Summarizing a full year in the life of the sprawling, conflicted United Methodist Church is always a challenge. Every fourth year, it gets tougher. That’s because General Conference—the quadrennial gathering for setting church policy, law and finances—occurs and influences so much of church life. But the 2012 General Conference faced surprising competition as a news-maker. It came from the UMC’s Judicial Council, which overruled as unconstitutional two major pieces of legislation approved by General Conference delegates. If you were to put a pop song lyric to how things unfolded, it [...]
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Commentary: ‘Never-churched’ require new form of evangelism
By Jack Jackson, Special Contributor… Last Christmas season, my family walked through the downtown community where we live. In one of the store windows we passed were a small set of woodcarvings that included a baby, two adults right next to the baby, three kingly-looking persons nearby and a scattering of cows, donkeys and ducks. I still am not sure of the significance of the ducks, but we were looking at a crèche. One of my children’s friends pointed out the Nativity scene. He said it was the strangest thing [...]
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