Recommended Reading: Wespath Trip to DRC

Back in June of last year, Dale Jones, Wespath’s managing director of Church Relations, and Thomas Kemper, a consultant for Wespath's Central Conference Pensions program, traveled to the Democratic Republic of Congo on behalf of Wespath. Wespath recently published a detailed description of their trip.

The report is worth reading for several reasons. First, any story that helps familiarize Americans with the DRC, the country with the second most United Methodists, is worth reading. Second, the report gives a good sense of what the process of hosting United Methodist delegations in the DRC is often like. Notably, while Jones and Kemper were primarily there to talk about pensions, they also saw schools and hospitals, which are critical components of the UMC's work in the DRC. Third, although many think of Wespath as a fairly US-focused agency, it is good to be reminded that there are international dimensions to the work of most of the church structures, including Wespath.

Recent Publications on Methodist Mission and Evangelism

The following is a list of books and articles published within the last six months by the Association of Methodist Professors of Mission or by other scholars about Methodist mission and evangelism. Readers are encouraged to consult these sources for the latest in scholarship about Methodist mission and evangelism.

Paul W. Chilcote, The Quest for Love Divine: Select Essays in Wesleyan Theology and Practice (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2022).

Paul W. Chilcote, “Perfect Love Restored: The Language of Renewal in the Hymns of Charles Wesley,” Holiness 7 (October 2022), 113.

Luís Wesley de Souza, “Mission and Evangelism,” in Christianity in Latin America and the Caribbean, edited by Kenneth R. Ross, Ana María Bidegaín, and Todd M. Johnson (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2022).

Benjamin L. Hartley, “The 1921 Founding of the International Missionary Council in the Life of John R. Mott,” International Review of Mission 111 (November 2022), 253.

Benjamin L. Hartley, “Missions,” in The Oxford Handbook of Early Evangelicalism, edited by Jonathan Yeager (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).

Arun W. Jones, “Hybridity and Christian Identity,” Missiology 50:1 (2022), 7.

Younghwa Kim, “Book Review: The Practice of Mission in Global Methodism: Emerging Trends from Everywhere to Everywhere,” Wesley and Methodist Studies 14:2 (2022), 227–229.

Ian Randall, “Mutuality in Methodist Mission: Murray and Olive Titus in India, 1910–1951,” Wesley and Methodist Studies 14:2 (June 2022), 146-168.

Dana L. Robert, “‘Make Jesus King’ and the Evangelical Missionary Imagination, 1889–1896,” in Global Faith, Worldly Power: Evangelical Internationalism and U.S. Empire, edited by John Corrigan, Melani McAlister, Axel R. Schäfer (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2022).

Dana L. Robert, “Pierson, Arthur Tappan (1837-1911),” in The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church, 4th edition, edited by Andrew Louth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2022).

Dana L. Robert, “Conversion and Mission History: a Review of David W. Kling’s A History of Christian Conversion,” Pastoral Psychology 71 (July 2022), 789.

Dana L. Robert, “Dana Robert Responds to Mark Teasdale: ‘Extending the Metaphor: Evangelism as the Heart of Mission Twenty-Five Years Later’” Methodist Review 14 (2022).

David W. Scott and Hendrik R. Pieterse, “Soundings Towards an Intercultural Identity for The United Methodist Church: Some Historical and Theological Resources,” Methodist Review 14 (2022).

Mark R. Teasdale, “Extending the Metaphor: Evangelism as the Heart of Mission Twenty-Five Years Later,” Methodist Review 14 (2022).

Douglas D. Tzan, “Book Review: Of Merchants and Missions: A Historical Study of the Impact of British Colonialism on American Methodism in Singapore from 1885 to 1910,” Methodist History 60:2 October 2022), 305.

Darrell L. Whiteman, “The conversion of a missionary: A missiological study of Acts 10,” Missiology (2022).

Philip Wingeier Rayo, “Book Review: The Practice of Mission in Global Methodism: Emerging Trends from Everywhere to Everywhere,” International Bulletin of Mission Research 46:4 (June 2022), 611–612.

James M. Lawson, Jr. - Civil Rights Leader and Missionary

In honor of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Day, we are republishing a short biography of one of his collaborators - Rev. James M. Lawson, Jr. The biography is excerpted from Linda Gesling, Mirror and Beacon: The History of Mission of The Methodist Church, 1939-1968 (New York: General Board of Global Ministries, The United Methodist Church, 2005), 206. It first appeared online as part of the Methodist Mission Bicentennial project.

Lawson was born in Uniontown, Pennsylvania, in 1928, one of nine children of a U.S. Methodist pastor and a Jamaican mother. He took much of his attitude toward others from his mother, who did not believe in violence. Lawson grew up in Massillon, Ohio, where he became a good student in predominantly white schools.

He entered Methodist-related Baldwin-Wallace College in Berea, Ohio, where he joined the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and became interested in the nonviolent methods of Mahatma Gandhi. He must A. J. Muste, the executive secretary of FOR, and others in the pacifist movement, including James Farmer, Bayard Rustin, and Glenn Smiley.

Although he initially registered for the draft, he became a conscientious objector at the time of the Korean War and was sentenced to three years in federal prison. Baldwin-Wallace refused to grant his degree because of his prison sentence. Entering prison in April 1951, he served until May 1952, when he was paroled. He returned to college to obtain his degree, then became a short-term missionary of The Methodist Church to Nagpur, India, where he was an instructor at a Presbyterian school, Hislop College. Lawson was surprised to find that some Western missionaries did not like Gandhi and considered him a troublemaker. But Lawson considered that Gandhi had exemplified Jesus’ teaching of love.

Lawson returned to the U.S. in 1956, did postgraduate work at the Oberlin Graduate School, and also received a degree from Boston University. He met Martin Luther King, Jr., who urged him to find a way to serve in the South. Lawson accepted an invitation from FOR to develop nonviolent methods for African-American students in Nashville, Tennessee. In the fall of 1959, he began voluntary training workshops for college students there, and shortly after the Greensboro sit-ins, Nashville students started sit-ins on February 13, 1960. In the ensuing months, students continued to protest, and the lunch counters were desegregated, but not before Lawson was expelled from Vanderbilt and jailed.

Lawson participated with King and others in the civil rights protests throughout the 1960s. He was a founding member of Black Methodists for Church Renewal in 1968. In 1974, he was appointed pastor of Holman United Methodist Church in Los Angeles, where he served for many years. He served the denomination as a member of its agencies and continued to articulate concerns for justice in the U.S. and peace abroad. In October 1996, he received the distinguished alumnus award from Vanderbilt University, despite never having received a degree there.

Recommended Reading: Methodists Respond to Political Violence in Brazil

As many readers will be aware, last weekend, on January 8, supporters of former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro stormed federal government offices in Brasilia, Brazil. Rioters attacked the offices of the president, congress, and supreme court. Government forces were able to regain control of the buildings by the end of the day.

The attacks in Brazil were widely condemned within and beyond the country. Many drew parallels with the January 6, 2021, attacks on the U.S. Capitol. Even Bolsonaro himself denounced the violence.

Among those condemning the attacks and affirming the value of democracy were Methodist bodies, both in Brazil and abroad. The Methodist Church in Brazil issued a statement entitled, "Nota de Repúdio a atos de violência e vandalismo." According to a Google translation of the statement into English, the church said, "We recognize that opposition manifestations are part of democracy, but we do not accept the totalitarian practices that we saw in these acts that deny the values ​​of the Gospel of Jesus and the construction of peace in Brazilian society." The statement denounced violence, called for peacemaking, and affirmed that Methodists are in favor of the democratic process.

Methodists in neighboring Uruguay also released a statement entitled, "Declaración por la civilidad y el respeto a la democracia." This statement affirmed that of the Brazilian church, expressed solidarity with Brazilian brothers and sisters, denounced violence, and affirmed the importance of democratic institutions.

In neighboring Argentina, the Evangelical Methodist Church Argentina called attention to a statement from el Consejo Latinoamericano de Iglesias (CLAI; Latin America Council of Churches) that condemned violence, affirmed democracy, and called for peace and prayer.

Retraction on Nigeria

Today's post is by UM & Global blogmaster Dr. David W. Scott, Mission Theologian at the General Board of Global Ministries. The opinions and analysis expressed here are Dr. Scott's own and do not reflect in any way the official position of Global Ministries.

Since publishing a piece last week updating readers about the conflict in the church in Nigeria, I have received additional information calling into question the facts presented on the UMC Nigeria Episcopal Area Facebook page. Without the ability to determine from afar exactly what has been happening in Nigeria, I am removing the original post, lest it contribute to the spread of false information. I apologize to my readers for not doing more to attempt to verify the contours of that story before publishing it. I encourage United Methodists everywhere to continue to pray for peaceful reconciliation in the church in Nigeria.

Recommended Listening/Viewing: Thursdays at the Table on Whiteness, Privilege, Racism, and Faith

Bishop LaTrelle Easterling and the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference have launched a new podcast, "Thursdays at the Table." According to its official description, the podcast "makes space for intimate, authentic conversations that stir our curiosity about how our faith, culture, and ideas intersect to create meaning, transformation, and wholeness."

The first episode of the podcast is entitled, "The Courage of Our Voice," and features Bishop Easterling in conversation with three white men about their personal and church-related experiences with whiteness, privilege, racism, and faith. The three guests include David Abbott, Director of Stewardship for the United Methodist Foundation of New England; Bill Waddell, an attorney from Arkansas who provides legal counsel to The United Methodist Church; and Dr. David Scott, blogmaster of UM & Global and Director of Mission Theology for the General Board of Global Ministries.

The episode is an hour long and is available on Spotify, YouTube, and other sources.

Recommended Readings: German United Methodists Rethink Church

As in many places in the United States, The United Methodist Church in Germany has been facing challenging trends with many small, aging, and declining congregations. While there are certainly vital ministries and new faith congregations in Germany, the church there recognizes the challenges it faces in continuing to engage in faithful, relevant ministry in its changing context.

Stemming from that recognition, the German UMC has been taking proactive steps to change its organization at the central conference and annual conference level and encourage creativity at the local congregational level to strengthen the focus of the church on its mission. These changes are intended not just to consolidate in the face of decline but to use numeric decline as an impetus for the church to become clearer about its purpose and calling.

This process is evident in the actions of the Germany Central Conference and two of the German annual conferences, all of which met late last year. The Germany Central Conference approved a wide-ranging package of structural reforms that sought "more mission, less administration" (story in German; Google translated version). The South German Annual Conference than approved its own set of structural revisions and encouragements to congregations to try new forms of worship and outreach (story in German; Google translated version). Finally, the East German Annual Conference approved a resolution to revision its conference facility as a form of "church in a different shape" (story in German; Google translated version).

Given demographic trends and the impact of disaffiliations, many annual conferences in the United States are already having or will soon need to have conversations about how to restructure in the face of reduced membership and finances. When they do so, they could learn from the German model about how to keep mission front and center in such difficult conversations and decisions.