The Man who Moved a Mountain

The Man who Moved a Mountain PDF Author: Richard C. Davids
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9780800612375
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This biography of Reverend Bob Childress of the Blue Ridge Mountains has been compared to the tales of Mark Twain and the Mississippi. Shows Childress' transforming effects on rough and wild mountain communities.

The Man who Moved a Mountain

The Man who Moved a Mountain PDF Author: Richard C. Davids
Publisher: Fortress Press
ISBN: 9780800612375
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 274

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Book Description
This biography of Reverend Bob Childress of the Blue Ridge Mountains has been compared to the tales of Mark Twain and the Mississippi. Shows Childress' transforming effects on rough and wild mountain communities.

Massacre at Sand Creek

Massacre at Sand Creek PDF Author: Gary L. Roberts
Publisher: Abingdon Press
ISBN: 1501825860
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 323

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Book Description
Sand Creek. At dawn on the morning of November 29, 1864, Colonel John Milton Chivington gave the command that led to slaughter of 230 peaceful Cheyennes and Arapahos—primarily women, children, and elderly—camped under the protection of the U. S. government along Sand Creek in Colorado Territory and flying both an American flag and a white flag. The Sand Creek massacre seized national attention in the winter of 1864-1865 and generated a controversy that still excites heated debate more than 150 years later. At Sand Creek demoniac forces seemed unloosed so completely that humanity itself was the casualty. That was the charge that drew public attention to the Colorado frontier in 1865. That was the claim that spawned heated debate in Congress, two congressional hearings, and a military commission. Westerners vociferously and passionately denied the accusations. Reformers seized the charges as evidence of the failure of American Indian policy. Sand Creek launched a war that was not truly over for fifteen years. In the first year alone, it cost the United States government $50,000,000. Methodists have a special stake in this story. The governor whose polices led the Cheyennes and Arapahos to Sand Creek was a prominent Methodist layman. Colonel Chivington was a Methodist minister. Perhaps those were merely coincidences, but the question also remains of how the Methodist Episcopal Church itself responded to the massacre. Was it also somehow culpable in what happened? It is time for this story to be told. Coming to grips with what happened at Sand Creek involves hard questions and unsatisfactory answers not only about what happened but also about what led to it and why. It stirs ancient questions about the best and worst in every person, questions older than history, questions as relevant as today’s headlines, questions we all must answer from within.

Appalachian Mountain Religion

Appalachian Mountain Religion PDF Author: Deborah Vansau McCauley
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252064142
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 584

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Book Description
"A monumental achievement. . . . Certainly the best thing written on Appalachian Religion and one of the best works on the region itself. Deborah McCauley has made a winning argument that Appalachian religion is a true and authentic counter-stream to modern mainstream Protestant religion." -- Loyal Jones, founding director of the Appalachian Center at Berea College Appalachian Mountain Religion is much more than a narrowly focused look at the religion of a region. Within this largest regional and widely diverse religious tradition can be found the strings that tie it to all of American religious history. The fierce drama between American Protestantism and Appalachian mountain religion has been played out for nearly two hundred years; the struggle between piety and reason, between the heart and the head, has echoes reaching back even further--from Continental Pietism and the Scots-Irish of western Scotland and Ulster to Colonial Baptist revival culture and plain-folk camp-meeting religion. Deborah Vansau McCauley places Appalachian mountain religion squarely at the center of American religious history, depicting the interaction and dramatic conflicts between it and the denominations that comprise the Protestant "mainstream." She clarifies the tradition histories and symbol systems of the area's principally oral religious culture, its worship practices and beliefs, further illuminating the clash between mountain religion and the "dominant religious culture" of the United States. This clash has helped to shape the course of American religious history. The explorations in Appalachian Mountain Religion range from Puritan theology to liberation theology, from Calvinism to the Holiness-Pentecostal movements. Within that wide realm and in the ongoing contention over religious values, the many strains of American religious history can be heard.

Mission Possible 3+

Mission Possible 3+ PDF Author: Kay Kotan
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781950899289
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Book Description
Mission Possible, by Kay Kotan and Blake Bradford, has been taken to a new level. In Mission Possible 3+, Kay Kotan and Blake Bradford have re-written and updated their best-selling resource for local churches to better assist congregations seeking to use the simplified accountable leadership structure, often called the one-board model. This expanded third edition includes new resources, activities, and checklists In Mission Possible 3+, Kay and Blake focus on ministry while making meetings fewer in number but larger in meaning. In this book aimed at congregational leaders, particularly United Methodists, the authors provide practical, field-tested steps to simplify your church structure and unleash more people into ministry. Too often churches try to simplify their structures by just having fewer people at the meeting table. But real simplification and accountable leadership means that meetings - and leaders - are transformed. Kay and Blake walk you through both the technical and adaptive changes to simplify your structure for missional effectiveness. Mission Possible 3+ includes more than 50 pages of additional resources, making the transition to a simplified structure even more straightforward.

The Men of the Mountains

The Men of the Mountains PDF Author: Arthur W. Spaulding
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Appalachian Mountains
Languages : en
Pages : 372

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Book Description


Our Strangely Warmed Hearts

Our Strangely Warmed Hearts PDF Author: Karen P. Oliveto
Publisher: Abingdon Press
ISBN: 1501858920
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 167

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Book Description
As John Wesley discovered his true spiritual identity, he experienced a strangely warmed heart. Through poignant stories and well-reasoned principles, Karen Oliveto discloses why and how spiritual renewal and a personal call to ministry emerge in the strangely warmed hearts of lesbian and gay Christians. In The United Methodist Church (and other Christian denominations), it is difficult or impossible for lesbian, gay, transsexual, and bisexual clergy or laity to become a visible and outward channel for God’s saving grace. This book traces the history of the church’s struggle with homosexuality, highlighting critical incidents in the culture and church polity which shape the church’s response. The issues are deeply rooted in the way God’s people understand scriptures, which are interpreted as a means of grace for some and as a rule-book for others. This book includes first-person narratives of LGBTQ persons faithfully serving in a denomination that denies their calls and—in some cases—their presence. These stories will show how the coming out process is deeply spiritual as one grows into an authentic, God-created and graced self. “You are the one who created my innermost parts; you knit me together while I was still in my mother’s womb. I give thanks to you that I was marvelously set apart. Your works are wonderful—I know that very well.” Psalm 139:13-14 (CEB) “Our Strangely Warmed Hearts is a breath of fresh air in the study of the United Methodist struggle and intense debate regarding human sexuality. Karen Oliveto lives in faithful witness and serves people with the heart of Christian leadership."—Bishop Hee-Soo Jung, Wisconsin Conference of the United Methodist Church. “Karen Oliveto offers a compelling window into the steadfast faith and the resilience of the LGBTQ Christian movement in the United States. After offering an extraordinary history of the LGBTQ equality movement in our society and in The United Methodist Church, she rightly asks, 'Is there any other group that we would marginalize in this way?' I wholeheartedly recommend Karen Oliveto's new book to everyone who is affected by the debate over the sacred worth and place of LGBTQ people in our lives and churches. This book inspires hope.” —Michael J. Adee, Ph.D., Director, Global Faith and Justice Project, San Francisco Theological Seminary, San Anselmo, CA “Bishop Oliveto's story mirrors the experience of many LGBTQ ministers who are serving the Body of Christ openly, and not in the shadows. The integrity, courage, and deep faith of God’s LGBTQ people who are called into ministry have enriched the church and encouraged the outsiders who were always welcome at Jesus' table.”–Andy Lang, Executive Director, Open and Affirming Coalition, United Church of Christ “I loved it! It drew me in immediately and kept me strapped in on what I knew would be a roller coaster of painful history, sprinkled triumphs, and then stories that broke my heart, gave me cheer, and brought tears to my eyes. Bishop Oliveto takes readers on a fascinating trip through LGBTQ history, and into the often contentious collision with mainstream religion…and then brings it all together through the personal stories that make our past and present come alive! I applaud Bishop Oliveto’s book and will highly recommend it to the faithful and faith curious of all religions.”–The Reverend Marian Edmonds-Allen, Executive Director, Parity "[Bishop Karen Oliveto] is sharing the love of Jesus, and meeting people where they are, no matter who they are, and no matter what they think about her. She loves them." —Kent Ingram, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado.

Francis Asbury

Francis Asbury PDF Author: Tipple, Ezra
Publisher: Delmarva Publications, Inc.
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 238

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Book Description
Francis Asbury (August 20, 1745 – March 31, 1816) was one of the first two bishops of the Methodist Episcopal Church in the United States. As a young man English-born Francis Asbury traveled to America after being asked by John Wesley. During his 45-year ministry in America he devoted his life to ministry, traveling on horseback or by carriage thousands of miles to faithfully deliver sermons to those living on the frontier. Bishop Asbury's tireless leadership helped spread Methodism in America. He was the single greatest person responsible for establishing the Methodist church in America. He also launched several schools during his lifetime. His journal also left a lasting legacy and is valuable to scholars for its account of frontier society, as well as giving insights into his personal life and ministry. When Asbury arrived in America he climbed on the back of his horse and started riding and preaching the gospel. He never stopped riding and preaching across the land of America until the day he died. He never owned or even rented a house. Day and night, through rain or snow, he said, “I’ll never stop”. He continued saying, "No one will ever know my struggles, I am weary in body and mind”. He also said “All my earthly goods are reduced down to what I can fit in my saddle bags." One of the typical prayers he would say, even on his way to America, was “Lord, we are in thy hands and in thy work. Thou knowest what is best of us and for thy work; whether plenty or poverty. The hearts of all men are in thy hands. If it is best for us and for thy church that we should be cramped and straitened, let the people’s hands and hearts be closed: If it is better for us; for the church,—and more to thy glory that we should abound in the comforts of life; do thou dispose the hearts of those we serve to give accordingly: and may we learn to be content whether we abound, or suffer need” Within the first 17 days of being in the colonies, he had preached in Philadelphia and New York. During the first year he was Mr. Wesley’s assistant and preached in 25 different settlements. When the American War of Independence broke out in 1776, he was the only Methodist minister to remain in America. In 1784, John Wesley named Asbury and Thomas Coke as co-superintendents of the work in America. This marked the beginning of the "Methodist Episcopal Church of the USA". For the next 32 years, Asbury led all the Methodists in America. His manner of life and his ceaseless activities throughout his long and distinguished ecclesiastical career were unmatched. He rose at five every morning to read the Bible, and preached almost every day and many times he delivered more than two or three sermons a day. It was said of him that he was “one of the wisest and most farseeing men of his day”. Like Wesley, Asbury preached in myriad places: courthouses, public houses, tobacco houses, fields, public squares, wherever a crowd assembled to hear him. For the remainder of his life he rode an average of 6,000 miles each year, preaching virtually every day and conducting meetings and conferences. Under his direction, the church grew from 1,200 to 214,000 members and ordained 700 preachers. Among the men he ordained was Richard Allen in Philadelphia, the first black minister in the United States. He lived in an exciting time in American history; Asbury was reported to be an extraordinary preacher. What more need be said of him after he had finished his course, having kept the faith, than was said of La Tour d'Auvergne, the warrior of Breton, fallen in battle, when his name was called and some comrade in arms who held him in loving remembrance, responded, 'Dead on the field'? In this powerful and impressive biography, Ezra Tipple tells of the self-sacrificing life’s journey of Francis Asbury, the Prophet of the Long Road, who spared nothing in his zeal to bring the gospel to America.

Golden Nuggets from the Mountains

Golden Nuggets from the Mountains PDF Author: Fred B. Lunsford
Publisher: WestBow Press
ISBN: 1449708587
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 115

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Book Description
The late 1920' and early 1930's was the time of the Great Depression. Little or no work was available so people could earn money for survival. All mountain families grew vegetables, kept a milk cow and raised some hogs. Those who owned their mountain farms lived well by working hard and managing well. They cut timber to sell and earn a little money necessary for clothing and other things they couldn't grow. It was widely known that gold had been found in the mountains. Men would put in endless hours panning for gold in the small mountain streams. Now and then, someone would find a gold nugget. Most of the time, it would be the size of a pea or maybe the size of a marble. Gold was a symbol of wealth. When someone found a nugget and word got around, everyone would be talking about Uncle Ben striking it rich. However, I never knew of anyone selling his gold for a pile of money. One day, I realized that gold nuggets were not only present in these mountains, but that there were golden nuggets in the experiences of my life in these mountains. It is with great joy that I share these stories with anyone who cares to read them. Fred Lunsford

Wesley's Revision of the Shorter Catechism

Wesley's Revision of the Shorter Catechism PDF Author: John Wesley
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Methodist Church
Languages : en
Pages : 184

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Book Description


Polity, Practice, and the Mission of The United Methodist Church

Polity, Practice, and the Mission of The United Methodist Church PDF Author: Thomas E. Frank
Publisher: Abingdon Press
ISBN: 1426763573
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
"Commissioned by the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry for use in United Methodist doctrine/polity/history courses." This in-depth analysis of the connection between United Methodist polity and theology addresses ways in which historical developments have shaped--and continue to shape--the organization of the church.This revised edition incorporates the actions of The United Methodist General Conference, 2004. The book discusses continuing reforms of the church's plan for baptism and church membership, as well as the emergence of deacon's orders and other changes to ordained ministry procedures. The text is now cross-referenced to the Book of Discipline, 2004, including the revised order of disciplinary chapters and paragraph numbering. Denominational statistics are updated, along with references to recent works on The United Methodist Church and American religious life.