X
Disaster Response and Recovery
Higher Education & Campus Ministry
Pan-Methodist Campaign for Children in Poverty
1/14/2021
Dear Friends, On Monday, January 18, 2021, we will celebrate the life and legacy of one of the heroes of our nation’s civil rights movement, Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. The most prominent civil rights leader in the 1950s and 1960s, Dr. King’s Alabama connections include marrying Coretta Scott from Perry County, Alabama . . . pastoring the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church from 1954-1960 . . . and penning the “Letter from Birmingham Jail” while incarcerated for leading a demonstration without a ...
1/8/2021
Dear Friends, United Methodists are known as people of prayer. Our founder John Wesley placed a heavy emphasis on prayer. (See A Plain Account of Christian Perfection, Q 38, 5.) Our membership vows include a commitment to prayers, presence, gifts, service and witness. The United Methodist Book of Worship offers numerous examples of prayers for special occasions as well as a section on ways of praying. (See www.umcdiscipleship.org/book-of-worship/ways-of-praying.) In that spirit, I invite you to ...
1/3/2021
Dear Friends, Like many of you I spent some time on the evening of December 21 gazing at the closest alignment of Jupiter and Saturn that has been visible in the past 800 years. This sight on the longest night of one of the most difficult years in human history filled my heart with hope! 2020 will be forever remembered for the pandemic that killed over 1.75 million people worldwide, with more than 330,000 in the U.S. alone. It will also go down in the books as a year of dramatic mental health, ...
12/29/2020
Dear Friends, One of my favorite passages of Scripture is found in Philippians 3:13b-14. “But this one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” Though applicable each and every day, these verses from Paul’s writings are especially apropos as an old year ends and a new one begins. This is because celebrating a new year particularly lends itself to letting go of the past ...
12/25/2020
December 25, 2020 Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett shares a Christmas message reminding us that God is always with us. To view the video click the image above or go to https://youtu.be/F-vQQWxk58A.
12/8/2020
Dear Friends, A well-read Anglican priest and Oxford scholar, John Wesley owned many books and publications. But his “go-to” book for doctrine, theology, guidance and inspiration was the Bible. Indeed, he called himself a homo unius libri, “a man of one book.” No wonder a high view of Scripture is one of the hallmarks of United Methodists. In addition to important history and inspired insight, we encounter the living Christ in the pages of Scripture. This is one of the reasons that in 2019 and ...
11/29/2020
Dear Friends, Waiting is not easy for most of us. We want challenges to be resolved - now. We grow impatient when in uncertain times. We are uncomfortable with unplanned pauses. Yet, waiting is a part of the rhythm of life. Indeed, Advent, the season of the Christian year launching today, is devoted to both past and future waiting. We remember the long centuries of waiting before the Christ Child was born. We also recognize that we continue to wait for Jesus’ second coming. This year’s Advent ...
11/26/2020
Bishop Debra Wallace-Padgett and the Conference Leadership Team share a message of gratitude for North Alabama Conference clergy and laity. To view video, click the image above or go to https://youtu.be/q-xWhNAzT9o.
11/23/2020
Photo by Kathleen Barry, United Methodist Communications Dear Friends, As we enter into the holidays, the uncertainty of this global pandemic continues to impact all of our decisions. We are grateful that a vast majority of North Alabama and Alabama-West Florida United Methodist Churches have honored our requests throughout the pandemic to follow protocols we developed in consultation with healthcare professionals for in-person worship services and other gatherings. While our guidelines have ...
11/9/2020
Dear Friends, Early this year I convened twenty North Alabama Conference clergy and laity to participate in a “Context Team.” The goal was for this diverse group of leaders to provide insights to the Conference Leadership Team as our denomination moved toward and presumably beyond the 2020 General Conference. Participants on this team were asked to meet together monthly through the end of December 2020. Of course, this was prior to our denomination’s decision to postpone General Conference ...
