Over the last two days 80 pastors of the largest churches in United Methodism gathering in Atlanta to experience what Wesley referred to as Christian conferencing. Meeting in groups of eight, with pastors of varying size churches (from 1,200 to 8,000 per weekend in worship) from varying geographical locations and from often quite different theological [...]
I’m writing this post from Atlanta where I’ve been serving as leader and moderator of a gathering of 80 of the 100 largest churches in the United Methodist Church (at least in the U.S.). These churches range in size from about 1,200 per weekend in average worship attendance (based upon 2005 stats – the [...]
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Travel to South Africa! In this weeks message, Rev. Hamilton takes us on his journey through the townships outside of Johannesburg and Durban. Well meet some of the people there, and well come to understand the challenges they face every day. Well also get a glimpse of the extraordinary ways the church is [...]
LaVon and I just saw the movie, Swing Vote, with Kevin Costner. We found the film to be a fun, feel good movie with a biblical message that comes right out of Amos or Ezekiel (see Ez. 34:1-10 where Israel’s political and religios leaders – her “shepherds” are chastised). In the film the presidential [...]
Over the next few weeks I’m finishing preparations for Church of the Resurrection’s Leadership Institute. The aim of this event is to equip, inspire and encourage United Methodist and other mainline church leaders as they seek to lead their churches to greater vitality, health, and effectiveness in making disciples of Jesus Christ and transforming the [...]
One afternoon, while in northern Zambia, our team was invited to visit the homes of the people in a small bush village. We delivered blankets (it is winter in the southern hemisphere right now – in Zambia temperatures will drop into the 40’s at night on the coldest nights) and food parcels (corn [...]
[This is the third of four installments about our recent Africa mission trip.]
After spending two days in Zambia our team returned to South Africa, flying to the city of Durban on the Indian Ocean. The population of greater Durban is 3.5 million. It has a beautiful and scenic downtown along the ocean. [...]
[I had intended to post photos and commentary from Africa over the last two weeks but I had no Internet access from my computer, so what follows over the next few days are chronological posts of a few of the things we experienced and did while in Africa.]
After our first full day in Johannesburg, [...]
