UM News Digest - Jan. 27, 2025

Supporting migrant workers in Hong Kong
Influential historian remembered
Mission can revitalize United Methodism

“Here I’ve learned the true meaning of solidarity. It’s not a noun like we throw around in the States but, rather, a verb, a daily choice to wake up and to fight for each other’s rights, hand in hand, arm in arm, following Jesus to the margins where the widows and orphans and migrants live.” — Joy Prim, a United Methodist deaconess who supports migrant workers in Hong Kong.

A portion of Hong Kong at night as seen from Victoria Peak. More than 400,000 migrant domestic workers live in Hong Kong, about five percent of the total population. Photo by Paul Jeffrey, UM News.

Church supports migrant workers in Hong Kong

HONG KONG (UM News) — A United Methodist pastor from the Philippines and a deaconess from the U.S. are working to empower migrant domestic workers in Hong Kong. The migrants are mostly women who often face difficult challenges in both their workplace and their relationship to families back home. The Rev. Paul Jeffrey has the story and photos.

Read story

A migrant worker pushes an elderly Chinese man in a wheelchair along a street in Hong Kong. Photo by Paul Jeffrey, UM News.

Richey, influential historian, remembered
DURHAM, N.C. (UM News) — The Rev. Russell E. Richey was praised by colleagues, friends and former students as an amiable yet exacting historian who changed the way United Methodists tell their story. Richey, who taught at Drew, Emory and Duke universities and served as dean at Candler School of Theology, died Jan. 19 at age 83. Jim Patterson reports.
Read story

Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters
United Methodists remember Holocaust
ATLANTA — During a brief service Jan. 27, United Methodists from four continents, gathered for the Standing Committee on Central Conference Matters meeting in Atlanta, marked the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz by Soviet troops. Nazi German forces murdered some 1.1 million people at the death camp in southern Poland. German United Methodists led the remembrance. “We who seek to know still struggle to understand how it came to be that humanity could become so inhumane,” said Germany Area Bishop Harald Rückert. “So we light a candle today, a tiny little light in remembrance of the many lives lost. Too small, too little, one might say. But may we, who see it, be encouraged by it to do our little bit of good work in the world. And together, the candles all around the world may shine bright so that the world never forgets.”
CBS News: Auschwitz survivors the focus of ceremony

Michigan Conference
Art therapy ministry helps heal
LANSING, Mich. — Artist Contreda Navarro-Jewell is using her talents and teaching skills to provide art therapy in Detroit area churches. A member of Hope United Methodist Church in Southfield, Navarro-Jewell teaches children there and has served as the art director for the district’s Urban Methodist Youth Camp during the summer. She’s also a certified lay speaker. James Deaton has the story.
Read story

Lewis Center for Church Leadership
Podcast looks at United Methodist future
WASHINGTON — What does the post-pandemic and post-disaffiliation United Methodist Church look like? In a new episode of the Leading Ideas Talks podcast, Jessica Anschutz speaks with Lewis Center for Church Leadership Director Doug Powe and Senior Consultant Lovett Weems, who discuss the challenges and opportunities facing the denomination.
Listen to podcast

Indiana Conference
Chaplain blesses lawmakers
INDIANAPOLIS — A United Methodist chaplain opened the inauguration ceremony for Gov. Mike K. Braun Jan. 13 with an invocation. The Rev. Kent A. Lundy of the 181st Intelligence Wing blessed the leaders of Indiana and prayed that servants of the state work to build bridges instead of barriers. Lundy’s chaplaincy is an extension ministry of the Indiana Conference of The United Methodist Church. Conference staff report.
Read story

California-Nevada Conference
Korean clergy families celebrate new year
SANTA CLARA, Calif. — The Korean clergy families of the California-Nevada Conference gathered at Bethel Korean United Methodist Church to celebrate the New Year together. The event coincided with Martin Luther King Jr. Day, a fitting reminder of the pursuit of hope and unity in the face of challenges. The Rev. J. Martin Lee has the story.
Read story

Alabama-West Florida Conference
Bishop Holston shares hopes for ministry ahead
MONTGOMERY, Ala. — Bishop Jonathan Holston spoke with Mary Catherine Phillips, Alabama-West Florida Conference director of communications, about his vision for ministry. Late last year, he began his assignment overseeing the Alabama-West Florida and North Alabama conferences. In the video, he discusses his family, appointments, the new United Methodist Church and laity involvement.
Watch video

UM News includes in the Digest various commentaries about issues in the denomination. The opinion pieces reflect a variety of viewpoints and are the opinions of the writers, not UM News staff.

Mission can revitalize United Methodism
ABIDJAN, Côte d’Ivoire (UM News) — Wesleyan theology provides a pathway for energizing the denomination, writes the Rev. Dr. Jean Claude Masuka Maleka, a pastor and member of the South Congo Conference. He says that the church has a call to both local and global mission. “To revitalize this church in an increasingly dehumanized and searching world, we must return to the principles of mission according to Methodism’s founder.”
Read commentary

Church and Society
Immigrants deserve grace and mercy
WASHINGTON — Lumping all immigrants “into a caste system of incorrigible criminals” is wrong, says Bishop Julius C. Trimble, top executive of the United Methodist Board of Church and Society. “We as a Church have been called to promote the dignity of every person and resist the temptation to embrace criminalization, incarceration and mass deportation as though these are the best and only solutions to the complex issue of U.S. immigration,” he writes in Part 5 of his Justice Takes Courage series.
Read commentary