As the nation celebrates Columbus Day on Oct. 12, now recognized as Indigenous Peoples’ Day in a growing number of states and in Washington, D.C., people of faith remember the people who lived on the land when Columbus and other explorers arrived. The General Conference of The...
By Kirstin Shrom-Rhoads* On Friday, September 25, the energetic and hopeful directors at Manidokan —myself, Rev. Kirstin Shrom-Rhoads, and Steve Lane — were dropped off in the wee early and still dark hours of 5 a.m. in Harpers Ferry, WVa. From there, a town well known...
Monday, September 21, 2020 The Word of God states in Psalm 24 that the earth is the Lord’s and everything in it -- the world and its inhabitants too. God is the one who established it. Although humanity has created borders and the constructs of human identity, we are...
by Erik Alsgaard In the early morning of Thursday, Sept. 10, Binsar Siahaan met with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents at Glenmont UMC in Silver Spring, Maryland, because his ankle monitor was not working properly. Or so he was told. Siahaan, who arrived in the United States with...
By Erik Alsgaard The history of American Christianity is so intertwined with white supremacy that most people don’t know it exists, even if they benefit from it every day. It’s like water to a fish. This fact was at the heart of a webinar Sept. 17, presented by Wesley...
The 2020 class of ordinands, provisional members, deaconesses, and home-missioners made history Sept. 12 as pioneers in a new age of ministry — brought about in part by the social distancing caused by the coronavirus pandemic.
With the Annual Conference Session compacted to one day, members still took significant time in their agenda to address one of the two pandemics facing the United States right now. That is, the pandemic of racism.
“We are One: Going Out in Mission” was the theme of the 2020 Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference Session, and although the Sept. 12 online meeting primarily addressed the funding of ministry, it was clear that the coronavirus pandemic has opened new doors to mission and ministry.
General Conference 2020: Plans and Legislation at a glance The United Methodist General Conference will convene in Minneapolis, Minnesota, next year, from Aug. 29 through Sept. 7. The 2020 General Conference was postponed because of the coronavirus pandemic. (Read news stories about the...
By Erik Alsgaard By a vote of 763 to 17, members to the 2020 Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference Session approved a $17.7 million spending and income budget for 2021. Of that $17.7 million, just over $13 million will come from local churches in Mission Shares (formerly called...
