Laceye C. Warner

Clear answers to common questions. This small, simple, and shareable book about The United Methodist Church is a helpful reference guide to everything that makes The UMC distinctive. Written in a clear, accessible style by Laceye Warner, Who We Are and What We Believe: 50 Questions about the UMC contains answers to fifty common questions about who United Methodists are, what we believe and practice, and what sets us apart. Use it alone or as a companion to Knowing Who We Are: The Wesleyan Way of Grace.

Discover what sets United Methodism apart. The Leader Guide contains everything needed to guide a group through the six-week study, including session plans, activities, discussion questions, and multiple format options. Components include a book, Knowing Who We Are, and video teaching sessions featuring Laceye Warner, making this perfect as a group study throughout the year. A companion book, Who We Are and What We Believe: 50 Questions about The UMC, is also available. In this book, Laceye C. Warner invites you to a richer understanding of Wesleyan Christianity so you can have a clear sense of identity, better express your own beliefs, and deepen your connection with The United Methodist Church. She introduces you to important values and characteristics that make the Wesleyan way distinctive, including emphasizing God's grace for all and sanctification as tangible transformation in your life, your community, and all creation. You'll see how The United Methodist Church today is deeply rooted in the Christian tradition and a legacy of care, compassion, and active response to injustice in the world. And you'll find that Christian faith in the Wesleyan tradition holds together personal faith and community life, along with a commitment to justice through ministry and service. Pick up this book and study it with your small group and discover a way of being Christian that fills you with joy, moves you to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, and spurs you to live with compassion and grace.

Discover what sets United Methodism apart. In this book, Laceye C. Warner invites you to a richer understanding of Wesleyan Christianity so you can have a clear sense of identity, better express your own beliefs, and deepen your connection with The United Methodist Church. She introduces you to important values and characteristics that make the Wesleyan way distinctive, including emphasizing God's grace for all and sanctification as tangible transformation in your life, your community, and all creation. You'll see how The United Methodist Church today is deeply rooted in the Christian tradition and a legacy of care, compassion, and active response to injustice in the world. And you'll find that Christian faith in the Wesleyan tradition holds together personal faith and community life, along with a commitment to justice through ministry and service. Pick up this book and study it with your small group and discover a way of being Christian that fills you with joy, moves you to follow Jesus wholeheartedly, and spurs you to live with compassion and grace. The book can be read alone or used by small groups anytime throughout the year. Components include video teaching sessions featuring Laceye Warner and a comprehensive Leader Guide, making this perfect as a six-week group study. A companion book, Who We Are and What We Believe: 50 Questions about The UMC, is also available.

As the western church faces challenges in declining membership and effectiveness due to religious disaffiliation and general discontent with organized religion, innovation must be a central focus within all aspects of ministry in the Christian church. With the focus that the local church must put on innovation, one aspect that will continually be an important factor is how the church understands, interprets, and utilizes failure. Yes, the church must fail However, the church must not simply fail for the sake of failure. The challenge for the local church is to rethink its notion of failure, which will allow for creativity, new life, and ultimately, transformational innovation. By establishing a proper framework and definition of failure, the church will be able to embrace good failure and the benefits it can offer.

As the western church faces challenges in declining membership and effectiveness due to religious disaffiliation and general discontent with organized religion, innovation must be a central focus within all aspects of ministry in the Christian church. With the focus that the local church must put on innovation, one aspect that will continually be an important factor is how the church understands, interprets, and utilizes failure. Yes, the church must fail However, the church must not simply fail for the sake of failure. The challenge for the local church is to rethink its notion of failure, which will allow for creativity, new life, and ultimately, transformational innovation. By establishing a proper framework and definition of failure, the church will be able to embrace good failure and the benefits it can offer.

In All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas, a group of diverse Wesleyan scholars will take you on an Advent journey guided by the practices in John Wesley's means of grace. In four sessions of study, prayer, and conversation, readers will look at preparing the way for God, the discipline of prayer, the substance of good works, and the recognition of God's presence with us in communities that are called to serve the world. This Advent learn and practice works of mercy and works of piety examining on how God's love is embodied in communities of faith in the world. The devotional contains 28 daily devotions for the four weeks of Advent corresponding to the themes of Altogether Love, Altogether Hope, Altogether Joy, and Altogether Peace. Written by pastors and other leaders, the devotions celebrate and bring together the season of Advent and the best of our Wesleyan heritage.

In All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas, a group of diverse Wesleyan scholars will take you on an Advent journey guided by the practices in John Wesley's means of grace. In four sessions of study, prayer, and conversation, readers will look at preparing the way for God, the discipline of prayer, the substance of good works, and the recognition of God's presence with us in communities that are called to serve the world. This Advent learn and practice works of mercy and works of piety examining on how God's love is embodied in communities of faith in the world. Additional components for a four-week study include a DVD a comprehensive Leader Guide.

In All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas, a group of diverse Wesleyan scholars will take you on an Advent journey guided by the practices in John Wesley's means of grace. In four sessions of study, prayer, and conversation, readers will look at preparing the way for God, the discipline of prayer, the substance of good works, and the recognition of God's presence with us in communities that are called to serve the world. This Advent learn and practice works of mercy and works of piety examining on how God's love is embodied in communities of faith in the world. The Leader Guide includes session outline for each group meeting with Scripture, prayer, opening activity, discussion questions, activity, and ending call to action.

In All the Good: A Wesleyan Way of Christmas, a group of diverse Wesleyan scholars will take you on an Advent journey guided by the practices in John Wesley's means of grace. In four sessions of study, prayer, and conversation, readers will look at preparing the way for God, the discipline of prayer, the substance of good works, and the recognition of God's presence with us in communities that are called to serve the world. This Advent learn and practice works of mercy and works of piety examining on how God's love is embodied in communities of faith in the world. Additional components for a four-week study include a DVD a comprehensive Leader Guide.

Perhaps Charles Wesley's two volumes of Funeral Hymns (1746 and 1759), plus a few poems left in manuscript form, are the least known of his poetical corpus. They are a treasury, however, of his views on the importance of women in eighteenth-century England as examples of how to live the Christian life. Entries in his MS Journal indicate an extremely positive relationship with women who are his coequals in mission and in the Methodist societies, and much of the work depended on them. Furthermore, Charles wrote numerous poems about women, often occasioned by death, which lift up individual women as models for the community at large and the church. The intent of this volume is not to present a historical survey of these women or their historical place per se in the early Methodist movement, rather the primary goal is to discover a literature that helps us to see the values which women had in the early Methodist movement and how those values were acknowledged, recorded, and fostered or encouraged by Charles Wesley, particularly in his poetry. The title, May She Have a Word with You, suggests there is a need today to hear of these women's exemplary words, deeds, and lives as a whole.

Perhaps Charles Wesley's two volumes of Funeral Hymns (1746 and 1759), plus a few poems left in manuscript form, are the least known of his poetical corpus. They are a treasury, however, of his views on the importance of women in eighteenth-century England as examples of how to live the Christian life. Entries in his MS Journal indicate an extremely positive relationship with women who are his coequals in mission and in the Methodist societies, and much of the work depended on them. Furthermore, Charles wrote numerous poems about women, often occasioned by death, which lift up individual women as models for the community at large and the church. The intent of this volume is not to present a historical survey of these women or their historical place per se in the early Methodist movement, rather the primary goal is to discover a literature that helps us to see the values which women had in the early Methodist movement and how those values were acknowledged, recorded, and fostered or encouraged by Charles Wesley, particularly in his poetry. The title, May She Have a Word with You, suggests there is a need today to hear of these women's exemplary words, deeds, and lives as a whole.

Short-term mission trips are commonplace in American church life. Yet their growth and practice have largely been divorced from theological education, seminary training, and mission studies. Consuming Mission takes important steps in offering a theological assessment of the practice of STM and tools for subsequent mission training. Using relevant academic studies and original focus-group interviews, Haynes offers important insights into this ubiquitous practice. While carefully examining the biblical and historical foundations for mission, Consuming Mission engages more contemporary movements like the Missio Dei, Fresh Expressions, the Emergent Church, and Third-Wave Mission movements that have helped shape mission. The unique role of United Methodist mission is illustrated through its historical roots and contemporary expression in the ubiquitous STM movement in the United States. Haynes uses original field research data to gather the implicit and explicit theologies of lay and clergy participants. Cultural influences are significantly influencing STM participants as they use their time, money, sacrifice, and service, applied in the name of mission, to purchase a personal growth experience commonly sought by pilgrims. The resulting tensions from mixing mission, pilgrimage, and tourism creates are explored. Haynes offers important steps to move the practice away from using mission for personal edification. ""At last, a scholarly work that lays bare the realities of the mission trip industry--both the benefits and blemishes. Haynes leads us toward a much-needed foundation of mature theology to undergird this third wave of global missions. Excellent."" --Robert Lupton, author of Toxic Charity ""Combining rich theological reflection along with empirical, ethnographic data, Haynes offers a critical look at how the church can develop and engage short term mission as part of the missio dei. There is no other work currently available that does more to bring together the growing research on short term mission with theological resources at the service of the church than Robert Haynes' work."" --Brian Howell, Wheaton College Robert Ellis Haynes is the Director of Education and Leadership for World Methodist Evangelism. He is an ordained minister in The United Methodist Church.

Mission flourishes when relationships are characterized by mutuality--a difficult, but important, balance to sustain. While there are times for the relief efforts and traditional charity when disasters strike, if years later the same people are receiving the same aid, an opportunity is lost. Mission that moves beyond relief to empowerment opens up ways to address systemic forms of oppression and poverty. This book is ideal for groups who want to engage or re-engage in mission.This book looks at ZOE, a Christian non-profit and United Methodist advanced special, as an exemplar of sustainable mission that can empower even the most vulnerable to help themselves.Proceeds of sales go to ZOE.

Theology shapes who we are and how we organize to transform the world. Especially written for required United Methodist classes, this accessible book uses a Wesleyan theological frame--connection--to help readers understand United Methodism's polity and organization as the interrelationship of our beliefs, mission, and practice. The book is organized into four parts--United Methodist beliefs, mission, practice, and organization. Polity and organization are primary embodiments of The United Methodist Church. Functional in nature, these aspects of the denomination facilitate our mission to make disciples for the transformation of the world. This book connects denominational governance and organization to our beliefs as well as our mission. A clear understanding of our identity--as Methodists with Wesleyan roots in connection--and our purpose--to make disciples for the transformation of the world--can help students of United Methodism navigate this treacherous landscape as present and future leaders. Warner also addresses the estrangement between theology and institutional structures and practice by framing governance practices and organizational structure within a Wesleyan theology of connection. This approach will assist current and future denominational leaders in understanding their practices of administration and participation in polity as a theological endeavor and key component of their ministries.

Saving Women is a much-needed study of women's contributions to the theology of evangelism. Through a careful consideration of the primary sources of six Protestant women ministering in America from 1800-1950, this historical and theological study demonstrates that these women combined verbal proclamation with other historic Christian practices in their roles as preacher, visitor, missionary, educator, activist, and reformer.