Faith & Leadership

Florida church finds rebirth in mission

April 26, 2013 Posted by Special Contributor Leave a Comment

The Rev. Jim Harnish greets parishioners during a recent Sunday service at Hyde Park UMC in Tampa, Fla. The church has grown in membership and mission work during his 20 years there. PHOTO BY CHRIS URSO

By Michelle Bearden, Faith & Leadership… TAMPA, Fla.—The call came from the bishop on the Rev. Jim Harnish’s 45th birthday. “Can you come by the office tonight?” the bishop asked. Dr. Harnish, then pastor of St. Luke’s United Methodist Church in Orlando, knew an urgent summons from the bishop was serious. He suspected that he and his wife, Marsha, would be asked to relocate. The prospect of leaving the vital, healthy church he had helped birth 13 years earlier wasn’t a happy one. Exciting things were happening there. When they [...]

Filed Under: Home Center Position 1, News Tagged With: Faith & Leadership, Hyde Park UMC, Jim Harnish, Michelle Bearden, tampa

Duo creates model for training church leaders

April 5, 2013 Posted by Special Contributor Leave a Comment

The Rev. David McNitzky teaches at a session of the Quarry, a leadership program of Alamo Heights UMC in San Antonio. PHOTO BY KATIE CLEMENTSON

By Abe Levy, Faith and Leadership… SAN ANTONIO—The Rev. David McNitzky hired a young man 15 years ago to launch a contemporary service in the church gym—a new option for worship at his large, historic United Methodist congregation here. The new pastor shadowed him on hospital visits and pre-wedding talks with couples. Dr. McNitzky went over the young man’s sermons and narrowed his seemingly endless ideas to one or two practical ones. A seasoned veteran and an enthusiastic upstart, the two pastors saw their friendship deepen into a father-son bond [...]

Front and center – Church goes to school on dealing with youth

March 29, 2013 Posted by Special Contributor Leave a Comment

Last summer, students at Clemson UMC in South Carolina planned and led a weekly worship service on the beach at nearby Lake Hartwell, adapting the United Methodist Hymnal’s Service of Evening Prayer. PHOTO COURTESY JAD TAYLOR

By Ken Garfield, Faith and Leadership… The youth ministries room at Clemson United Methodist Church in Clemson, S.C., still has an old sofa, the type that teenagers typically occupy on Sunday evenings far and wide across the faith landscape. But that’s one of the few vestiges of the past in a youth ministry working to educate young Christians in a deeper way. Believing that the role of the church is to mold young people into serious students and devoted disciples, the 1,000-member congregation, located a mile from Clemson University, has [...]

Q&A: The power of the pulpit and the church

November 16, 2012 Posted by Special Contributor Leave a Comment

The Rev. Zan Holmes speaks at the Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Breakfast in Boston, in a January 2007 file photo. UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE FILE PHOTO BY LINDA HAAS

Every day, the church must use all its power, spiritual and otherwise, to work for the good of the gospel, says the Rev. Zan Holmes Jr. As a religious and political leader in Dallas, Texas for almost 30 years, he knows well the uses of power. He served two terms in the Texas Legislature and, as pastor of St. Luke “Community” UMC, helped build coalitions that pushed the civil rights agenda in Texas in the 1960s and 1970s. Known for his community activism, his preaching and his teaching, Mr. Holmes [...]

Q&A: John Wesley says, ‘Take care of yourself’

September 11, 2012 Posted by Special Contributor Leave a Comment

A focus on health and wellness was essential to the ministry of Methodism’s founder John Wesley, says the Rev. Randy Maddox, a noted Wesley scholar. He believes the emphasis on integrating the physical and the spiritual is just one of many lessons that Wesley’s writings and thinking on health offer the church today. Dr. Maddox, the William Kellon Quick Professor of Wesleyan and Methodist Studies at Duke Divinity School, spoke recently with Faith & Leadership; here are excerpts. People today might be surprised that Wesley was interested in and wrote [...]

Clergy learn: Self-care is not self-ish

September 3, 2012 Posted by Special Contributor 1 Comment

By Kate Rugani, Faith & Leadership… When the Rev. Jeanette Hicks graduated from seminary in 2010, a mentor cautioned her about overwork. A retired pastor, the mentor hoped that Ms. [...]

Q&A: Churches should connect with their cities

September 3, 2012 Posted by Special Contributor Leave a Comment

Andy Crouch is the author of Culture Making: Recovering Our Creative Calling (Intervarsity Press), and special assistant to the president at Christianity Today, where he is also executive producer of This Is Our City (www.christianitytoday.com/thisisourcity/), a multi-year project featuring documentary video, reporting and essays about Christians seeking the flourishing of their cities. For 10 years he was a campus minister with InterVarsity Christian Fellowship at Harvard University, and he received an M.Div., from UM-affiliated Boston University School of Theology. He’ll be a featured lecturer at Duke Divinity School’s 2012 Convocation [...]

Filed Under: Features, Q & A Tagged With: Andy Crouch, Faith & Leadership, This Is Our City

Youth pastor shook things up, and stuck around to lead

July 26, 2012 Posted by Special Contributor Leave a Comment

By Jason Byassee, Special Contributor… Vern Collins appeared at Boone United Methodist Church as a be-sandled, multiple-earringed recent graduate from our town’s college, Appalachian State, where, Vern admits, he was [...]

Q&A: Constant is the call for leadership

July 19, 2012 Posted by Special Contributor Leave a Comment

Leadership in the church has always been a daunting task. Fortunately, now as always, the early church offers some of our best resources for effective ministry, says Christopher A. Beeley, author of the new book Leading God’s People: Wisdom from the Early Church for Today (Wm. B. Eerdmans, 2012). Dr. Beeley is the Walter H. Gray Associate Professor of Anglican Studies and Patristics at Yale Divinity School and Berkeley Divinity School at Yale. He spoke with Faith & Leadership about his new book and leadership lessons for the church today. [...]

Filed Under: Features, Q & A Tagged With: Christopher Beeley, Faith & Leadership

Inner-City Gem: Emerald Youth mentors at-risk children

June 21, 2012 Posted by Special Contributor Leave a Comment

By Kelly Norrell, Special Contributor… KNOXVILLE, Tenn.—In 1986, when the Rev. Bob Bean became the new pastor at Emerald Avenue United Methodist Church, he found an aging congregation with low morale, no youth and no youth program. Once solidly middle-class, the surrounding neighborhood near downtown Knoxville had fallen on hard times as residents fled to the suburbs. “My first Sunday, there were 70 gray-haired people in their 60s, 70s and 80s and a couple of kids,” Mr. Bean said. “The atmosphere and attitude was, ‘We’re probably going to die.’” But [...]

Florida church finds rebirth in mission

Duo creates model for training church leaders

Front and center – Church goes to school on dealing with youth

Q&A: The power of the pulpit and the church

Q&A: John Wesley says, ‘Take care of yourself’

Clergy learn: Self-care is not self-ish

Q&A: Churches should connect with their cities

Youth pastor shook things up, and stuck around to lead

Q&A: Constant is the call for leadership

Inner-City Gem: Emerald Youth mentors at-risk children

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