Signs of Transformation

20 Thursday Jan 2011

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Blogroll, Christian Living, links, Ministry, Wesley

Yesterday Sloan Looney posted about the impact that Munger Place Church is having on her life. As someone who is involved at Munger, I was thrilled to read her positive assessment of Munger.

I wanted to link to Sloan’s post here because it isn’t often that a lay person is so pumped about their church that they take the time to write such a thoughtful essay. Sloan is also a member of one of the Munger small groups, which are patterned after the early Methodist class meeting. My hope is that one of the reasons she has experienced such amazing community at Munger is in part because she is meeting weekly with a group of Christians who listen to how things are in her faith journey and whom she listens to as well.

In a time when there is so much hand-wringing amongst leaders in the UMC, I praise God for signs like this that the Holy Spirit is still at work! One person’s life has been so touched by God through the ministries of a brand new UM congregation, that she is willing to put it into words in a public forum. How cool is that?

Thank you, Sloan!

Methodist Bloggers Unite!

08 Thursday Jan 2009

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Blogroll, links, Technology

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One of the things that is great about blogging is that you can find out if an idea is terrible simply by the deafening silence that greets a post. Yesterday, when I posted about an experiment to raise awareness of the Methodist blogging presence, I wondered if this would be one of those ideas. I wasn’t even sure if I would hear a calm still voice… though I hoped if nothing else my closest friends would post the video because they felt sorry for me.

Twenty-four hours after posting the invitation to post a YouTube video promoting Reclaiming the Wesleyan Tradition: John Wesley’s Sermons for Todayhas been posted on nine blogs and the experiment has been mentioned on another.

Thanks to these bloggers for posting the video:

Hit the Back Button to Move Forward

The original post was also mentioned on this morning’s Morning Report on the Wesley Report.

I am interested to see what the results of this experiment will be. If nothing else this will have been a success, because I have discovered a few Methodist blogs I didn’t know existed. If you haven’t posted the video yet, it is not too late. You can read about the experiment and copy and paste a sample post here. Thanks again to all who have participated.

Obama, Church Marketing, and Advent

17 Wednesday Dec 2008

Posted by Kevin M. Watson in Blogroll, links

≈ 2 Comments

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Advent, Church Marketing, links, Obama

There are a few posts I have been meaning to link to.

Steve Rankin at Rankin File discusses what he learned during this year’s Presidential election. Rankin candidly discusses what he learned from election night about racism and the amazing breakthrough of an African American, Barack Obama, being elected to the office of President of the United States.

Shayne Raynor at the Wesley Report writes about United Methodist Churches that do not label themselves as United Methodist. Raynor explores whether United Methodists should be bothered by churches like Granger Community Church which effectively hide their United Methodist affiliation. (As a cool bonus, I learned that Starbucks owns Seattle’s Best… you learn something new every day.)

Steve Manskar and Steve Rankin both help focus our attention during this season of Advent. Manskar at Accountable Discipleship writes that Advent is not Christmas-lite. Rankin lists a few Christmas pet peeves. The one that has particularly stuck with me is the reminder that Christmas should not just be viewed cyclically – as a yearly celebration of Jesus’ birth. Instead of looking backwards to Jesus’ birth, Advent should be a time of looking forward to the “future and full coming kingdom of God.”