evangelical Connection

Photo Credit: "What is Christian Fellowship?," TruthPressure.com

Photo Credit: “What is Christian Fellowship?,” TruthPressure.com

By John Lomperis (@JohnLomperis)

Notwithstanding encouraging long-term trends about the global direction of our denomination, evangelical United Methodists may sometimes feel discouraged over the heresies plaguing the UMC and lonely from a dearth of connections to more like-minded United Methodist believers beyond their local church.

Thus, an important need is met through the annual conference evangelical breakfast, lunch, or dinner banquets held across the country every year in May and June. These events are organized by local renewal groups based in many of the United Methodist Church’s five dozen annual conferences (the basic geographic division in our denomination) in the United States.  While these annual conference renewal groups have no formal, organizational connection to IRD/UMAction, they share our broad goals of spiritual renewal and promotion of biblical, Wesleyan orthodoxy within our denomination.

Such evangelical banquets are not part of the official agenda, but take place in conjunction with the two-to-four-day spring business sessions of the annual conference attended by all of the clergy and lay representatives from every congregation. Most attendees are annual conference delegates, though anyone is welcome to attend.

IRD President Mark Tooley and I recently had the joy of attending several such annual conference evangelical banquets.

The Illinois-Great Rivers Conference encompasses most of Illinois. Its annual evangelical dinner packed the room with friendly people from across the state, who got to informally meet each other and share about the ministries of their local churches. The speaker was the Rev. Jim Slone, senior pastor of the second-highest-attendance congregation in the conference. While asked to speak on “what works for evangelicals” in ministry, he refreshingly shifted the focus away from human techniques to stressing the importance of faithfully preaching the pure word of God and relying on the Holy Spirit to lead people to respond to the Truth to which they were designed to respond.

The Northern Illinois Conference encompasses the northern band of the state (including Chicago) and is one of United Methodism’s most notoriously theologically radicalized, rapidly shrinking conferences outside of the Western Jurisdiction. The speaker for the Northern Illinois Conference Evangelical Association (NICEA) dinner was our friend, the Rev. Tom Lambrecht, a United Methodist pastor who now works as Vice President and General Manager of Good News. He stressed that the main problems facing our denomination are spiritual and doctrinal, rather than structural or programmatic, urging orthodox United Methodists to start working now to develop the networks to be ready to eventually lead even such a liberalized conference as our denomination turns around.

A couple of weeks after I saw Tom speak in Northern Illinois, Mark Tooley saw our him address the Evangelical Fellowship of Virginia, as Mark reports here.

I was invited to speak at the lunch of Cal-Pac Renewal in the California-Pacific Annual Conference.  My speech, which you can read here, urged recovery of an evangelical Methodist identity by making our churches more (1) biblically grounded, (2) cross-centered, (3) conversion-oriented, (4) thoughtfully active, and (5) renewed in devotion to Wesley’s often-ignored teachings about Christian perfection.

These evangelical annual conference banquets offer a much clearer articulation of the spiritual challenges facing our denomination than what is generally heard in official conference gatherings. They offer invaluable encouragement to orthodox United Methodists. They present exciting visions for how all of us can get to work in renewing and reforming the United Methodist Church, beginning with our local congregations. And they provide a place where you can get to meet other United Methodists from your area who share your hopes and concerns for our denomination.

Whether or not you are a delegate, it is worth making the time to drive to the evangelical annual conference banquet near you next year.

Here is a non-comprehensive list of the websites of some annual-conference-level renewal groups hosting annual conference breakfasts, lunches, or dinners:

North Central Jurisdiction

Northern Illinois Conference – Northern Illinois Conference Evangelical Association (NICEA)

Indiana Conference – Indiana Conference Confessing Movement

Iowa Conference – REVIVE! / Methodist Laity Reform Movement

East Ohio Conference – East Ohio Evangelical Fellowship

West Ohio Conference – Evangelical Fellowship of West Ohio

Northeastern Jurisdiction

New England Conference – Evangelical Renewal Fellowship (ERF)

New York Conference (NYC metro area) – Wesley Fellowship

Upper New York Conference – Renewal & Evangelism in Upper New York (REUNY)

Eastern Pennsylvania Conference – Eastern Pennsylvania Evangelical Connection

Western Pennsylvania Conference – WPA Evangelical Connection

Southeastern Jurisdiction

Florida Conference (excludes panhandle) – Florida United Methodist Evangelicals (FLUME)

Mississippi Conference – Mississippi Fellowship of United Methodist Evangelicals (MSFUME)

Western North Carolina Conference – Western North Carolina Conference Evangelical Movement (WNCCEM)

Virginia Conference – Evangelical Fellowship

South Central Jurisdiction

Southwest Texas / Rio Grande Conferences – Methodist Renewal Movement

Western Jurisdiction

California-Pacific Conference (Southern California + U.S. Pacific islands) – Cal-Pac Renewal

Check your local congregation’s page here to confirm with which annual conference it is affiliated.

There are many other evangelical annual conference banquets besides those sponsored by the groups listed above.  If you are interested in seeing if there is an evangelical annual conference banquet near you (or may be interested in helping organize one), please email me.

Good News Leader Urges Grassroots Evangelical United Methodists to Step Up to the Plate

11 Thursday Jul 2013

Posted by John Lomperis in News

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

Good News, Institute on Religion and Democracy, John Lomperis, NICEA, Northern Illinois, Rev. Tom Lambrecht, United Methodist

Rev. Thomas Lambrecht (Photo credit: Faith Community Church / UMNS)

Rev. Thomas Lambrecht (Photo credit: Faith Community Church / UMNS)

By John Lomperis (@JohnLomperis)

Even in the most theologically radicalized areas, evangelical United Methodists need to stop waiting for bishops, General Conferences, or others to lead the renewal of our denomination.

That was the challenge issued by the Rev. Tom Lambrecht, Vice President and General Manager of Good News, the oldest operating evangelical renewal group in our denomination. He was addressing the annual banquet of the Northern Illinois Conference Evangelical Association (NICEA) last month.

Lambrecht criticized United Methodism’s recent excessive focus on restructuring as “tinkering around the edges,” since the primary problems facing our declining (in the U.S.) denomination are spiritual, not programmatic or structural.  He cited John Wesley’s prophetic statement:

“I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid, lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And this undoubtedly will be the case, unless they hold fast both the doctrine, spirit, and discipline with which they first set out.”

Lambrecht also went beyond that favorite quote of United Methodist evangelicals to note that in the next paragraph of Wesley’s “Thoughts Upon Methodism,” he identified the “fundamental doctrine” of the Methodist movement he founded as “[t]hat the Bible is the whole and sole rule both of Christian faith and practice.”

Thus, fundamental Methodist doctrine contrasts sharply with such liberal ideologies as faith in “continuing revelation” which can even directly contradict Scripture, seen in such places as the extreme heresies espoused by the Jesus Seminar or the Northern Illinois Conference’s notorious former bishop, Joe Sprague, or “the periscope approach” of those who “take one truth of Scripture and read everything through that lens” while dismissing “anything that they don’t think fits,” such as with pro-homosexuality activists who treat shallow notions of “God’s love” as invalidating biblical teaching about God’s moral standards, justice, and wrath.

Lambrecht also noted the hypocrisy of United Methodist clergy who are now promoting anarchy in our church through pledging mass disobedience to our denominational rules on sexual morality. These people voluntarily signed up for the covenant of United Methodist ordination and now expect to keep the benefits this ordination brings them while they shirk the responsibilities of ordination.

Lambrect also expressed concerns felt by many with the new denominational mission statement adopted by the denomination in 2008 (after being pushed by the Council of Bishops). The mission statement of the United Methodist Church adopted in 2000 was to “make disciples of Jesus Christ,” but this was changed in 2008 to “make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” The addition and placement of the new final phrase demotes making Christian disciples from being a valuable end in itself. Lambrecht recalled that eliminating the British slave trade was not the main goal of early Methodism, but this was a result of the change the movement made in people’s lives.

Lambrecht urged orthodox believers within the United Methodist Church to “stop thinking of ourselves as this embattled minority,” since in fact “we are the majority of world Christianity.” He also urged grassroots evangelicals in our denomination to stop waiting for a time when “they” will set the denomination straight. He pointed to the painfully obvious fact that “our bishops are not very great leaders” but instead “are great followers” who are very susceptible to the social pressures within the Council of Bishops and who will therefore not lead our denomination out of its present spiritual morass.

Rather, the Good News leader stressed that orthodox United Methodists must being working now to recover Methodist spiritual disciplines (such as classes and bands) and open ourselves to the biblical gifts of the Holy Spirit, bringing spiritual renewal to our congregations and developing networks with like-minded believers throughout the conference to be prepared to lead the conference as our denomination turns around.

Missional United Methodism for the 21st Century – Part 6 of 6: Christian Perfection

01 Monday Jul 2013

Posted by John Lomperis in News

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Entire Sanctification, John Lomperis, John Wesley, Methodism, Sanctification, United Methodist Church

It is quite ironic that the UM renewal event was held in a room with an adjacent office that highlights the very problem facing the denomination.

It is quite ironic that the UM renewal event was held in a room with an adjacent office that highlights the very problem facing the denomination.

The following remarks were delivered by UMAction Director John Lomperis on June 15 at the annual lunch of Cal-Pac Renewal, the evangelical renewal caucus within the California-Pacific Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Christian perfection

In the words of Article XI of the EUB Confession of Faith, “Entire sanctification” – another way of saying Christian perfection – “is a state of perfect love, righteousness and true holiness which every regenerate believer may obtain by being delivered from the power of sin, by loving God with all the heart, soul, mind and strength and by loving one’s neighbor as one’s self.”

Romans 6:14 – “For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.”

Near the end of his life, Wesley said that this doctrine – that all believers should desire the very real possibility of God so filling us with love for Him and our neighbors that we are no longer committing sin in thought, word, or deed – was “the grand depositum which God has lodged with the people called Methodists; and for the sake of propagating this chiefly He appeared to have raised us up.”

Like many here, I never heard about this in a sermon or in Sunday school. In all honesty, I initially recoiled from this landmark Methodist doctrine when I first learned of it.

But after a very long, arduous process of study and reflection which I do not have time to explain in detail, I came to appreciate Wesley’s very important nuancing qualifiers to this doctrine, and also to be compelled by his biblical, moral, and logical arguments that, in the words of Wesley scholar Billy Abraham, Christians need not be doomed “to live morally defeated lives.” There are all kinds of dangerous pitfalls to avoid with Christian perfection, but that is no excuse for refusing to pursue the holiness to which God calls His adopted children.

One of the greatest weaknesses in much American evangelicalism is the tendency to let the good focus on getting people saved make us lax in promoting sanctification. New converts without a firm grounding as mature disciples often find themselves ill-equipped to withstand the assaults of the world and the devil, let alone to raise Christian children in a hostile world.

But in the Great Commission of Matthew 28:19-20, Jesus said to “go and make disciples of all nations” with the word “disciples” suggesting much deeper, ongoing commitment than the one-time-event suggestions of the word “converts.” Jesus went on, “baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit” – which our theology understands as both imparting divine grace and uniting the baptizee with a body of other disciples. Jesus concluded that sentence: “and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

If we are to once again become a vibrant, truly Methodist, missional movement, we need to all study what the Scriptures teach about fully obeying God, read about the lives self-sacrificially committed Christians, and reclaim our Wesleyan ethos of social holiness.

One of the most glaring misrepresentations of John Wesley is when people selectively quote his phrase, “no holiness but social holiness” to defend devoting church resources to strident, divisive, and partisan political activism.

In context, what Wesley said in his 1739 preface to Hymns and Sacred Poems was “‘Holy solitaries’ is a phrase no more consistent with the gospel than holy adulterers. The gospel of Christ knows of no religion but social; no holiness but social holiness.”

In other words, what Wesley was talking about was discipleship in the context of loving community with other believers, especially within the intimate, accountability-focused small-group classes and bands which were the building blocks of early Methodism.

If we really want to help ourselves and our brothers and sisters know the joys of the deeper relationship God wants with them, and if we want realistic contexts for living out the “one another” commands of the New Testament, then let’s start new, single-gender, accountability- and encouragement-centered small groups in which members get into the word, confidentially share their moral struggles, and help redirect each other towards holiness.

Scott Kisker at Wesley Seminary and the aforementioned Kevin Watson are two United Methodist seminary professors who have written some good stuff about practical ways in which such reclamation of Wesleyan spirituality can be done. Or you may check out the “Covenant Discipleship” section of the General Board of Discipleship website, www.gbod.org

I believe that such depth of fellowship with God and with a few close, trusted Christian friends is something for which many people are starving. And how many of the sorts of high-profile scandals and everyday hypocrisies of believers which turn people off from Christianity may have been averted if the Christians being bad witnesses had been in such a holiness-promoting class or band?

In recent high-profile cases of United Methodist clergy and occasionally laity being formally called to abide by some basic moral standards, the horrified shock and outrage we see some express stems from the fact that for over a century, our denomination has allowed regular practices of communal accountability to become alien concepts.

Missional United Methodism for the 21st Century  – In Conclusion

We have a daunting mission ahead of us. We face all sorts of pressures from inside and outside the church.  On our own, we simply can’t do it.

But thanks be to God, we are not alone!

We serve an awesome, all-powerful triune God Who can raise the dead to life, and Who can bring revival, reform, and redirection to our beloved United Methodist Church.

Let’s go forth to draw closer to Him in prayer, fasting, and repentance!  Let’s devote ourselves to the kingdom work of reforming our denomination and reaching the lost within and beyond our churches, grounded in Scripture, emphasizing the cross of Christ, oriented for conversions, active in our communities, and seeking holiness in accountable community!

  • Part 1: The Missional Landscape
  • Part 2: Scripture
  • Part 3: The Cross of Christ
  • Part 4: Personal Conversion
  • Part 5: Active Faith
  • Part 6: Christian Perfection

If you would like to support the work of John Lomperis and UM Action, please donate here.

Missional United Methodism for the 21st Century – Part 5 of 6: Active Faith

28 Friday Jun 2013

Posted by John Lomperis in News

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

Christianity, Jesus, John Lomperis, Methodism, salvation, United Methodist Church

It is quite ironic that the UM renewal event was held in a room with an adjacent office that highlights the very problem facing the denomination.

It is quite ironic that the UM renewal event was held in a room with an adjacent office that highlights the very problem facing the denomination.

The following remarks were delivered by UMAction Director John Lomperis on June 15 at the annual lunch of Cal-Pac Renewal, the evangelical renewal caucus within the California-Pacific Conference of the United Methodist Church.

Activism: energetic commitment to doing the kingdom work of evangelism and combatting social ills in the name of Jesus

Methodist Article of Religion # X explains that “good works … follow after justification” and “cannot put away our sins” but “spring out of a true and lively faith” and “are pleasing and acceptable to God in Christ.”

Titus 3:14 – “Our people must learn to devote themselves to doing what is good, in order to provide for urgent needs and not live unproductive lives.”

I’m going to take a somewhat different tack with this one.

Our denomination already tend be very active, from the congregational level on up.

Kevin Watson, a professor of Wesleyan Studies at Seattle Pacific University – now approved for United Methodist seminarians – summarizes the problem with our current busy-bee habits:

“When we are most passionate, we are too often talking about what we have done for God, not what God has done for us.

It is not good enough to be in favor of doing nice things, even for God or in the name of God.

We are dying. And it is because we are not certain we believe the world needs Jesus. But if the world doesn’t need Jesus, it surely doesn’t need us.

The world doesn’t need us to do something for it. The need is far more desperate and devastating than that. We are not enough. We never have been enough, even in our glory days. The world needs – people need – a relationship with God, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”

Without a firm foundation for understanding why we do all of our activities in the world, we do not have much basis to trust that they are glorifying to God or even ultimately very helpful for our neighbors.

So a primary “activity” must be prayer – recognizing our own utter inadequacy and dependence.

But with a solid foundation of Scripture, the cross of Christ, and a zeal for conversion, our faith can and does drive us out into energetic cooperation in the mission of God, out of love for Him and the people in our communities, spreading the Gospel and helping make our neighbors’ lives tangibly better, all in the name of the Lord, Jesus Christ.

This work is so urgent that we need to look beyond the myopic, shrinking United Methodist and mainline bubble to learn about what’s working and who we can partner with in other churches. Even if they don’t agree with us on issues like dispensationalism, young-Earth creationism, or women’s ordination. If you actually believe what your Cal-Pac colleagues say about how y’all are so “ultra-conservative,” please prepare for some whiplash as you work with Christians who would view you as very liberal for how we may feel about those issues I just listed. But Dickerson identifies the “splintering and splitting” nature of American evangelicalism as one of its greatest weaknesses. And so many of our neighbors are dying in theirs sins and suffering in all kinds of ways that we cannot afford to avoid constructively working together in the mission of God with fellow believers, despite disagreements over issues that are important but still within the bounds of biblical orthodoxy.

And if an MFSA chapter can have a denominational outsider like Jeremiah Wright speak at its annual conference banquet, why can’t Cal-Pac Renewal, every now and then, invite a pastor of a thriving, non-mainline evangelical church in Southern California to speak at one of your future annual conference lunches?  Something to think about.

We must not let the secular world around us dictate our values or even our priorities for how we serve them. But especially in light of the growing distaste our secular neighbors have for evangelical Christianity, as Dickerson talks about in his book, it is all the more important for our congregations to be so active in loving their communities that at least many of our unchurched neighbors would see it as a great loss if we suddenly closed our doors.

  • Part 1: The Missional Landscape
  • Part 2: Scripture
  • Part 3: The Cross of Christ
  • Part 4: Personal Conversion
  • Part 5: Active Faith
  • Part 6: Christian Perfection

If you would like to support the work of John Lomperis and UM Action, please donate here.

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