United Methodist News Service – Recent Articles

• Social media enables community around news
  Social media has extended The United Methodist Church’s reach and revolutionized the way UM News reports. However, those advances come with challenges.
• Rural churches emerging from coronavirus
  Small, rural churches struggled through the coronavirus pandemic, but many of them are now enjoying the return to in-person services and looking to the future.
• Living as a United Methodist pastor in Nomadland
  Like the main character in the Oscar-winning film, itinerant pastors learn to form community and connection even though they are always on the move.
• Online gamer ministry offers unique outreach
  When a video game-playing pastor realized the strong communities that gamers were building online, he saw an untapped opportunity for ministry.
• Black father prepares sons for racial injustice
  “I have no positive to give you,” one son says. In a commentary, the Rev. Byron Thomas calls on white fathers to teach their sons about racial injustice, too.
• Nurse leads Korean church’s vaccine ministry
  Thanks to its Healthy Church Team, Emmaus United Methodist Church in Richmond, Virginia, attains 100% vaccination rate.
• Connecting with people through prayer
  The Rev. Jacqui King, a longtime United Methodist leader, found a new ministry praying with strangers. Her experience can help people reconnect with God and each other as pandemic restrictions lift.
• Groups help alleviate hunger in Zimbabwe
  UMW, The Nyadire Connection and Harare East District combine efforts to assist vulnerable families, older adults and theology students.
• Cicadas show up for church, testing clergy
  This year’s massive ‘Brood X’ population of the flying, droning insects has in-spired sermons but also caused pastors to alter outdoor church services.
• Systems that nurtured me had opposite effect on others
  Understanding white privilege leads to a commitment to changing society’s racist structures.