For the next few weeks I’ll be focusing on some of our distinctive Wesleyan beliefs from my book on that subject.

This week, I continue to focus on some of our distinctive Wesleyan beliefs from my book on that subject.

No motif in the Wesleyan tradition has been more consistent than the link between Christian doctrine and Christian living. Methodists have always been strictly enjoined to maintain the unity of faith and good works, through the means of grace… The coherence of faith with ministries of love forms the discipline of Wesleyan spirituality and Christian discipleship…. Discipline was not church law; it was a way of discipleship. (The United Methodist Book of Discipline)

Our Lord Jesus preached peace, but “not as the world gives.” Peaceful Jesus was from the first a disturber of the status quo. Alas, too often Jesus’ followers have been on the side of peace at any cost, peace as the world gives in opposition to Jesus.

For the next few weeks I’ll be focusing on some of our distinctive Wesleyan beliefs from my book on that subject.

A Christmas story, can’t remember where I heard it, but I tell it to you as you begin your own celebration of Christmastide.

Christmas is a time of giving. One of the great gifts of the North Alabama Conference is Urban Ministry. This year we celebrated the 35th Anniversary of this vital ministry to the community (West Birmingham) that has the lowest median income in the entire state with a poverty rate of over 40%. Urban Ministry serves more than 7000 each year through the Community Kitchen, Food Pantry, Homelessness Prevention and Emergency Services programs. Then there’s the Urban Kids after-school and summer learning program, the Joe Rush Center for Urban Mission (which offers exterior house painting), and West End Community Gardens (17,000 volunteer hours were given by people this year!).

 “The North Alabama Conference is a model of how to respond to a natural disaster and how to keep responding over the long haul.” That’s what a fellow bishop said to me the other day.

I agree. I couldn’t be more proud of our sustained, active response to the spring storms. We have been hosts to hundreds of UM work teams every week since the storms. We have purchased and equipped staging areas and housing for these volunteers, and we continue to handle hundreds of cases. I asked Nancy Cole, who has been responsible for designing an excellent system of response.

This is the story we Christians name as “Incarnation.” It is a strange, inexplicable story that we happen to believe is true, the story that explains everything, the key to what’s going on between us and God. It is the story that we encounter each year at Advent, that season of reflection and penitence before Christmas.

S.T. Kimbrough, a great treasure of our Conference, is the foremost living scholar on the hymns of Charles Wesley. S. T. called my attention to Wesley’s hymn, “Happy the Multitude,” in which Wesley says that we Christians should banish “mine” from our vocabulary. On this week of Thanksgiving, pray with me this prayer, Wesley’s poetic response to Acts 4:32, “The multitude of them that believed, were of one heart, and one soul; neither said any of them, that aught of the things which he possessed, was his own, but they had all things in common. Neither was there any among them that lacked.”

I appointed Mike Edmondson to our Helena congregation in 2008. Since then, the church has experienced a remarkable turnaround. I have been studying Mike’s leadership and the moves that this congregation has made in the past few years and wanted to share some of what I have learned by observing Helena by asking Mike to describe some of the most important leadership moves.

Christians are made, not born,“ said Tertullian.  No Christian virtues are innate.  Nothing about following Jesus comes naturally.  Therefore, so much that the church does for us is formational, educational, and transformational.

Take the virtue of gratitude. Don’t let anybody tell you that gratitude is innate.  Why else would parents need to instruct their child, “Say thanks to the nice lady for the candy – or you will be punished?”

A primary task of the church is to take otherwise normal, innate, American tendencies and to re-form them in the light of Jesus.

A reflection on one of the most relentless figures of the Civil Rights Movement, the Reverend Fred Lee Shuttlesworth, who died this week in Birmingham.

While leading the rebuilding of our beloved Woodlawn Church in Birmingham, The Reverend Matt Lacey has also led a revitalization of our Conference mission work, a vibrant tradition of the North Alabama Conference. I have marveled at all of the ways Matt, a true missionary among us, has led us. Grateful for Matt’s work in immigration ministry, I asked him to be our representative in the work of Dream Sabbath. Here is how your congregation can be part of this ministry this October.

Most mainline protestant churches are in decline, the churches of North Alabama are no exception. But not all. I’ve made it my business to visit our growing congregations in order to learn more about why they are thriving.

Our own S.T. Kimbrough, master theologian, historian, poet and missionary, shared with me a hymn that he wrote to think about and to pray after 9/11. I share it with you as an offering from one of our Conference's most distinguished pastors.

I couldn’t be more proud of the way that the churches of our Conference not only responded to the Eastertide storms in our state but have, throughout the summer, kept responding. It is one thing to respond in the heat of a crisis; it is another thing to keep on responding for the long haul.

One of the joys Patsy and I have had is the establishment of an endowment for the Bishop’s Lectureship at our Huntingdon College. I am thrilled that this year’s lecturer on September 20 is Dr. Wayne Flynt. I encourage all of our people, particularly our clergy, to be present for his 7:30 p.m. lecture on the timely Christian topic, “The Lord is the Maker of Them All: Black, White, and Poor in America."

One of our most productive innovations in the way we appoint pastors has been our First 90 Days program. Every full time pastor who moves is asked to devise a First 90 Days plan, stating the goals and activity during the first 90 days. The District Superintendent and pastor work with the lay leadership to follow the plan and to be sure that every pastor gets off to a good start. We have not had a single pastor, who followed the First 90 Days plan, to have difficulty in making the transition into a new congregation. Daniel Pope is one of the pastors whom I asked to report regularly on his First 90 Days. I wanted to share Daniel’s excellent work with you. - Will Willimon

Our Conference has pioneered the use of metrics in ministry in our Conference Dashboard. Our Dashboard shows the spiritual health of churches each week showing the most reliable indicators of spiritual vitality, not only of a church’s participation in Connectional Giving, but also professions of faith, baptism, attendance, and service to those in need. Others in the United Methodist Church are taking note and starting to follow our lead. I thought you would find the following article from The United Methodist Reporter interesting. - Will Willimon