I had someone pledge $150 per year for my Substack today, with a personal note to say how much they appreciate what I'm doing. I had someone sign up on Locals this week, pledging $200 per month for the effort. Another person wrote and asked to just donate to my church. Another person committed to ask his church board to start giving regularly.
All this to say I'm really encouraged. There seem to be a lot of folks who see what I'm trying to do and are willing to spend the resources to make future efforts of higher quality. I know it's frustrating on weeks like this one, when I'm not able to produce as much and my tech setup doesn't work as well. These kinks will get ironed out, I will convince people to come alongside me, and we will gain some ground in the conversation about what modern Methodism needs to look like.
Y'all know my heart. I'm not in this to get rich. I make more money than I need. I don't want nice things. I just want to build a muscular ministry to do a lot of amazing things for the glory of Christ my Savior. I plan to give an accounting of every dollar given at the end of the year so that y'all can see that I'm not pocketing any of this. I hope this is something that you can look back on and be really glad that you supported because it bore a lot of fruit and made some things possible that were not otherwise going to happen. I'm hopeful about the future, despite all of the signs that we are headed for a rough time. God is faithful. I'm really glad to have faithful friends to pray for and support me as I pour myself out for this faith tradition that I love.
I'm publishing this here first to convey my thanks to those of you who have supported my work. Thank you.
Episode 1 takes up marriage, divorce and remarriage. Going into Johannesburg, our Book of Doctrines and Discipline told the world who could marry and never once used the word "divorce." On the last morning of General Conference, in about fifty minutes of floor debate, that changed. I walk Petition 1020 through its whole life: the language we inherited, Jonathan Lee's petition, the committee's 35–1 vote, and Saturday on the floor. That meant Rich Hoffman's amendment, Matt O'Reilly's rewrite, a motion to send the whole thing away for six years, and a final vote of 329–41.
Then we open Matthew 19 and 1 Corinthians 7 and ask what the church said, and what it chose not to say. I land somewhere between grateful and uneasy, and I want to hear where you land. The free discussion guide sets the old and new texts side by side, gives both sides in the delegates' own words, and has ...
I don't know why the live stream didn't work today. Here is what I did:
Update: I know I said I would start back up this week. I could easily start the morning live stream back up, but I have been feeling like I need to do some wrap-up on General Conference. It just took me some time get clear on what I would feel good about doing. And I finally got some really good thoughts together after a lot of percolation. Early next week, I should be publishing some very decent work on explaining some of the more impactful developments in Johannesburg. For right now, I'm aiming at eleven episodes dealing with:
1. Marriage, Divorce and Remarriage: how the church put words about divorce into our Book of Doctrines and Discipline on the final morning
2. Sex and Gender Identity: the rewriting of ¶302.8
3. Protecting the Unborn and the Mother: our new language on abortion
4. The Racial Theology Resolution: Resolution 1466, adopted and then defeated on a revote
5. The Articles of Faith: a new doctrinal standard for the Global Methodist Church
6. Restrictive Rules and the ...
