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Disaster Response and Recovery
Higher Education & Campus Ministry
Pan-Methodist Campaign for Children in Poverty
10/23/2019
God of us all, On this morning our hearts break at the news that authorities delivered to us late last evening about the believed death of Kamille “Cupcake” McKinney. We grieve with all the people of Birmingham that one of our children was apparently abducted from a birthday party, killed and left in a dumpster. We know that your heart breaks, too. God, words fail to capture the deep and multi-faceted feelings we are experiencing. We are overwhelmed at the brokenness of our world when cruelty ...
10/8/2019
Dear Friends, Every Christian is called to be a follower. Indeed Christian disciples are continually growing in our capacity to follow Jesus. Though God is the One who empowers us to be faithful followers of Jesus Christ, we have an important part to play in the process. Practices that result in our spending regular quality time with God make a huge difference in our development as disciples. Since discipleship is not a solo venture, it is essential that we practice holy habits both as ...
9/23/2019
Dear Friends, Discover. Develop. Deploy. These three words sum up the mission of the North Alabama Conference. We discover lay and clergy spiritual leaders in a variety of ways and places. We develop spiritual leaders through training, mentoring, cohorts and other means of leadership development. We deploy leaders to serve in our churches, communities and other ministry contexts. The Conference Nominations Team emphasizes all three aspects of our mission throughout the course of the year. This ...
8/20/2019
Dear Friends, Many times since the 2019 Annual Conference I have heard some version of the comment, “Annual Conference teachers and preachers Bishop Bob Farr and Dr. Candace Lewis were great. I wish we could have heard more from them!” Good news! Bishop Farr and Dr. Lewis will both be featured at the North Alabama Conference 2019 Gathering of the Orders and Fellowship of Local Pastors and Associate Members on October 27-28 at Sumatanga Camp and Conference Center. In the course of 28 hours, they ...
8/9/2019
Dear Friends, Back-to-back U.S. mass shootings in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio, this past weekend have been a stark reminder of the frequency of horrific killings in the U.S. Thirty-one persons died in one weekend from those two events. Mass shootings in the U.S. are occurring on such a regular basis that some countries are warning their citizens to take extra precautions when traveling here. As followers of Jesus Christ, how do we respond to such violence in our own country, especially when...
7/16/2019
Dear Friends, Family gatherings are great when everything is going well, everyone is getting along and positivity abounds. However, sometimes the most meaningful and growth-producing experiences occur when family get-togethers take place in the midst of dicey and challenging dynamics. Our United Methodist family is struggling right now, especially in the United States. On one hand, this makes Conference events and District gatherings challenging. On the other hand, it causes them to be opportune...
7/3/2019
Dear Friends, My husband Lee and I were serving as clergy in the Kentucky Conference when we received an invitation from our Bishop, Robert C. Morgan, to participate in a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. After my parents offered to care for our 7 and 5-year-old children while we were away, Lee and I registered for the pilgrimage. We are both glad that we did, as this ten-day pilgrimage proved to be life-changing. Since then, Lee and I have taken four additional journeys to Israel, three of which ...
6/13/2019
Dear Friends, “And Are We Yet Alive?” Methodists have opened Annual Conferences with a rendition of this powerful Charles Wesley hymn since our inception in the late 1700s. As we sang this question at the opening worship service of the 2019 North Alabama Conference, the answer was evident. Yes, the North Alabama Conference is alive, energetic, diverse, principled and committed. We also are a Conference consisting of persons with varying perspectives on many matters. Our life together is not easy...
5/14/2019
Dear Friends, The Spring 2019 Council of Bishops meeting took place May 5-9 in Chicago. Throughout the meeting I experienced rich covenant group sharing, meaningful worship and candid discussion about the present and future of the United Methodist Church. The Council of Bishops intentionally put hope in the center of our conversation even as we grappled with the reality of the deep differences and brokenness that exist in our beloved United Methodist Church. A summary of the week’s outcome can ...
4/21/2019
Dear Friends, I have a deep appreciation for Charles Wesley, brother of Methodism’s founder, John. A prolific hymn writer and gifted musician, Charles penned more than 6,000 hymns, many of which continue to speak deep theological truths to us today. One of my favorite Wesley hymns is “Christ the Lord is Risen Today.”* The words are particularly meaningful to me this Easter season against the backdrop of challenges like my Dad’s recent death, the conflict in our beloved United Methodist Church ...
