A Peculiar Prophet

The poor widow who gave out of her poverty rather than her wealth (Mark 12:42) and the rich young ruler (Luke 18:18-30) who refused to give ...

When women went to the tomb in darkness, on the first Easter morning, they were disheartened by the thought of a large stone placed by the s...

God promised to come, in spite of our sad human history. God vowed to be with us, to show us God’s glory, power, and love. That all sounde...

Matthew 9:9-13 When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” But w...

Friends, we invite you to participate in a discussion with Bishop Will Willimon and the young clergy in the North Alabama Conference: Young...

United Methodism is distinguished from many other churches in that we practice a “sent ministry.” Our pastors are appointed to churches, no...

Church development guru, Tom Bandy, has been most helpful to us in North Alabama as we think our way into the future. Tom Bandy has made a...

One of our Conference Priorities is a new generation of clergy leaders. The United Methodist Church has a long tradition of high education...

Paul Borden is the Executive Minister of Growing Healthy Churches, formerly American Baptist Churches of the West. This region of 220 con...

Time and again, Paul Borden has been so helpful in North Alabama in offering his insights on pastoral leadership and congregational change. ...

Sometime ago I meditated on the plight of our congregations, particularly our small churches, particularly those who limited their mission ...

We have recently added to our conference website the following video on how the North Alabama Conference is making clergy appointments: Cli...

I hear that a number of our thriving churches are taking a critical look at their “contemporary worship” services – the services that we be...

For all of those interested in a Downloadable Discussion Guide for the new Wesley Study Bible, please Click Here .

Last week I introduced the Wesley Study Bible , a new Bible with commentary edited by Joel B. Green and myself. The Wesley Study Bible rep...

On March 7 at Canterbury UMC in Birmingham and on March 14 at Trinity UMC in Hutnsville, I will be leading a discussion on the unique Method...

Click here to see a recent interview with Shane's Wesley Report: Will

In two earlier Bishop’s weekly messages this month I’ve been reflecting upon the journey that we have made as a church, in the past two deca...

Recently I was asked to contribute a commentary on the website of the General Commission on Religion and Race. I reprint it here, as a tho...

Last week I noted some of the things we have learned about how to grow our church and better to position ourselves for reaching a new gener...