gavin's blog

It is with sad news that we share the word that GracePoint UMC will be closing its doors. Quite a bit of energy was spent around the break up of GracePoint UMC into GracePoint Community Church in our methoblogosphere (not to mention to congregations involved). Bishop Scott Jones is quoted,

"We would have liked to continue the GracePoint United Methodist congregation. Unfortunately, there were not enough remaining members to continue the congregation," Kansas United Methodist Bishop Scott Jones said in a news release issued today. "We are disappointed that things worked out this way."

Andrew Conard shares his thoughts saying,

I believe that the new church start that was GracePoint UMC has been and will continue to bear fruit in God’s kingdom.

It is okay that the new church start that was GracePoint UMC did not work out for the Kansas West Annual Conference or the United Methodist Church. I believe that the annual conference should be about starting more new churches, not less as a result of this scenario.

I mentioned similar sentiments to Andrew upon the breakup that a scenario like this does not need linger in our minds in starting a new church (that they might eventually leave the umc) but that whatever we do, we do faithfully and it will bear fruit for the Kingdom of God.

not sure you've seen this open letter to young united methodist leaders, regardless of young/old lay/clergy its worth reading.

as many of you may have heard. gracepoint umc is leaving the umc (the staff and much of the congregation) and creating a new church plant called gracepoint community church. since we are starting to see some commentary come down the feed i figured we'd start compiling some links.

• art ruch has a hard time with this as he saw it happen in his home town (new)
• dan dick has a great critque of the umc & its conflict of paradigms (new)
• shane raynor expands his thoughts on what we can learn from this (new)
• andrew conard with a timeline and opinions
• shane raynor has a quick commentary within his daily round up
• i've put in some thoughts plus a little of what i received in email from the pastor

you can also follow along what gracepoint twittering there might be (note there is also twitter reference to gracepoint as "GP" but that is a bit tougher to search through)

We have been offered three copies of Adam Hamilton's newest book "Enough" which focuses on money, consumption, & the economics of the United States (though I do believe its transferable to most other countries). I am currently reading it and it is quite insightful. Have already found myself referencing some of it in conversations.

So, what do you need to nab one of these freebie copies? Give me your best caption to this photo. You can cheer on your favorite caption if you like. Submit as many times as you like, just keep them clean Shane. Contest is completely subjective & we will announce winners at the end of the week.

If it helps, that is one of the Google Street View capture cars. Happy captioning!

many of you, my faithful readers know that community can happen over the bits & bytes of the internet. the folks behind the disciple study series are seeking to cultivate some disciple communities that will study and grow together. they are currently looking to fill out their facilitator list if you are interested visit the site and drop your name into the hat. tell them i sent ya & they might still let you in. haha! shalom, -gav

one of our progressive methodist pastors, don heatley has a great article posted up at the emergent village blog. if you don't know don, get to know his work, which is much of what his blog is about.

I wonder if, like the student in the parable, this person was studying for the wrong test. When we pass out the number two pencils and evaluate the orthodoxy of others, why are the criteria always issues that Jesus himself never addressed?

As we moved into the Advent season we celebrated the life and morned the death of the beloved Rev. Kathleen Baskin-Ball.

I personally met the reverend at Youth 2007, a quadrennial global um youth event. She was one of our speakers and being cool like I am (not) I was back stage to briefly meet this pastor I had heard so much about. Her words were graceful and love filled to the congregation of 7,000 teenagers. She shared of her fight with cancer and her friendship with Celia Whitler, who is where I first heard of her passing.

The methoblogosphere community, not to mention her facebook pages, has errupted in an outpouring of celebration of the woman that meant so much to so many.

Amy has a wonderful posting, sharing an intimate and powerful witness of her baptizing individuals while in the deep days of hospice care.

Eric shares a his emotional thoughts being close to the family (receiving a call from Bill, her husband).

No blog, no memorial, can ever be eloquent enough to honor the life of such an incredible woman.

One thing I know as a member of the United Methodist Church and constant observer of the church. We are not the best at uplifting all the gifted people in our church as examples for others (especially the younger ones whom I am most concerned with) especially the women in leadership of the church. It is sad to not only feel the loss of a young mother, but a gifted pastor who had not only been recognized by her own tribes, but the church as a whole for all to see and be inspired by. This week is a true loss for the Baskin-Ball family and friends as well as our church.

hey all, i am not the expert, but i've been hanging around with the seo (search engine optimization) geeks a lot lately. what i've been trying to implement from them that i would implore you to do the same is to be a friend to methoblogosphere.

how can yo do this? link!

link, often to other methodist bloggers, and link with descriptive keywords.

what does this mean? the first is easy, go through the blogroll or the aggregator and find some of the interesting posts for others to read. don't assume we all read everyones blog. the number is just too much to be able to do that these days. we count on you to help lift up good postings.

the second part, if you have done the first, is to use keywordings when you link. ie. instead of just saying, "dale has a good video on his church here." say something like "dale tedder posted a great video about Southside United Methodist Church in Jacksonville Florida." this isn't the end all be all of seo, but if we are all in these two practices then we will help each other gain more relevant inbound links & do better for people who are looking for what our various voices are saying. its not something that takes terribly long, and the long term impact on the methoblogosphere on the internet world could be significant.

give it a shot!

shalom

-gav

the foundation for evangelism, a friend of the methoblog has put online their requirement info for grant requests. do you have some vision or dream for a ministry of the church?

check out the foundation for evangelism. they took a chance bringing a bunch of bloggers to a conference a few years back & have invested a large dime to bring about high functioning website capabilities for every church. i don't know if we have the financial status to apply as the methoblog.. actually, i know we don't, but if someone dreamed up a reason to do some changes it might be worth it.

where is God warming up you? it's worth a try isn't it?

• I dream that my local church...
• I hope that Annual Conference this year...
• I hope the United Methodist Church...
  
• The next step in my journey of faith might be...
• I feel that God may be calling me...