Posts Tagged ‘LEADERSHIP’

What’s Your Next Step? ~ Let the Games Begin ~ General Conference 2012 ~ Kim Reisman

Tuesday, April 24th, 2012 | By Kim Reisman
Filed in: Kimberly Reisman, What's Your Next Step?

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Let the Games Begin…

Tampa, Florida

An awesome opening worship experience, albeit a bit over-orchestrated. But wow! Great singing, great preaching, meaningful Eucharist – the always amazing stuff of General Conference.

A few interesting moments…

  • Opening a Christian worship service with a non-Christian ritual (important to experience, but maybe before worship?)
  • The smell of reefer (burning palm leaves?) wafting through the auditorium during the opening ritual
  • The Mayor of Tampa referring to the group as clergymen and lay people
  • Having to be told, “please, PLEASE do not ask to touch another person’s hair”

 

A few cool things…

  • Translating everything into seven languages
  • 37% of the delegates are women
  • 41% of the delegates are from outside the US
  • Nifty wireless electronic voting pads (but with lots of instructions :-( )
  • Attendance tonight – 4700
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UMC General Conference 2012

 

And now the business (tedium?) of the evening begins…we get the rules sorted out…

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What’s Your Next Step? ~ Random Thoughts ~ General Conference 2012 ~ Kim Reisman

Monday, April 23rd, 2012 | By Kim Reisman
Filed in: Kimberly Reisman, What's Your Next Step?

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General Conference 2012 ~ Random Thoughts

 

Tampa, Florida

Sunday, April 22 ~ The view out my hotel window is gorgeous and I already have the feeling that I won’t get to enjoy it except in the dark after about 10pm.

 

I’m totally bummed that I forgot my camera. I can take pictures on my iPhone, but I’m never as happy with the way they come out (probably user issues). I’m pretty good with taking pictures on my iPad, but look like an idiot when doing it. Now that I think of it, looking like an idiot hasn’t ever really stopped me from doing anything.

 

I’m bummed about forgetting my camera, but ashamed that I forgot my Bible (except the version on my iPhone). But I have my Discipline! I guess I’m walking proof that Jason Vickers is right.

 

Monday, April 23 ~ The Council of Bishops has assigned me to the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters. We began our work this morning – voting on officers. Odd that over half of the people on this committee are newly appointed but are now expected to vote on people they don’t know to serve in a position for four years. Basically the same people were reelected to serve again. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, just interesting.

 

Best news so far: Our Nothing But Nets campaign has been instrumental in cutting the death rate from malaria in half.

 

Best first encounter: As I sat waiting for the beginning of the Central Conference meeting, I caught the eye of Alexis Nzabonimpa from the Gisenyi District in Rwanda who greeted me with a joyful smile. He came over and introduced himself and we shared about ourselves. Our time of getting to know one another ended with Alexis offering an amazing prayer of thanksgiving for our meeting. Afterwards, he said, “I am always so glad to meet a fellow servant in the Lord! Working together for the Lord brings such joy – like being in heaven!” That provided me a fresh context for the next two weeks.

 

There really is some theological stuff going on here, I just don’t think it will make it out of the legislative committees. Case in point: A Declaration from the Church in Africa (Petition #20921), which will come before the Faith and Order legislative group. This declaration was brought before the 2008 General Conference but no action was taken. Here are some interesting excerpts:

We are convinced that our connectedness has only been possible and solidified over the years because of our devoted loyalty to Jesus Christ as our only Savior and risen Lord. Our uncompromising belief in the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ for the redemption of the whole world, and our obedience to the Great Commission (Matt. 28:18-20), is the primary reason for our commitment to “making disciples for Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.”

The Church in Africa believes the totality of the Holy Scriptures (the 66 canonical books) as the Word of God for belief, obedience and practice. And, hence, we believe in the exclusive claim of Jesus Christ as the only “Way, Truth and Life” to eternality with God (John 14:6); and of his eternal co-existence and of one substance with God the Father and the Holy Spirit (Gen. 1:1-2, 26-27; John 6:5-15).

As we conclude the 2004-2008 quadrennium, and look forward to the commencement of a new one (2009- 2012), it is incumbent upon us, as a global Christian community to evaluate the past, understand the present and thereby anticipate a realistic future of the Church of Jesus Christ which he has entrusted to our care. Against this background, we wish to make the following inquiry for our consideration: How well is global United Methodism doing in ministry? How spiritually healthy is the Church? Is it growing, declining or stagnant? What is the Church’s priority? How does that priority measure up with its call by the Head of the Church, Jesus Christ, to fulfill the Great Commission? How many Churches have been planted during this past quadrennium? Have we as United Methodists, along with feeding the hungry, caring for the sick, building hospitals and schools, and responding to the physical needs of the poor, intentionally and significantly invested in evangelistic outreach, and discipleship ministries resulting in the planting of new churches for new converts?

The above inquiry is based on the fact that we of the Central Conferences of Africa are deeply concerned that the global United Methodist Church is beginning to speak with different languages, and not with the common speech that presents Jesus Christ as the Good News of salvation, our only Lord, and only Savior. As a result, the global witness of United Methodism is being threatened with the proclamation of different kinds of “gospels.”

We in Africa are deeply concerned that some Euro-Western Churches seem to be deserting the biblical path of Church planting, disciple-making, of prayer, and evangelistic and missional endeavors to an inward focus. This inward focus of some Churches has almost changed the biblical mandate from the “Great Commission” to the “Great Omission.”… Five years before his death John Wesley entertained the fear that in decades to come “the people called Methodist” would not cease to exist but would exist merely as a dead sect, having the form of godliness but no power to live for and proclaim Christ, unless they held fast to the Doctrine, Discipline and Spirit with which they first set out. We are painfully saddened that these current trends within the Euro-Western Church are, unfortunately, confirming the fears of John Wesley.

We in Africa hear the lamenting voice of the Apostle Paul when he says, “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you by the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel- which is really no gospel at all” (Gal.1:6-7a). By such actions and attitudes towards the Gospel we are throwing both our adults and our children into confusion and, without words, telling them that Christianity does not have all the answers to their spiritual longing…

Therefore, we declare:

That the Lord God Almighty is the creator of heaven and earth and everything that is in it (Gen. 1:1; Psalm 24:1-3); That God made humanity in his own image and set humanity apart to be his vicegerent to manage and care for his creation (Gen. 2:15-17); That humanity willingly made a choice to sin against God, beginning with our original parents, Adam and Eve. As a result sin entered into the human race, bringing all humanity and all creation under the damnation of sin (Gen. 3:1-7, 14-19; Rom 3:10-12,23); That “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him might not perish but have everlasting life” (John 3:16-17; Rom 8:1); That Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, voluntarily submitted Himself to be crucified for us, under Roman authority, as a sacrificial offering, taking upon Himself the guilt of all humanity, standing in our place, atoning for our sins, forsaken as a criminal on a rugged Roman cross (Is. 52:13-53:12, John 10:18); That Jesus Christ, the Lion of Judah, arose literally and physically from the dead, victoriously resurrected to life in indestructible bodily form, presenting himself to hundreds of eyewitnesses over 40 days (John 20:19-30); That Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, literally ascended into the clouds and now sits on High as our Intercessor at the right hand of the Father (Acts 1:1-11; 1 Cor. 15:1-8); That Jesus Christ, the Alpha and Omega, will literally return on the clouds to reign with his faithful and true Church, his Bride and Body, for all who have been rescued by his atoning death (Acts 1:10-11; Rev. 21:1- 8); That anyone who will confess that Jesus is Lord and believe of the heart that God raised him from the dead will be saved, resurrected bodily like Him to live and reign forever with the Lord (1 Thess. 4:13-18).

Kim Reisman

Kim Reisman

The declaration goes on to address a host of other issues such as evil, the authority of and faithfulness to scripture, spiritual decadence, use of our tithes and offerings commensurate with the needs of our brothers and sisters in Christ worldwide, the equipping of seminaries, evangelism, and just and proportionate representation – to name just a few.

The Church in Africa is deeply worried about all of us Euro-Westerners. I’d like to hear more about that, but I don’t think I’ll get the chance. Petition #20921 is really long and cumbersome to read. I’ve also been told it’s misplaced. That likely indicates it probably won’t get very far – no sense talking about something that’s cumbersome and misplaced.

Alexis provided me a fresh context. I need that as the work begins. It really is a joyous thing to come together with other servants of the Lord. I just hope that the work we do really is the Lord’s and not just our own.

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UMC General Conference 2012

 

 

 

 

Tampa, Florida

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What’s Your Next Step? ~ Thoughts on General Conference – Part 4 ~ Kim Reisman

Thursday, April 19th, 2012 | By Kim Reisman
Filed in: Kimberly Reisman, What's Your Next Step?

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Weight-bearing Walls Revisited

 

Load bearingMany of you know that my husband, John, is not a professing Christian – he has not claimed the Christian faith for himself. As you might expect, that makes for much deep, meaningful and always lively discussion in our household.

John was raised as a Unitarian Universalist, and as a result has always had difficulty understanding why we United Methodists continue to argue over the wide range of issues that absorb our attention every four years at General Conference. Around this time surprising elements seem to enter our conversation in direct proportion to the volume of General Conference literature that inundates our mailbox.

This week we received a newspaper mailing from Mainstream United Methodists which prompted a no longer new (but always awkward) question from John: “Since there are so many different ways for people to live out their Christian faith, if the United Methodist Church’s doctrines don’t fit a person’s way of living out their faith, or if there are parts of being a United Methodist that violate a person’s conscience, why do they stay United Methodists? Why don’t they become something else?”

John asks this question on a fairly regular basis. I never seem to have an adequate answer.

But what always intrigues me about his question is that he recognizes that United Methodists have doctrines – foundational things that bind us together with Christians across the world and throughout the ages, as well as things that define us as a community of Christians with our own unique place in the body of Christ. If you didn’t already know, those things are our Articles of Religion and Confession of Faith as well as John Wesley’s Sermons and Explanatory Notes on the New Testament.

Interestingly, the “Methodist Quadrilateral” isn’t actually included in those foundational things, as many would like to think. The Quadrilateral is about method, not doctrine. It’s about the process not the content. It is not contained in our constitution. It is not protected by any restrictive rules. Unlike our United Methodist doctrine, the Quadrilateral can be changed or even eliminated from the Book of Discipline altogether if that is the desire of the General Conference.

As I was thinking about John’s recognition of the role of doctrine, the metaphor of weight-bearing walls returned to my mind. Now here is something that can bear the weight. Here is the very thing that has born the weight of 2000 years of Christians continually seeking to live into the kingdom of God unfolding in their midst.

The problem is we United Methodists are in the midst of a 40+ year identity crisis. Our identity has become muddied by an emphasis on process rather than content, by thinking that the most important thing is how you come to your conclusions, not what your conclusions actually are. As a result, we’ve deceived ourselves into thinking we are a pluralist church – or at least “doctrinally diverse” – when in actuality we are, at least according to our constitution, confessional.

But I suppose that we really are a confessional church is a moot point if nobody realizes it or if few people even know what our doctrines are, or if those doctrines have been systematically ignored or set aside.

Over fifteen years ago, Billy Abraham asked some questions that are still pertinent today:

  • Can United Methodists identify the content of their doctrines and their doctrinal standards?
  • Does United Methodism really accept its own doctrines?
  • Does it take them seriously in its work and ministry?
  • Does it know how to teach them across generations?
  • Does it know how to interpret them and relate them to new situations?
  • Does it have ways of ensuring that the teachers of the tradition, most especially the presbyters, are really committed to the doctrinal standards of the church?
  • Does it have ways of ensuring that its overseers and guardians of the tradition, namely, its bishops, both own the tradition and hold themselves and the church as a whole accountable to these traditions?*

As I head for Tampa, I have an uneasy feeling that none of the decisions we will be asked to make actually addresses what lies at the heart of our struggle as a denomination – the identity crises that stems from doctrinal confusion and chaos. There is an unspoken divide between those who would like to abandon the classical faith of the church and those who want to keep it front and center. We seem to have lost our doctrinal and spiritual focus and have allowed the culture to set the agenda and norms for the church.

I believe Billy Abraham was correct all those years ago when he asserted that:

The church cannot endure without a body of systematic and coherent doctrine. This was not a problem Wesley faced two centuries ago. His challenge was to take the doctrine the church already possessed in her canonical traditions and make it accessible to the masses of his day. Hence he did not make doctrine a high priority in his efforts to renew the church of his day. Two hundred years later, the situation is radically reversed. We have become so doctrinally indifferent and illiterate that the church is starved of intellectual content…It is the recovery of doctrine that in part makes one acutely aware of how crucial continuing intellectual engagement is in the life of the church. We have to find our own way to deploy the doctrines of the faith and to offer the kind of interpretive investigation that will be relevant to our own times. We have to try to solve the problems and questions that lie buried in the tradition; we have to deal with a host of objections that occur to insiders and outsiders; and we have to make our own contributions to the life of the Christian mind. This continuing work is not done in a doctrinal vacuum. It is done precisely in and through the owning of the doctrines of the faith in our own space and time.*

The issues of this General Conference will come and go as they always do – some will resurface, others may not, but nothing of substance will change if we don’t do exactly as Abraham suggests – own the doctrines of our faith in our own space and time.

 

*Billy Abraham, Waking from Doctrinal Amnesia: The Healing of Doctrine in the United Methodist Church (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 50-51, 104-105

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What’s Your Next Step? ~ Thoughts on General Conference – Part 3: Bearing the Weight ~ Kim Reisman

Tuesday, April 10th, 2012 | By Kim Reisman
Filed in: Kimberly Reisman, What's Your Next Step?

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Bearing the Weight…

 

UMCGC 2012 logo

UMC General Conference 2012

In his post yesterday, Mitchell Lewis talked about the importance of doctrine. He concluded with this insight:

We can change our organizational structure, the way we select and retain clergy leaders and the means by which we measure success, but unless we get a common sight-picture on the mission / doctrine piece, we’re not going to get very far. All of the elements of our institutional existence should support our missional – doctrinal self-understanding.

As I’ve continued to plow through the 1000’s of pages of General Conference petitions, resolutions, commentary, information packets, brochures, DVD’s booklets (even actual books which must have cost a pretty penny to print and distribute), blogs and letters (including pledges of prayer which are very appreciated, but also including specific instructions about voting in a particular way), Lewis’ words hit home and clarified my unease as I get ready for Tampa. The metaphor of weight-bearing walls keeps coming back to me, along with the concern that we’re expecting certain things to bear the weight of our communal life together that aren’t able to do so in the long run. Lewis is right – our organizational structure will only get us so far. Our decisions about how we train leaders or whether or not we have a set aside bishop won’t change our confusion (and in some cases conflict) over what we believe about Scripture and theology.

Kimberly D. Reisman

Kim Reisman

I’m reminded of the results of an exit poll of people who attended a seeker study from 2003-2006 at a variety of United Methodist churches. It indicated that we’re perceived as not knowing what we believe or why we believe it. Particularly disturbing were comments such as, “Methodists are all over the map. I spent almost a year finding out that they don’t have a clue what they really believe.” (Robin Russell, “Too Bland for Our Own Good?” Good News, January/February 2011, 20-21)

Though I don’t yet know what it will look like, I’m confident the United Methodist Church will have a new organizational structure at the close of General Conference. We’ll also probably have added something new or different to our approach to training ministers and dealing with bishops. What I’m not confident about is whether any of that will matter if the walls that actually bear the weight of our communal life together, “don’t have a clue what they really believe.”

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What’s Your Next Step ~ Thoughts on General Conference ~ Part One ~ Kim Reisman

Saturday, March 24th, 2012 | By Kim Reisman
Filed in: Kimberly Reisman, What's Your Next Step?

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Load bearingWeight-bearing Walls

 

Enough people have been blogging, emailing & FB posting about General Conference that I was really hoping I wouldn’t need to enter the cacophony of voices. It’s not that I HAVE to enter the cacophony, but as a delegate, it seems like I’m shirking my responsibility somewhat in remaining silent.

Not that I’ve got so much wisdom to share. So far the wisest thing I’ve heard anyone say came from Jason Vickers in his Next Step blog issuing a call to prayer. He pretty much stole my thunder so now I’ve got to come up with the next best thing.

John & I are thinking about remodeling our kitchen (I told you this was the next best thing). I tend to be the one who can envision how I want things to look so I took out my graph paper & sketched out a plan, then called one of those kitchen designer people to tell me if it was doable. Of course he told me that anything is doable if you want to pay for it, but that’s another story. At any rate, before I talked to this guy I understood the concept of weight-bearing walls & knew that would figure into things, which is why I called the kitchen designer guy. What I didn’t count on was that there would be ONE point that was crucial to the whole thing. I found out that I can bump out the entire back wall of my kitchen as I planned & they’d put some kind of giant beam in there to compensate; but if I left that one point without support, the house would fall in. One point. One point is crucial in bearing the weight of my entire house.

Kim Reisman

Kim Reisman

We’ve got a lot to think about as April approaches. We’ll have to make decisions about restructuring our approach to training & deploying ministers, restructuring the way we understand the episcopacy, restructuring our whole organizational composition. That’s a lot of remodeling. And the question that keeps coming to my mind isn’t really about which plan is better – although I’m sure I’ll have to figure that one out eventually.

UMCGC 2012 logo

UMC General Conference 2012

The question I keep pondering is what really are the weight-bearing walls in the UMC? I’m not talking about walls in the sense of division. I’m talking about the things we’ve chosen to bear the weight of our understanding of what it means to be Christians who follow Jesus in the spirit of the Wesleys. Have we chosen the right ones? Is there one point that without support will cause the whole house to fall in? If we agree that there is, what are we going to do about it?

 

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What’s Your Next Step ~ A Word from Africa -Kim Reisman

Thursday, March 22nd, 2012 | By Kim Reisman
Filed in: Kimberly Reisman, What's Your Next Step?

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Worldwide United Methodism – an attitude or simply geography?

As a “worldwide church” the United Methodist Church might be wise to listen more carefully to voices from Africa. Here is one such voice. Forbes Matonga provides his opinion of the strategies for restructuring that are coming before the UMC General Conference in April. What’s our next step US UM’s? Do we really take the voice of Africa seriously?

 

 

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The View From Here ~ Giving Up General Conference: A Call to Prayer ~ Jason Vickers

Monday, March 19th, 2012 | By Jason Vickers
Filed in: Jason Vickers, The View from Here

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Giving Up General Conference: A Call to Prayer

UMCGC 2012 logo

UMC General Conference 2012

In the last two weeks, I have given lectures at conferences and retreats and preached at churches in three different United Methodist Conferences. I have spoken with the General Secretary of one of our General Boards, with three district superintendents, and with dozens of clergy and laity. In all of these conversations, one theme occurred again and again, namely, the upcoming General Conference.  Sadly, no one expressed anything approaching optimism or enthusiasm about what many believe is the most important gathering of the people called United Methodists. On the contrary, most expressed something bordering on dread.

At this stage, I must confess that I am tempted to give up on General Conference.  As a theologian, it is difficult not to fall back on the notion that the local church simply is the church; that what happens at General Conference is theologically and sacramentally meaningless. I am tempted to believe that the body that will gather in Tampa is not a divine body, but a merely human body bound together by what may well be the most telling sign of our sinful condition – our need for enemies.

I am also tempted to give up on General Conference on pragmatic grounds. Why not simply split into two or three churches based on theological and political sensibilities? Amid the seemingly endless number of Protestant denominations in America, what would a few more hurt? Besides, when it comes to the issues that divide us most deeply, I simply don’t anticipate any solutions that will satisfy everyone. Would we not get more done for the Kingdom of God if we went our separate ways?

Jason Vickers wide

Jason Vickers

Despite how much I would like to give up on General Conference, I cannot do so. As a Trinitarian theologian, I am especially fond of Jesus’ farewell discourse in the Gospel of John. It is here that Jesus promises that he will send the Holy Spirit. It is here that Jesus speaks of his unity with God the Father. And it is here that Jesus prays for his disciples and for those who will come after them.

What does this have to do with not giving up on General Conference? In Jesus’ prayer in John 17, he asks his heavenly Father to make us one, even as the Father and the Son are one. Indeed, no theme is more prominent in Jesus’ prayer than the theme of unity, both God’s unity and ours.

Under the weight of this passage, I simply cannot regard “amicable separation” as a serious option. On the contrary, I believe that we should not settle for anything less than the unity about which our Lord speaks. At the same time, my doctrine of sin is sufficiently robust that I have very low expectations that anything resembling the unity that Jesus has with God the Father will result from the upcoming General Conference. If anything, like so many people I have spoken with in recent weeks, I will not be surprised in the least if we leave Tampa more deeply divided than when we arrived.

What, then, should we do? I suggest that we should not so much give up on General Conference as we should give up General Conference to God in prayer. In other words, I think that the time has come not solely for a Call to Action but also for a Call to Prayer. More specifically, I believe that we should pray that God would help us to follow our Lord in making unity our first priority. Having said this, I have no illusions about how deep our divisions are. But I also believe that Jesus has not left us to our own devices, political or otherwise. I believe that he has made good on his promise.  I believe that, with the Father, he has sent the Holy Spirit into the world precisely so that we might be one, even as they are one. Even so, come, Holy Spirit. Make us one.

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The View from Here ~ Bryan Collier ~ The First Need of Leadership

Thursday, March 8th, 2012 | By Bryan Collier
Filed in: Bryan Collier, The View from Here

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The First Need of Leadership

Bryan Collier

Bryan Collier

The book of 1 Kings is a study in leadership.  Adonijah, whom we read about in chapter 1 (and in my last post) was an agent of his own demise and other’s demise because he had never been disciplined.

Chapter 2 and 3 introduce us to a child king whose story is very different.  From the undisciplined passions of David came Solomon whose great restraint in chapter 3 honors God and therefore God honors him.  However, a key conversation between Solomon and David occurs in David’s last days that are recorded in chapter 2.

As the time of King David’s death approached, he gave this charge to his son Solomon:

 “I am going where everyone on earth must someday go. Take courage and be a man.  Observe the requirements of the LORD your God, and follow all his ways. Keep the decrees, commands, regulations, and laws written in the Law of Moses so that you will be successful in all you do and wherever you go.  (1 Kings 2:1-3)

One wonders what might have become of Adonijah if David had instructed him as he did Solomon.  Solomon was only a child but he heeded his father’s charge about what the first need of a leader was – a relationship with God.  David did not tell Solomon to pursue wisdom or provision, or blessing—but to pursue the One who was the Source of those things and more.

I am often tempted as a leader to pursue the “thing” and not the “Source.”  I can gain understanding through study, provision by effort and blessing by courting the favor of those who can bless me.  But there is something dangerous in my pursuit of the “thing”—it becomes my god.  When I pursue understanding for understanding’s sake I elevate the importance of knowledge and judge (and often belittle) those who don’t possess as much knowledge or regard knowledge as highly as I do.

The same thing can be said for provision and blessing.  If provision is my pursuit then I make an idol out of the level of provision I desire and I become a slave to favors I owe when blessing comes by human favor.

Solomon, as his inheritance, already had more than enough provision and blessing and his decrees would have been obeyed even if they were unwise.  But he wanted something more.  He wanted the life that he had seen his father David enjoy in relationship with the living God.

There is a reason that David is regarded as the greatest king the nation of Israel has ever known and a reason that Solomon is regarded as the richest.  Solomon lost his way as he began to revert to his own idea of blessing and provision—and in doing so he laid Godly wisdom aside.  How different his life might have been if he had finished as he began.

We see both in David’s end and in Solomon’s beginning the first need of a leader—a relationship with God in which the Source, not the thing is pursued.  For what we pursue will not only determine our beginning, it will determine our ending.

 

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50 Days of Prayer ~ Kim Reisman

Wednesday, February 8th, 2012 | By Kim Reisman
Filed in: Kimberly Reisman, What's Your Next Step?

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Kim Reisman

Kim Reisman

As a delegate to the United Methodist Church General Conference which will be held in Tampa in April/May 2012, I know that I’m not alone in asking for your prayers for this event. The General Conference is the governing body of the United Methodist Church and meets every four years. It is always an important gathering; however, there is quite a bit at stake this time around, including decisions about the episcopacy (bishops), the training of ministers & a complete overhaul of our general church structure. As we have every four years for the last 36 or so, we’ll also revisit issues of sexuality. It will be a quite a time I’m sure.

The General Board of Discipleship has created a wonderful resource – 50 Days of Prayer – which I hope you will consider using during this time leading up to General Conference. It is a devotional guide to assist you in praying for the overall body of Christ, the UMC in particular & the delegates specifically. I commend it to you.

Thank you in advance for your spiritual support as I prepare for this important gathering. If you know of other delegates, I encourage you to pray for them as well.

Peace,

Kim

 

Click on the title to download: General Conference_50Days_of_Prayer.

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What’s Your Next Step? Islamic Neighbors

Saturday, January 21st, 2012 | By Kim Reisman
Filed in: Kimberly Reisman, What's Your Next Step?

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The Islamic community in my town is planning to build a community center and worship space down the road from St. Andrew United Methodist Church where I attend. It’s raised quite a stir in the overall community. A couple of weeks ago, the pastor from a large Baptist church wrote a great op-ed piece supporting the building plans – his focus was religious freedom.

Tim Burchill

Tim Burchill - St. Andrew United Methodist Church

My pastor, Tim Burchill, wrote a piece as well. I have to admit, I was very proud…

WWJD? Take me on first. Why I’m ready for Islamic center neighbors.

 

What are you doing to support your neighbors? What’s your next step?

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