Do United Methodist still hang out here?

[Methodized]

I'm just wondering how many United Methodists still hang out in this forum.

 

[seeking.IAM]

Fifty-year Methodist currently in exile. You can take the boy out of Methodism, but you can't take Methodism out of the boy.

 

[bekkilyn]

I'm here.

 

[Methodized]

I'm here.

A few of us still.

 

[The Liturgist]

By the way renniks, this is a forum for Wesleyan Christians. So that's the viewpoint you should expect to get here.

I hope you might extend that invitation to me, because as I mentioned in another thread I consider myself a Wesleyan Christian, even though I am not presently with the UMC itself, but rather head up a Wesleyan and Patristic focused independent liturgical Congregational ministry.

However on the subject of the UMC and related denominations, recently told @bekkilyn I am a member of a liturgical club called LiturgyWorks, and project no. 2 out of 7 in our workbook is being led by a Methodist minister, and is basically an expansion of the Sunday Service Book for the Methodists of North America, taking Wesley’s original texts and rubrics, preserving them intact, and then providing clearly demarcated supplemental resources, for example, for the different liturgical seasons traditionally observed by the Methodists. The 1947 and 1965 Methodist Episcopal editions of the Book of Worship* are a major impact on it. We are acquainted with some high church Methodist parishes and also a Nazarene parish (which is actually using the Sunday Service Book) which have an interest in it. I would love to get your opinion on it when it is completed, which should be later this year (there is a traditional language Anglican BCP we are working on which shares a lot of resources with it, which is basically the 1928 BCP augmented with additional content, project no. 5 in our workbook, which will likely be first to release, or project no. 6, which is just an expansion of the very influential Congregationalist classic Devotional Services by Rev. John Hunter, with useful additions like a lectionary which is actually a hybrid of the 1965 Methodist Episcopal lectionary and the traditional Gallican* (Mozarabic Rite and Ambrosian Rite lectionaries), which are like it in that they combine an Old Testament lesson with an Epistle and a New Testament lesson, unlike the traditional Roman/Byzantine/Anglican/Sunday Service Book lectionary where you just get an Epistle and a Gospel for Holy Communion and Ante-Communion (also called the Typika in Byzantine parlance). It was necessary to combine them because the Gallican liturgies, while more ancient, and occasionally having more interesting readings, lack an assigned psalm, and also in the Gallican rites, like the Eastern Christian rites but unlike the Roman Rite or the vast majority of Protestant traditions, Advent is six weeks long rather than four.

However I’ve been kind of delaying project no. 6 because project no. 2, the expanded Sunday Service Book, might well be superior (I am not the principal developer of it and it is a question of timing and vocation as I may be taking on a new assignment).

I should add, I have more of an interest in the Revised Common Lectionary thanks to Year D, which addresses my main frustration with it (certain missing pericopes), however, some of the lesson choices for Year D for major feasts like Christmas and Easter).

* I regard the 1965 Methodist Episcopal Book of Worship as one of the best ever Euchologions, or general purpose prayer books, because it contains all the sacraments and sacramental services one could want, as well as Collects for blessing practically anything you can think of, such as for the dedication of a hospital or university, and prayers for nuclear power and the space race, all in beautiful ecclesiastical English (in the modernized traditional style one sees in Rite I of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, or the Revised Standard Version, or the very interesting Knox Bible), in addition to propers for every liturgical season including Pentecost and Kingdomtide, which the Methodist Episcopal Church celebrated from the 1920s until 1989 along with a few other Protestant denominations, along with, interestingly, an increased Roman Catholic focus on the Feast of Christ the King, which replaced Sunday Last Before Advent in the Methodist tradition, as means of stressing “Christ in the world” and the need for Christian society to do more for social change. This consisted of the second half of ordinary time between Pentecost (or Whitsunday as Wesley called it) and the start of Advent. The Pentecost, or perhaps Pentecost-tide season as it might have been better called, to avoid confusion with Eastertide, consisted of the first half, and used red as its liturgical color throughout, whereas the switch to green vestments occurred in Kingdomtide, except on Reformation Sunday.

** The Gallican liturgy was replaced by the Roman Rite starting under Charlemagne, although the Old Roman Rite was “Gallicanized” to a large extent, leading to the Dominican Rite, the Sarum Rite and the other pre-Tridentine** rites such as that of Cologne, on which the Protestant liturgies were based (the BCP which Wesley loved being based mainly on the Sarum Rite and also a proposed revision of the Roman Breviary intended to increase attendance by one Cardinal Quinones; this became the basis for Morning Prayer and Evensong, where Anglicanism was spectacularly successful repopularizing the Divine Office, which in the Roman Catholic Church had become reduced outside of cathedrals and monasteries to a private devotion of the clergy, something they have tried repeatedly, most recently under Pope Pius X and again in the Vatican II liturgical reforms to rectify.

Amazingly, the Gallican Rite proper did survive in enough manuscripts to be revived and is used by some Western Rite Orthodox and Old Catholics. The very similar Mozarabic Rite, which was the predominant liturgy in Spain during the Islamic Andalusian period before the Reconquista, is, or at least was, used by Spanish and Mexican Anglicans (there is an experimental Mexican Book of Common Prayer that is essentially an English translation of the fixed parts of it), but is otherwise nearly extinct, being limited to one chapel in the Roman Catholic cathedral in Toledo and one monastery (there were in the early 1800s a few parishes in Toledo which were Mozarabic, but they eventually wound up switching to the Roman Rite). The Ambrosian Rite on the other hand is still used by a few million people in the region of Milan, Italy; it is somewhat Romanized just as the Roman Rite is somewhat Gallicanized, but as the latter and its derivatives are more Roman than Gallican, the Ambrosian Rite is more Gallican than Roman. Musically at least it has been differentiated from the Roman Rite since at least the time of St. Ambrose in 386.

*** The Tridentine Rite retained all the Gallican influence of the regional pre-Tridentine uses (some of which, like that of Lyon, Braga, the Dominicans and the Carmelites survive even today; the Dominican Rite was the first attempt at providing a unified liturgy so that Dominican friars did not have to observe local liturgical customs, and the Carmelites and Norbertines adopted this practice as well, and is perhaps slightly more Gallican than the Tridentine), and in turn developed into the Novus Ordo or Pauline Rite post Vatican II, which in turn had an enormous influence on Protestant liturgics, with the Revised Common Lectionary, and the answer to “The Lord be with you” being rendered “And also with you.” I have to confess I am not completely happy with either the Novus Ordo or how it impacted the Protestant liturgy, other than the extent to which it promoted a certain liturgical unity around the Revised Common Lectionary and some of the Eucharistic Prayers. That being said I do appreciate the need for services that are at least accessible, to quote Cranmer, “are in a language understanded by the people.” But I feel like we could get away with preserving the second personal pronouns, since most Christians still use them when praying the Lord’s Prayer, and there would be some benefit due to the loss of semantics that occur when they are dropped, even when it comes to translating other contemporary languages like French and German which have retained them.

 

[seeking.IAM]

I am a member of a liturgical club called LiturgyWorks, and project no. 2 out of 7 in our workbook is being led by a Methodist minister, and is basically an expansion of the Sunday Service Book for the Methodists of North America, taking Wesley’s original texts and rubrics, preserving them intact, and then providing clearly demarcated supplemental resources, for example, for the different liturgical seasons traditionally observed by the Methodists.

Had there been a viable movement afoot to bring liturgical worship back to the UMC, I might still be a member as worship format had everything to do with my exile. From where I sit, it seems many UMCs are more interested in casual contemporary worship than a more historic liturgical and reverential worship. I have a great affection for how the UMC once was.

 

[The Liturgist]

Had there been a viable movement afoot to bring liturgical worship back to the UMC, I might still be a member as worship format had everything to do with my exile. From where I sit, it seems many UMCs are more interested in casual contemporary worship than a more historic liturgical and reverential worship. I have a great affection for how the UMC once was.

There are still a surprisingly large number of Methodist parishes with traditional liturgical worship, just not nearly as many as in my youth due to the growth of casual contemporary worship, for which I like you do no have much enthusiasm; also there are a great many parishes with “hybrid” worship, which doesn’t help me much, but you also see that in Roman Catholicism, Lutheranism, even Episcopalianism.

For my part one reason I love the Eastern Orthodox and the other Eastern denominations like the Oriental Orthodox and Assyrians so much is that, aside from the sad case of Maronite Catholics, you will never see an electric guitar or a drum kit in an Orthodox church (Coptic and Ethiopian Orthodox, and Chaldean Catholics, do traditionally use percussion instruments but not during Lent and not in anything like a contemporary style, and indeed their use is so dissimilar that we just as well would pedantically include bells in the list.

 

[Methodized]

I hope you might extend that invitation to me, because as I mentioned in another thread I consider myself a Wesleyan Christian, even though I am not presently with the UMC itself, but rather head up a Wesleyan and Patristic focused independent liturgical Congregational ministry.

I think it is great that you are here! Just every so often we do get people who come into this forum to try to talk Wesleyan Christians out of our beliefs. That actually violates forum rules. (And is just annoying as this is the one haven for Wesleyan Christians in a Forum that seems to largely lean Calvinist.)

However on the subject of the UMC and related denominations, recently told @bekkilyn I am a member of a liturgical club called LiturgyWorks, and project no. 2 out of 7 in our workbook is being led by a Methodist minister, and is basically an expansion of the Sunday Service Book for the Methodists of North America, taking Wesley’s original texts and rubrics, preserving them intact, and then providing clearly demarcated supplemental resources, for example, for the different liturgical seasons traditionally observed by the Methodists. The 1947 and 1965 Methodist Episcopal editions of the Book of Worship* are a major impact on it. We are acquainted with some high church Methodist parishes and also a Nazarene parish (which is actually using the Sunday Service Book) which have an interest in it. I would love to get your opinion on it when it is completed, which should be later this year (there is a traditional language Anglican BCP we are working on which shares a lot of resources with it, which is basically the 1928 BCP augmented with additional content, project no. 5 in our workbook, which will likely be first to release, or project no. 6, which is just an expansion of the very influential Congregationalist classic Devotional Services by Rev. John Hunter, with useful additions like a lectionary which is actually a hybrid of the 1965 Methodist Episcopal lectionary and the traditional Gallican* (Mozarabic Rite and Ambrosian Rite lectionaries), which are like it in that they combine an Old Testament lesson with an Epistle and a New Testament lesson, unlike the traditional Roman/Byzantine/Anglican/Sunday Service Book lectionary where you just get an Epistle and a Gospel for Holy Communion and Ante-Communion (also called the Typika in Byzantine parlance). It was necessary to combine them because the Gallican liturgies, while more ancient, and occasionally having more interesting readings, lack an assigned psalm, and also in the Gallican rites, like the Eastern Christian rites but unlike the Roman Rite or the vast majority of Protestant traditions, Advent is six weeks long rather than four.

However I’ve been kind of delaying project no. 6 because project no. 2, the expanded Sunday Service Book, might well be superior (I am not the principal developer of it and it is a question of timing and vocation as I may be taking on a new assignment).

I should add, I have more of an interest in the Revised Common Lectionary thanks to Year D, which addresses my main frustration with it (certain missing pericopes), however, some of the lesson choices for Year D for major feasts like Christmas and Easter).

* I regard the 1965 Methodist Episcopal Book of Worship as one of the best ever Euchologions, or general purpose prayer books, because it contains all the sacraments and sacramental services one could want, as well as Collects for blessing practically anything you can think of, such as for the dedication of a hospital or university, and prayers for nuclear power and the space race, all in beautiful ecclesiastical English (in the modernized traditional style one sees in Rite I of the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer, or the Revised Standard Version, or the very interesting Knox Bible), in addition to propers for every liturgical season including Pentecost and Kingdomtide, which the Methodist Episcopal Church celebrated from the 1920s until 1989 along with a few other Protestant denominations, along with, interestingly, an increased Roman Catholic focus on the Feast of Christ the King, which replaced Sunday Last Before Advent in the Methodist tradition, as means of stressing “Christ in the world” and the need for Christian society to do more for social change. This consisted of the second half of ordinary time between Pentecost (or Whitsunday as Wesley called it) and the start of Advent. The Pentecost, or perhaps Pentecost-tide season as it might have been better called, to avoid confusion with Eastertide, consisted of the first half, and used red as its liturgical color throughout, whereas the switch to green vestments occurred in Kingdomtide, except on Reformation Sunday.

** The Gallican liturgy was replaced by the Roman Rite starting under Charlemagne, although the Old Roman Rite was “Gallicanized” to a large extent, leading to the Dominican Rite, the Sarum Rite and the other pre-Tridentine** rites such as that of Cologne, on which the Protestant liturgies were based (the BCP which Wesley loved being based mainly on the Sarum Rite and also a proposed revision of the Roman Breviary intended to increase attendance by one Cardinal Quinones; this became the basis for Morning Prayer and Evensong, where Anglicanism was spectacularly successful repopularizing the Divine Office, which in the Roman Catholic Church had become reduced outside of cathedrals and monasteries to a private devotion of the clergy, something they have tried repeatedly, most recently under Pope Pius X and again in the Vatican II liturgical reforms to rectify.

Amazingly, the Gallican Rite proper did survive in enough manuscripts to be revived and is used by some Western Rite Orthodox and Old Catholics. The very similar Mozarabic Rite, which was the predominant liturgy in Spain during the Islamic Andalusian period before the Reconquista, is, or at least was, used by Spanish and Mexican Anglicans (there is an experimental Mexican Book of Common Prayer that is essentially an English translation of the fixed parts of it), but is otherwise nearly extinct, being limited to one chapel in the Roman Catholic cathedral in Toledo and one monastery (there were in the early 1800s a few parishes in Toledo which were Mozarabic, but they eventually wound up switching to the Roman Rite). The Ambrosian Rite on the other hand is still used by a few million people in the region of Milan, Italy; it is somewhat Romanized just as the Roman Rite is somewhat Gallicanized, but as the latter and its derivatives are more Roman than Gallican, the Ambrosian Rite is more Gallican than Roman. Musically at least it has been differentiated from the Roman Rite since at least the time of St. Ambrose in 386.

*** The Tridentine Rite retained all the Gallican influence of the regional pre-Tridentine uses (some of which, like that of Lyon, Braga, the Dominicans and the Carmelites survive even today; the Dominican Rite was the first attempt at providing a unified liturgy so that Dominican friars did not have to observe local liturgical customs, and the Carmelites and Norbertines adopted this practice as well, and is perhaps slightly more Gallican than the Tridentine), and in turn developed into the Novus Ordo or Pauline Rite post Vatican II, which in turn had an enormous influence on Protestant liturgics, with the Revised Common Lectionary, and the answer to “The Lord be with you” being rendered “And also with you.” I have to confess I am not completely happy with either the Novus Ordo or how it impacted the Protestant liturgy, other than the extent to which it promoted a certain liturgical unity around the Revised Common Lectionary and some of the Eucharistic Prayers. That being said I do appreciate the need for services that are at least accessible, to quote Cranmer, “are in a language understanded by the people.” But I feel like we could get away with preserving the second personal pronouns, since most Christians still use them when praying the Lord’s Prayer, and there would be some benefit due to the loss of semantics that occur when they are dropped, even when it comes to translating other contemporary languages like French and German which have retained them.

 

[The Liturgist]

Thank you for the warm welcome @Methodized . The problem of people debating against the congregational SOP has also been a cause of substantial annoyance in the Traditional Theology forum.

Fortunately we do retain a diverse community, among the moderators and administrators, and there are many Lutherans, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics and other liturgical Christians in addition to Methodists and other Wesleyan denominations. And people periodically switch denominations as a result of moving or other issues.

I feel most at home here and in Traditional Theology as a liturgical Christian who not only subscribes to Wesley but venerates him as a saint. Indeed I found a beautiful icon of John and Charles Wesley painted by an Episcopalian:

​

 

[Methodized]

Thank you for the warm welcome @Methodized . The problem of people debating against the congregational SOP has also been a cause of substantial annoyance in the Traditional Theology forum.

Fortunately we do retain a diverse community, among the moderators and administrators, and there are many Lutherans, Anglicans, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholics and other liturgical Christians in addition to Methodists and other Wesleyan denominations. And people periodically switch denominations as a result of moving or other issues.

I feel most at home here and in Traditional Theology as a liturgical Christian who not only subscribes to Wesley but venerates him as a saint. Indeed I found a beautiful icon of John and Charles Wesley painted by an Episcopalian:

View attachment 314570
​

Nice icon! Methodism is both blessed and cursed with diversity. I think it is why we go through splits and mergers so often.

Part of the problem we face is that we never considered the ramifications of trying to be an international Church. Presbyterians, Lutherans, Anglicans, etc. guided Africa and other parts of the world in starting their own individual denominations which then connect through a wider loose communion.

United Methodists created instead conferences of the UMC in other countries meaning that we end up trying to fit the diversity of the world (culture, language, moral views, etc.) all in to one denomination. In doing so we set our selves up for conflict as the diversity is too wide to sustain in one denomination, at least for now. One Book of Discipline just can't cover the needs of all parts of the US (diverse in itself) as well as Europe, Africa, Asia, etc. We are too different from each other to really be bound by one set of rules.

I am not even at all sure the merger of 1939 where the northern Methodists and southern Methodists got back together should have happened. We never resolved the Civil War differences and the differing views on race. We just put all the black churches in a "Central Conference" and largely ignored the racism of that until the 1960s when the Methodist Church merged with the Evangelical United Brethren.

Unity is a good Biblical idea. But unity at the cost of just treatment for all people is a misplaced value.

 

[Ringo84]

My icon says 'Baptist' but I don't remember how to change it. I recently switched to a UM church that I really like.

I....have opinions about this rift over human sexuality but I won't get into it now, particularly because I'm relatively new to the denomination and don't feel as though it's my place to make value judgments.

As far as CF goes I've been a member for years but only occasionally log on when the mood strikes.
Ringo

 

[Methodized]

My icon says 'Baptist' but I don't remember how to change it. I recently switched to a UM church that I really like.

I....have opinions about this rift over human sexuality but I won't get into it now, particularly because I'm relatively new to the denomination and don't feel as though it's my place to make value judgments.

As far as CF goes I've been a member for years but only occasionally log on when the mood strikes.
Ringo

Welcome to The United Methodist Church!

You have joined during a time of transition and change in the UMC. Over the next couple of years, as the Global Methodist Church, breaks off from the UMC we will see what both denominations end up looking like.

I expect the UMC will become the home of centrists and progressives eventually allowing for same sex marriage and the full inclusion of LGBTQ+ individuals in the church. This is already happening in some conferences and regions of the US.

It is hard to say what the GMC will become, as the home of more conservative/traditionalist Methodists. It will depend on how much buy in they get to their new structure in the long run. And, of course, they will end up dealing with the human sexuality issues all over again in a generation or less as straight people continue to have gay children and grandchildren whom they will want welcomed into the church at some point.

 

[The Liturgist]

I myself hope that the schism does not occur, as I have expressed elsewhere. @Methodized I will soon be posting a thread in Denomination Specific Theology in which I will analyze the decline of the mainline denominations and the problems this is causing Christianity as a whole in which I hope you will participate.

 

[Methodized]

I myself hope that the schism does not occur, as I have expressed elsewhere. @Methodized I will soon be posting a thread in Denomination Specific Theology in which I will analyze the decline of the mainline denominations and the problems this is causing Christianity as a whole in which I hope you will participate.

I hate to tell you this, but the schism is happening starting May 1, 2022. The Global Methodist Church officially forms that day and, some churches and conferences are already voting to join it or are poised to do so.

I was originally against a split. But 2019 changed my mind. In 2019 the Traditionalists decided to impose very harsh penalties for pastors who disagreed with the denomination's rules on marriage. It is never a good sign for the future of a denomination when people are punished for honest disagreements.

The reaction to the harsh penalties is that some conferences and jurisdictions have decided that they just won't enforce these rules. This means that now the Book of Discipline is not being fully enforced. It isn't being fully enforced because the majority of United Methodists in the US (at least in several jurisdictions) believe the Discipline is contradicting what they believe their faith and the Bible is telling them to do.

So, harsh penalties for disagreement and a set of rules we can't all agree to follow means that a split is necessary and inevitable.

The Conservatives/Traditionalists decided to be the side to split off so that they could create a whole new denomination that looks like they want it to look. And the centrists and progressives for the most part never wanted to leave the UMC. They just wanted leeway to follow their own consciences on issues of human sexuality.

 

[The Liturgist]

I hate to tell you this, but the schism is happening starting May 1, 2022. The Global Methodist Church officially forms that day and, some churches and conferences are already voting to join it or are poised to do so.

I was originally against a split. But 2019 changed my mind. In 2019 the Traditionalists decided to impose very harsh penalties for pastors who disagreed with the denomination's rules on marriage. It is never a good sign for the future of a denomination when people are punished for honest disagreements.

The reaction to the harsh penalties is that some conferences and jurisdictions have decided that they just won't enforce these rules. This means that now the Book of Discipline is not being fully enforced. It isn't being fully enforced because the majority of United Methodists in the US (at least in several jurisdictions) believe the Discipline is contradicting what they believe their faith and the Bible is telling them to do.

So, harsh penalties for disagreement and a set of rules we can't all agree to follow means that a split is necessary and inevitable.

The Conservatives/Traditionalists decided to be the side to split off so that they could create a whole new denomination that looks like they want it to look. And the centrists and progressives for the most part never wanted to leave the UMC. They just wanted leeway to follow their own consciences on issues of human sexuality.

So perhaps we might discuss this in my upcoming thread, with your permission I will @ tag you because part of the discussion will include the UMC.

 

[seeking.IAM]

One of the things I have been thinking of lately is what is to become of the pastors? While congregations have decisions to make about which way they will go, so do pastors. Is it possible that either the UMC or the Global Methodists will end up with either an over or under supply of pastors? What then?

My deceased dad was a UMC pastor. A conversation amongst my siblings and I has been what side dad would have taken.

 

[Methodized]

So perhaps we might discuss this in my upcoming thread, with your permission I will @ tag you because part of the discussion will include the UMC.

I am open to that with some reservations. This forum site seems to be largely populated by conservative Christians. As a progressive United Methodists I don't always fit in that well in some of the forums here.

 

[Tigger45]

My icon says 'Baptist' but I don't remember how to change it. I recently switched to a UM church that I really like.

I....have opinions about this rift over human sexuality but I won't get into it now, particularly because I'm relatively new to the denomination and don't feel as though it's my place to make value judgments.

As far as CF goes I've been a member for years but only occasionally log on when the mood strikes.
Ringo

Click on Contact us at the bottom of the page and Open a ticket requesting your faith status to be changed to the proper denomination.

 

[Methodized]

Click on Contact us at the bottom of the page and Open a ticket requesting your faith status to be changed to the proper denomination.

Thanks for that help!

I wish the forum had a more comprehensive list of denominations. "Methodist" and "Baptist" are whole families of denominations. I imagine there are Baptists who would like to be able to designate "Southern Baptist" or "American Baptist.", etc.

 

[The Liturgist]

I am open to that with some reservations. This forum site seems to be largely populated by conservative Christians. As a progressive United Methodists I don't always fit in that well in some of the forums here.

I promise you the discussion will be extremely respectful and open to divergent perspectives. So are you ok with me quoting some of your posts in this thread, in that thread, and also tagging you? Likewise @seeking.IAM I want to @ tag you and quote you because I believe the loss of reverent liturgical worship is one of the two primary causes of membership loss.

Basically, just so everyone knows my perspective, I believe that the Liturgical Movement was a good idea, but the RCL and certain changes to the liturgy like the forced implementation of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer in the Episcopal Church, which is a great liturgy by tje way, but forcing it on all the parishes caused a schism (although these days some Episcopalian parishes just use the 1928 BCP without authorization), just as the forced implementation of the Novus Ordo Missae caused a schism, and that while homosexuals have been treated horribly in many denominations, the denomination-wide implementation of policies which could be called scripturally controversial has alienated people, and individual parishes should have the autonomy to accept or reject such proposals and change denominational affiliations, but the primary focus needs to shift to attracting people away from the megachurches of the Joel Osteen / Mark Driscoll variety, and to remove stumbling blocks to that, and that there is a need for a united denomination for liberal Christians that would share resources with the traditional Christians such as church buildings, charitable operations, certain common parts of seminaries, chaplaincy support et cetera, based on something like the Elizabethan settlement, wherein the traditionalists would agree not to engage in, for example, conversion therapy, and the progressives would agree not to, among other things, follow the example of herchurh, formerly known as Ebenezer Lutheran Church, and sell mother goddess rosaries, and on this basis peace could be restored and membership increased.

That is my thesis, so in participating in the thread, that’s what you are getting into. If anyone attacks your ministry, qualifications for ministry, the existence of the mainline churches, the good that the mainline churches continue to do, their importance to society, or questions the need for that, I vow that I will report them if their attack is ad hominem, flaming or goading, and otherwise ask them to leave us in peace to have a respectful dialogue.

In addition I will solicit alternative perspectives, including yours, and vow to respectfully consider these and to not dismiss any idea out of hand and also to refrain from demeaning anyone for their ideas.

@Paidiske can attest that I have repeatedly defended her ministry from attacks by people making stupid posts along the lines of “Rahhh! Women can’t do ministry” despite the fact that the entire nation of Georgia was evangelized by a woman, St. Nino, an Armenian princess, and that St. Paul’s fellow evangelist St. Theclas and St. Mary Magdalene were instrumental in the spread of the early church, and the most important ministry of all I believe was that of the Blessed Virgin Mary, so I can promise a respectful debate and I have the credibility to back it up.

My congregations also have multiple homosexual members and I have sought to rechurch unchurched homosexuals. If you look at the thread in Full and Part Time Ministry, you can see the precise approach I take to that issue. I am also regarded as a liberal Christian by most members of the forum and have posted some ideas in WWMC that struck other liberal members as frankly too liberal, for example, my idea of creating an edited version of the Gospel of Thomas and certain other NT apocrypha that featured heretical content removed, based on the belief that several of these texts were of apostolic origin but were appropriated by and edited to reflect the false doctrines of various heretical cults such as the Ebionites, Valentinians, Tatianists, Severians, Manichaeans and others, and my idea of using as a catechtical tool a process by which people in a group setting would be encouraged to write a “Gospel narrative” which reflected their understanding of the Holy Gospel, the Good News that the Church proclaims and which is described in Scripture, with the catechist mentoring them and helping them avoid any theological errors or misunderstandings, and these could be read in a special service on a Saturday or Sunday evening prior to Vespers/Evensong celebrating their completion of the catechesis.

With that said, I hope you will agree to participate with me, a fellow Wesleyan, who is also at present working two Congregationalist ministries using services adapted from the beautiful liturgies of Rev. John Hunter’s Devotional Services, and I also want to invite any of you who are interested to review or participate in the LiturgyWorks group I am involved in and our projects, which include a traditional Methodist book which is actually designated project no. 1, and a replacement for the 1928 Episcopalian BCP and alternative to the 2019 ACNA BCP for continuing Anglicans, which features content from the 1979 BCP in traditional language and is modularized for use by persons of different churchmanship (I think that is project no. 5; we have about 8 going at present with three or four more under consideration). Indeed your involvement in that is even more desired than your participation in my thread about my desire and ways to save the mainline churches.