By Jessica Brodie. Storyteller. After five days in Portland, Oregon, site of the upcoming 2016 General Conference, where I sat elbow-to-elbow with fellow United Methodist communicators learning about how better to do our work for God’s Kingdom, that’s the word I keep coming back to...
By the Rev. Michael Hood. I once had the opportunity to attend an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Chips were being handed out to people who’d reached milestones in abstinence. Some received chips for having kept free from alcohol for several years or months, to cheers and shouts of joy...
By Bishop Jonathan Holston. In January, I was privileged to travel with a delegation of 41 persons from South Carolina to Africa University in the city of Mutare, Zimbabwe....
By Jessica Brodie. God’s call is a tremendous influence on our lives. His call led Moses into the wilderness, led Jonah from the belly of a whale back to Nineveh, led three magi—after seeing the baby Jesus—to go home by another route and not to report back to King Herod.
By the Rev. Elizabeth Murray. Brené Brown says, “Courage is to tell the story of who you are with your whole heart.” We know there is power in hearing each other’s stories.
By Bishop Jonathan Holston. Some of our worst fears and greatest accomplishments are realized at the point of a decision. Often, we find ourselves in places of decision with no answers in sight.
By Jessica Brodie, Advocate editor. We go to press on the December paper just before Thanksgiving and the start of Advent—a time when we’re supposed to be having thoughts of peace and gratitude, love and kindness. Instead, on Facebook and in news headlines, we’re bombarded with stories of terrorist attacks in Paris and in Mali. Talk has turned to how we can stand strong against the threat of ISIS and whether or not we should let Syrian refugees into our nation. It’s hard sometimes to cultivate so-called Christmas cheer and the quiet peace of Advent when all around us is the clamor of negativity, worry and, sadly, hate.
By Bishop Jonathan Holston. Over the years we have developed a bad habit. Our problem is that we have become so familiar with the Christmas story that we no longer even stop to consider what it really means.
By the Rev. Keith D. Ray II. The border between the United States and Mexico is a place where bodies are often lost. Each year hundreds of migrants fleeing violence, economic despair, gang activity and the like perish as they seek to find a better life in the United States.
By Jessica Brodie. Somehow, life goes on. I find myself this week, as we prepare to go to press on the Advocate, shopping for Halloween costumes for our four kids and decorations for our church’s Trunk or Treat, wondering which side of the family to visit for Thanksgiving, scheduling doctor visits and oil changes and weekend chores and all the other trappings of my first-world life.
By the Rev. Kristin Dollar. “Do these people know each other?” I asked incredulously as boisterous, rapid Spanish ricocheted off every wall of the giant house where we were having our retreat.
By Elizabeth Murray. I spent my 27th birthday in a way I never would have expected. I spent my birthday, which was the Tuesday of the week of flood, with the youth and some of the pastors of Mount Hebron United Methodist Church.