John Wesley taught that the covenants of Methodist polity affirm that we share for the good of the whole, be it the trust clause, the appointment, or the apportionment. I write today to ask you to pray and consider how to finish well and move toward 100 percent payment of all your church’s apportioned items, both conference and general church apportionments.
Read MoreGod still chooses to share the work of co-creation. Might the giver of all grace have second thoughts about sharing the work of creation with humankind?
Read MoreWe hold this Plainfield family, the Muslim community, the Palestinian community, and the Jewish community around the world in our prayers and relief efforts.
Read MoreRabbi Yehiel Poupko of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago and Rev. Dr. Javier Viera, president of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary, invited the Bishop, his wife Julie, and other faith leaders in the Chicago area to an instructive tour this past summer of the Holocaust sites in Poland. The rising tide of nationalism in Poland and the ongoing polarizations in our own country suggested an opportunity to bear an interfaith witness to peace and strong interfaith relations among leaders in Chicago.
Read MoreThis line has stayed with me for some months. It hits me with a force now that I have been consecrated as a bishop. It is worth noting that in the Great Thanksgiving the paragraph that begins, “Pour out your Holy Spirit” is followed in the next paragraph with the implications. “By your Spirit, make us one…” It is only by God’s Spirit that we find the power of a unity in Christ that can confront the world’s prejudices, racism, and fear-based division. My soul has lingered long on this for the past month. I am praying, “Make us one.”
Read MoreWisconsin and Northern Illinois conferences continue to anticipate the possibility they will share a bishop—something like a two-point charge—in the near future. A Bishop-Sharing Task Force in Northern Illinois met on Aug. 28 to plan NIC’s next steps in the exploration.
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