By Erik Alsgaard Lovely Lane UMC: Baltimore City Station, the historic birthplace of Methodism in the United States, voted Oct. 21 to become a Reconciling Community. The move, said the church’s pastor, the...
By Erik AlsgaardUMConnection staff Church members and civic leaders pray on the front porch of the new UMC House at Van Buren UMC in Washington, D.C. Photo by Erik Alsgaard. Every Sunday morning for months, Pastor Lucinda Kent stopped in the breezeway between the parsonage and church at Van...
By Heather Hahn and Jim PattersonUnited Methodist News Service St. Andrew UMC in Panama City, Fla., seen Oct. 11 after Hurricane Michael. United Methodists across the southeast are preparing to offer long-term relief after the most powerful hurricane in nearly 50 years slammed into the...
By Melissa Lauber Lay people throughout the Baltimore-Washington Conference’s 631 churches volunteer countless hours to ministry. Or do they? Words matter, and the word “volunteer” may need to be stricken from the church’s lexicon in favor of “disciple,” many...
By Bishop LaTrelle Easterling Families are often torn apart by divorce. Persons who once had love and concern for each other, spent holidays and celebrations together, who claimed one another beyond bloodlines suddenly are not speaking at all. Persons once so close you couldn’t slide a...
With the Special Session of General Conference less than five months away, Bishop LaTrelle Easterling has a message for her flock: be informed, be engaged, be pro-active. The four-day meeting, Feb. 23-26, will take place in St. Louis, Mo., to receive and act on a report from the Commission on a...
By Erik Alsgaard Members of the Perryman community participate in a candle-light prayer vigil at Cranberry UMC Sept. 21 following the mass shooting at the Rite Aid Distributoin Center one mile away. Photo by Erik Alsgaard. For the Rev. Tiffany Patterson, it was déjà vu all over...
By Erik Alsgaard Following the mass shooting Sept. 20 at the Rite Aid Distribution Center in Aberdeen, the Rev. Tiffany Patterson knew what to do. That’s because she’d done it before, just 11 months ago. The Washington Post reports that the Rite Aid incident started around 9 a.m...
Beloved, As I attempt to process the reality that another shooting has occurred within the bounds of our Conference, taking the life of three persons and ending with the self-inflicted death of the shooter, the words of Thomas Moore's hymn, "Come, Ye Disconsolate" (UM Hymnal, #510), rose in...
By Heather HahnUnited Methodist News Service A tree fell on the parsonage of the Rev. Thomas M. Greener and his wife shortly after his wife came downstairs for dinner. No one was injured. The Greeners are among the thousands of people whose lives have been upended byFlorence’s wreckage in...
