Recommended Reading: Global Church Planting Report

Discipleship Ministries' Path 1 has recently released its Global Church Planting 2020 Report. The report includes data on church planting both in the United States and in the UMC central conferences, though the central conference data is incomplete due to limited reporting. While the data come from 2019, the report includes reflections on how the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted church planting in the last two years. The report also includes a list of definitions of various types of church plants in the United States, and the contextual nature of that list is acknowledged, which is nice to see. There is only so much a 12-page report can do, but by bringing together data from the United States, Africa, Europe, and the Philippines, by acknowledging the contextual nature of church planting strategies, and by identifying forces that cut across contexts (such as the pandemic), this report points towards an intercultural dialogue about the work of church planting that it would be helpful for the UMC to have.

Recommended Reading: Street evangelism around the world

Two recent stories have highlighted the work of Methodist evangelism on the streets in two different contexts around the world: Brazil and Great Britain. In an interview with Asbury Seminary, Brazilian bishop João Carlos Lopes says, "Church planting doesn’t happen in the pastor's office. Church planting happens on the street where the unbelievers are." In a reflection for the Methodist Church in Great Britain, Evangelism and Contemporary Culture Officer Holly Adams writes that her work as a Street Pastor reminder her that "the greatest gift we share in evangelism is always, always about relationship – about being totally present to other people, listening to them, and loving them unconditionally."

Recommended Reading: United Methodist Church-Planting in the Middle East

The Institute on Religion & Development's (IRD's) John Lomperis recently published an article on IRD's blog about Filipino United Methodist migrants planting churches in the Middle East, where they live as laborers. While Lomperis begins the article with polemical remarks about American ecclesio-political fights, most of the article is a description of the context and work of these Filipino United Methodists, including observations from a trip Lomperis took to visit some of them.

I found Lomperis' article interesting as another example of the ways in which mission, especially when combined with migration, bypasses and even at times subverts formal church structures. (This blog has shared other such examples, including this recent article.) Lomperis notes that the mission work that these Filipino United Methodists are engaged in is not supported by any formal structure of the denomination and is not part of the standard geographic units of the denomination.