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Minnesota Conference clergy and laity gathered at Normandale Hylands United Methodist Church hold table talk discussions about the three plans set to be considered by the special General Conference. Many United Methodist Conferences have been having town all meetings to explain the plans and give people a chance to share opinions about them. Photo by Sam Hodges, UMNS

Decisions won't stop with General Conference

All three Way Forward plans hold at least potential for tough votes by local churches, conferences.

Editor's Picks

Human Sexuality

In a skit for Do No Harm 2018, Paul Ballard plays "Pastor John" and the Rev. Sally Bevill plays "Sally," two fictional characters whose counseling session crosses into romance. Ballard and Bevill joined others from the Mississippi Conference in staging the short drama, aimed at prompting discussion about sexual misconduct in the church. Do No Harm is The United Methodist Church's every-few-years sexual ethics summit, and this year's was held in San Antonio. Photo by Sam Hodges, UMNS.

Timing right for sexual ethics summit

With #MeToo movement as backdrop, The United Methodist Church's Do No Harm conference draws engaged crowd.

General Church

The Rev. Brian McLaren urges churches to align around a common objective during the 50th anniversary gathering of Christians Engaged in Faith Formation in Des Moines, Iowa. Photo by the Rev. Arthur McClanahan.

McLaren urges churches to get in alignment

Churches face major challenges and must rethink everything from scratch, author says.

Evangelism

Church leaders take part in evangelism training at McBride United Methodist Church in Jalingo, Nigeria. Photo by the Rev. Ande Emmanuel, UMNS.

Church in Nigeria sees membership boom

As the country’s population approaches 200 million, church leaders focus on evangelism; envision 18 percent annual growth in next 12 years.

Latest

Bishop Mande Muyombo (front, right) presides over a meeting of the Africa University board of directors in Mutare, Zimbabwe. Mande is the first Africa University graduate to chair the board. Photo courtesy of Africa University.

Bishop is first AU grad to chair university’s board

Social Concerns

Koreans from both North and South Korea and American Koreans join together in singing a 600- year-old Korean folk song, "Arirang," about love and reuniting during 70th anniversary events of the World Council of Churches in Geneva. At the "Roundtable for Peace on the Korean Peninsula," a Nov. 9-11 event in Atlanta hosted by the United Methodist Board of Global Ministries, Methodist and ecumenical leaders will discuss the best ways to help secure the peace. Photo by Albin Hillert, WCC.

Building momentum for peace in Korea

General Agencies

The Rev. Junius B. Dotson, top executive of Discipleship Ministries, lays out his agency’s plans to help United Methodists reach people for Jesus. He addressed his agency’s board in March 2017 in Nashville, Tenn. Photo by Heather Hahn, UMNS.

Discipleship Ministries restructures

Jeru Barnabas is one of 800 women who received microfinance loans through the Empower Her project, a ministry of The United Methodist Church in Nigeria. Photo by the Rev. Ande Emmanuel.

Empowering Nigerian women through microloans

People living on the street, many of them migrants, pray during a worship service and dinner provided by El Divino Redentor Methodist Church at Mariachi Plaza in Mexicali, Mexico.

Love of Christ extends to immigrants living on street

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Multimedia

Disaster Relief

Construction work on a building in Hatíllo, Puerto Rico, is part of efforts by UMCOR to rebuild and renew after Hurricane Maria devastated the island in September of 2017. Photo by Michelle Maldonado, United Methodist Communications.

Video: Puerto Rican bishop gives thanks to UMCOR

In the year since Hurricane Maria swept across Puerto Rico, UMCOR has contributed more than $20 million to help “Renew, Rebuild and Reconstruct.”

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Miriam Magdalena Verdugo Lopez plays with her daughter Maria, 2, at the Movimiento Juventud 2000 shelter for migrants in Tijuana, Mexico.

Struggling families find temporary shelter in small tents

U.S. Border Patrol agents run down a dirt road amid swirling dust stirred up by a helicopter during a search for people who had crossed into the United States illegally and were hiding in heavily wooded areas and sugar cane fields near McAllen, Texas. Photo by Mike DuBose, UMNS.

Paths collide for immigrants, border agents

The Rev. Alan Ashworth (right) visits with Appalachian Trail thru-hikers at a free hiker feed sponsored by New Hope Union United Methodist Church near Bastian, Va. Volunteers set up a temporary shelter where the trail crosses a gravel parking area and offered hot sandwiches, salads and cold drinks to weary hikers. Photo by Mike DuBose, UMNS.

Small churches, big ministry

Ernest Tokpah recalls the toll Ebola took on his family during 2015 and 2016 in Ganta, Liberia. "Ganta was on fire because of the Ebola," he said. "We stopped eating together, we stopped shaking hands, and people practically stopped talking to each other.” Tokpah, a faculty member at Ganta United Methodist School, is raising four children left orphaned when his sister and her husband died of the disease. Photo by Mike DuBose, UMNS.

Church institutions continue to aid post-Ebola Liberia

Commentaries

Commentary: Evaluating the GC2019 organizational plan

Commentary: Should be hard to leave denomination

Commentary: Officially or unofficially, church will separate

Simon Mafunda is the Zimbabwe East Conference lay leader, a two-time General Conference delegate and a member of the Africa Initiative. Photo by Evelyn Chikwana, UMNS.

Commentary: African delegates informed, ready for GC2019

Ask The UMC

(Left to right) Central United Methodist Church in Luanda, Angola, photo by Mike DuBose; food distribution site for the United Methodist Committee on Relief, Dagami, Philippines, photo by Mike DuBose; the Rev. Shalom Agtarap, photo by Paul Jeffrey; stained glass cross and flame, photo by Kathleen Barry. — Photos by Mike DuBose, Paul Jeffrey and Kathleen Barry, UMNS.

Ask The UMC: Has The United Methodist Church always had an official symbol like the cross and flame?

The official insignia of The United Methodist Church has been the Cross and Flame since its founding in 1968. The symbols and seals for other predecessor denominations were generally varied in form and use.

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General Conference

Overhead view of the 1976 General Conference. Photo by John C. Goodwin, United Methodist Board of Global Ministries.

Ask The UMC: How often has there been a special called General Conference?

Mission and Ministry

Young adults pass the collection plate during the contemporary worship at McKendree United Methodist Church in Lawrenceville, Ga. 2016 file photo by Kathleen Barry, UMNS.

Ask The UMC: What does The United Methodist Church teach about tithing?

Theology and Education

Painting of Jesus and his Disciples on the Sea of Galilee dated 1833 by Carl Wilhelm Friedrich Oesterley courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. German art historian, painter and university teacher. Private collection. Wikimedia Commons.

Ask The UMC: What is the difference between an apostle and a disciple?

Theology and Education

The Rev. Jerome R. DeVine (left, rear) makes the sign of the cross on the Rev. Kyland Dobbins during a reaffirmation of baptism at Facing the Future 2018, an event for clergy in cross-racial/cross-cultural appointments, in Newark, N.J. DeVine described the service as “both a remembering of how we are claimed by God's grace in baptism as well as the ongoing gift of grace that heals and strengthens us in the midst of the storms of life and ministry.”

Ask The UMC: Do United Methodists make the sign of the cross?

Categories

The Rev. Eugene Peterson lectures at University Presbyterian Church in Seattle. The scholar and pastor’s influence extends far beyond his home denomination. 2009 file photo by Clappstar, courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.

Eugene Peterson, Bible popularizer, dies

Kupakwashe Kapiso, 14, is one of the beneficiaries of a new scholarship program for orphans in the Harare West District. The money paid for her school fees and uniform. Photo by Chenayi Kumuterera.

Scholarship program lifts up Zimbabwe orphans

The Rev. Nicole Anderson is congratulated after being commissioned as a Dakotas Conference provisional elder. Anderson, 28, now serves as pastor of First United Methodist Church in Vermillion, South Dakota. The latest Lewis Center for Church Leadership study on clergy age trends in the denomination shows a three-year decline in young women elders. Photo courtesy of the Dakotas Conference.

Young clergy still in short supply

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A gathering at the Asia Upper Room held in Seoul, South Korea, celebrated the 80th anniversary of the ministry and provided training for today’s devotional editors. Photo by Thomas Kim, UMNS.

Upper Room celebrates 80 years in Asia

Children dance the Congolese rumba during the closing ceremony for a two-week United Methodist summer camp in Bukavu, Congo, intended to help strengthen their faith. Photo by Philippe Kituka Lolonga.

Camp in Congo helps kids grow in their faith

The Rev. Anna Shammas shares the story of how an invitation to worship led to the formation of the Arabic-Speaking United Methodist Church in Aarau, Switzerland. Photo by Annette Spence, UMNS.

Arabic-speaking Swiss church provides home for migrants

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Social Concerns

Families displaced by attacks from Fulani herdsmen and the Boko Haram terrorist group line up for relief supplies and medical attention at a camp for internally displaced persons in Numan, Nigeria. Photo by Ande Emmanuel.

United Methodists respond to displaced in Nigeria

Rebecca Tendai Gurupira, speaker during an outreach program against violence and childhood marriages in Zimbabwe, stands surrounded by young people at the Nyambeya Camping site in the Chimanimani District. Photo by Kudzai Chingwe, UMNS.

Church launches campaign against early childhood marriages

Mango seedlings ready for planting in Jalingo, Nigeria, are sheltered under thatch from the hot sun. Photo by Sharon Adamu Bambuka, UMNS.

Nigerian United Methodists plant 20,000 trees

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Mission and Ministry

Ganta United Methodist Hospital in Liberia is among the agencies and programs that will be receiving new grants from the United Methodist Committee on Relief. The hospital will receive $431,042 for the second phase of renovations. 2017 file photo by Mike DuBose, UMNS.

New UMCOR grants target crisis areas, basic needs

Young people addicted to drugs find support and educational opportunities at the United Methodist New Life Recovery Center in Carterville, Liberia. Photo by E Julu Swen, UMNS.

First patients treated at drug rehabilitation center in Liberia

An early response team from Pierce Chapel United Methodist Church in Midland, Ga., pauses from their work in cleaning up storm debris left by Hurricane Michael at Cooks Union United Methodist Church in Colquitt, Ga. Photo courtesy of the South Georgia Conference.

'Long road' for recovery from Hurricane Michael

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Bishop Ough announced a plan a General Conference 2016. Photo by Paul Jeffrey, United Methodist Communications.

Seeing a Way Forward: Bishop Bruce Ough

The Rev. Mary Scifres helps lead the 50th anniversary gathering of Christians Engaged in Faith Formation meeting in Des Moines, Iowa. Photo by the Rev. Arthur McClanahan.

Embracing curiosity can help church, educators say

Video image of Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball, courtesy of the West Virginia Conference.

Seeing a Way Forward: Bishop Steiner Ball

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