Outreach

Retired United Methodist pastor Martin Thielen reaches out to skeptics and struggling Christians, offering help and solidarity through his website, Doubter’s Parish. Photo courtesy of the Rev. Martin Thielen.

Retired pastor starts online ‘Doubter’s Parish’

After setting United Methodist church work aside, the Rev. Martin Thielen reaches out to skeptics and struggling Christians, offering help and solidarity.

Annual Conferences

Nathan Jans, bundled up for the cold, assists with a recent food distribution at First United Methodist Church in Sioux Falls, S.D. With economic distress accompanying high COVID-19 numbers in the state, the church has become a partner with the nonprofit Feeding South Dakota. Photo courtesy of the Rev. Sara Nelson.

Dakotas Conference feels pain of COVID-19

United Methodist churches in North and South Dakota step up ministry even as clergy and members join ranks of those infected.

Local Church

Billie Jean Baker has an apartment now but for about three years had no home of her own and often slept outside Dallas’ Oaklawn United Methodist Church. She recently received a Harry Denman Evangelism Award for helping the church expand its ministry with the homeless. Photo by Sam Hodges, UM News.

Evangelism award winner slept outside church

Billy Jean Baker is honored for using her personal experience with homelessness to help Dallas’ Oak Lawn United Methodist Church open its doors wider.

Disaster Relief

The Rev. Catie Newman prays with John W. Weaver in front of a neighbor’s wind-damaged home while a United Methodist volunteer team makes emergency repairs to his roof in Marion, Iowa. Weaver’s mobile home was severely damaged during a derecho windstorm Aug. 10. Newman is the disaster response coordinator for the Iowa Conference.

Church leads storm recovery in Iowa

United Methodist volunteers are coming from all over Iowa and other states to help following an Aug. 10 derecho windstorm that left a 700-mile path of destruction.

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