Thoughts from John Collins, a United Methodist Pastor in the Flint Hills.
An open and transparent church, I believe, needs a news service that not only tells the church’s positive stories, but is able to report news that might make us uncomfortable at times.
— The Rev. Larry Hollon,
top executive of United Methodist Communications
The Full article is at http://churchcultureandmedia.blogspot.com/2009/09/church-must-report-its-own-news-good.html
Via Sojourners:
Cowardice asks the question: Is it safe? Expediency asks the question: Is it politic? Vanity asks the question: Is it popular? But conscience asks the question: Is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular — but he must take it simply because conscience tells him it is right.
— Martin Luther King Jr.,
from his address, “To Chart Our Course for the Future” (1968).
One of the church’s most important jobs is to continually ask “Is it right?” Another important job of the church is to raise a ruckus when the answer is no.
The last words of John Wesley were, “The best of all, God is with us.” I just got back from visiting at the hospital and the longer I live the more I believe that John Wesley was absolutely right. No matter what we go through, no matter what we endure, no matter what we suffer (and likewise, though we tend to take less notice of this point, no matter how well our lives may be going, no matter how well the world is treating us at present, no matter how many blessings we can count), the best thing about life is that God is with us … always.
*More pictures of the Wesley’s can be found at: http://gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/wesley/.