Haven’t seen me write much on foreign countries here, have you?
I’ve written about the building of really inexpensive schools in Angola by Rise, International.
I’ve written a story about a Methodist missionary who will is trying to teach Zambian farmers to be productive.
I wonder what he is doing this time of increasingly expensive food.
This probably won’t be of interest to anyone but Methodists, but it is of extreme importance to the future of the United Methodist Church.
Ivory Coast has 677,355 members.
How does that compare with other conferences?
Why is that significant?
Virginia, the largest in the United States 341,264 lay members, according to an Institute of Religion and Democracy article.
It means that, instead of two out of about 1,000 delegates, they could have 70 delegates four years from now.
“The Ivorians, along with other Africans and American evangelicals, favor traditional church teachings and will bring refreshing renewal to our church.,” is the way the Institute’s Mark Tooley assessed the change.
The times they are a changin’ in the international Methodist Church.
What we call “new members of the UMC” are mostly simply “new church transferees.”
This is not what evangelism means.
This is simply church transfering.
I can even say this is church proselytizing.
This is true in America, and it is also true in all our UM churches outside America. Are we not kidding ourselves?
What would Jesus say to us if Jesus were here today?
Or, what would John Wesley say to us if he were with us today?
Will Jesus or John Wesley be glad that we have new church transferees? We call this “Church Growth”?
We are just, I think, playing statistical deadworks.”