Two legal issues related to disaffiliation have been in the news this week. The first one: The lawsuit against the Florida Conference has been dismissed for similar reasons as the Western North Carolina suit: separation of church and state/The UMC has it’s own governing and judicial bodies to handle this. The second one: A lawsuit […]
The gun rights/ownership debate continues to be an interesting one for me. I grew up rural, learned how to use guns, how to respect them, and what they were used for, and how to store them. If you grew up rural, guns were mostly for hunting, recreation (target, skeet, making noise), and protecting the animals […]
I’ve been seeing this lately in Methodist circles and wanted to point out the flaw in it. Social Holiness is not the same as Social Justice. They can be related, but are not the same, and you harm both by conflating them. For Wesley, Social Holiness is the practicing of our faith as as community. […]
A version of this post first appeared on my Facebook Page on March 22nd, 2023. A UM News Article about some Judicial Council rulings. They came down in one decision. The first ruling is that we can have elections if there are vacancies in the delegations for whatever reason. The second, and more interesting thing […]
This originally appeared on my Facebook page on March 21, 2023 The lawsuit filed by several churches in the Western North Carolina Conference to sue the conference and Bishop has been dismissed. It has been dismissed, from my understanding, on grounds that the UMC has it’s own mechanism for handling the issues at play and […]
A version of this post originally appeared on my Facebook Page on March 21, 2023. UM News reported that the Eurasia and Estonia United Methodists Churches have begun the process of leaving the denomination. However, if you recall, there was a Judicial Council ruling that stated that Annual Conferences could not leave as a whole, […]
Bless this land to which we’re boundBy gravity of joyful soundFeed the hearth and feed the herdHope must stand on every word -Emily Scott Robinson “Men and Moons” This song lyric spoke to me as it closed out the concert I attended last Friday. Emily Scott Robinson wrote the song “Men and Moons” as an […]
In my time off this weekend, we went to the Mint Museum in Charlotte. It was there I came across a piece of art made from bread ties. It reminded me of my love for pop art, found object, and even some of Dada, because it uses the things we see each day and lifts […]
(This post originally appeared on my Facebook – facebook.com/j.lemastersmith on February 16, 2023) A friend and I went to a concert last night. It was a smaller venue, but it was a sold out crowd. The opener was from Oklahoma, and the main performer, Charles Wesley Godwin was from West Virginia. The feeling I got […]
One rural reality that seems to be overlooked is mission and service. Often, denominational bodies continue to push mission as this singular thing a church does. For a while it was going on a mission trip, and then “big event” missions, and then it is regular service as a group in the community. However, if […]
Jonathan LeMaster-Smith 