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worship

07-01-07 Pastoral Prayer

This was the first weekend in which I was a part of the worship services in the main sanctuary. This is the prayer which I used in the service. Pastoral Prayer We lift our minds to the Maker of the mountains we cannot climb. We lift our hearts to the Calmer of the oceans raging […]

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kansas leadership united methodist church

Preparation

I have been preparing for an examination with the Board of Ordained Ministry in connection with my request for Probationary Membership and Commissioning. Today, I have been focused on responding to questions from paragraph 329.4 from The Book of Discipline of The United Methodist Church 2004. When ready to submit to the conference level board, […]

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A New Kind of Christian – Book Review

The following document is a part of my 2007 Goals. I would enjoy hearing your comments and feedback. Enjoy! Conard 1 Andrew Conard The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection 2 January 2007 A New Kind of Christian In this paper, I will attempt to summarize some of the central themes of A New Kind […]

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united methodist church

2007 Goals

A portion of one of my goals for 2007 includes: Reading books on the subject of the emerging movement within the Christian church and writing a two page summary of the book to include: summary of themes, possible applications and relevance to the United Methodist Church and possible applications and relevance to The United Methodist […]

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blog

History of Religion

A post at churchrelevance.com brought my attention to a visual representation of the geopgraphy of religion over 5000 years. I found it to be a fascinating look at broad sweeps of history. You can find this 90 second clip at Maps of War via this link. Thanks, Kent.

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Candlelight Christmas Eve – Preparation

My office at the church is just down the hall from the office work room. Every Thursday afternoon I hear the thump-thump-thump of the risograph machine churning out Sermon Notes and Study Guides and Prayer Guides for the bulletin. This week, however, production has started for Candlelight Christmas Eve bulletins and will continue through tomorrow. […]

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united methodist church

FaithWork

On Saturday, I was able to take part in a mission project with my small group. At The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, one of the entry level mission opportunities is called FaithWork. It was a great experience. We arrived on Saturday morning, signed up for one of about a dozen projects that were […]

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Cherry Vanilla Scented Windshield Fluid

Yesterday I purchased windshield washer fluid for my vehicle. When I went to the local auto store and asked for windshield washer fluid, they pointed me to a stack of boxes. There were two choices: evergreen and cherry vanilla. They were both windshield fluid with de-icer. However, I had never considered the possibility of having […]

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leadership

Hospital Visits

Tuesday is my assigned day for hospital visits. Each of the pastors of Congregational Care has a particular day to which we are assigned to visit people in the hospital, pray before surgery, etc. Today I had five visits in four different and traveled forty miles. This has been the busiest day for me thus […]

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Church Names and Clarifications

In this blog, I tend to use different names when referring to particular communities. Language is important and I want to try to clarify what I mean. References may include the following:community of faith – a gathering of people united by a particular faith. This could be of any faith tradition.the church – the universal […]

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leadership

Cultural Awareness

An article titled “Pastors less informed about popular culture than are the people in their churches” was recently brought to my attention in this post by Kent at Church Relevance. From the article at Ellison Research: Sellers [Ron Sellers, President of Ellison Research] also noted that one criticism people often have about churches is that […]

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leadership united methodist church

My Response to Embers of the Fire

In a previous post, Embers of the Fire, I posed several questions in regards to revitalization of churches. My responses are…Do these reflections apply to your community of faith?I believe that these reflections apply to my current community of faith. At this time, the local church of which I am a part is considering ways […]