What Facebook can teach us about ministry

It’s become everyone’s guilty pleasure. It’s that one place you go when you don’t feel like working or paying attention and you just want to see what’s going on in the world. It’s become one of the biggest time-wasters in life and yet, it’s also become one of the first places where we share and announce life events. Relationships are no longer “official” until they are announced here. Acquaintances and friendships are not legitimized until they are “official” here. Job interviews can be ruined if too much information is exposed here. What am I talking about? The answer is Facebook.

Church hospitality in the mountains

My wife and I spent a few days in the North Georgia mountains last week and enjoyed the rare opportunity of sitting in a pew together at a Sunday morning worship service.  Pastors have few occasions to sing from the same hymnal with a spouse.

Equip yourself for effective ministry with Pathways to a Healthy Church

Churches looking for new ideas, networking opportunities and practical, quality training for their pastors, parishioners, staff and leaders need look no further than this year’s Pathways to a Healthy Church conference.

Events in the South Georgia Conference - 8/5/2011 Edition

Gateway Community UMC reaches out in Rincon

This ain’t your mama’s church. With advertising materials that show a man’s heavily tattooed arm pointing to a passage in the Bible and copy that reads, “Same Bible, Different Church,” Gateway Community United Methodist Church hopes to attract people who might be more like the man in the photo than the “typical” churchgoer.

Q&A with Rev. Tommy Martin - Macon District Superintendent

Macon is my home.  I spent the first 17 years of my life here in a great neighborhood in Shirley Hills with lots of kids and historic Alexander III School.  Church was also a big part of our lives then. My parents were married at Mulberry; I was baptized and confirmed there. I participated in the great city-wide youth programs offered at Mulberry. Those times were foundational for me. Church, community, family.

Reading program helps church connect with community

While his friends are outside playing during the summer, every Tuesday and Thursday 8-year-old Artez Pennymon has been hitting the books, or one book in particular: “Super Fudge” by Judy Bloom. “We’re practicing reading,” he says. “It’s like school, but better.”

Choosing a Community

How did you decide to live where you now live? Maybe during your lifetime you have lived in several different places and in each one for a different reason. I occasionally meet persons who have never lived anywhere else than where they live now, though that is less common than it used to be. But have you ever decided to move from one community to another because someone important to you lived there?

Empowering the Needy

Boaz is the strong, stalwart figure in the Book of Ruth – just the kind of person we had hoped would come along. Naomi had both acknowledged the desirability and denied the possibility of Ruth's finding a new husband if she went with her to Bethlehem. But wonder of wonders, it happened!