These new essays summarize the latest research by highly respected United Methodist scholars, exploring the distinctive doctrines and discipline of the denomination.

Essays include An Untapped Inheritance: American Methodism and Wesley's Practical Theology; The Scripture Way of Salvation: Narrative Spirituality and Biblical Praxis in Early Methodism; Theology, Religious Activity, and Structures of the Lives of Ordinary People; The Doors of Opportunity: Methodist Theological Education, 1866--1925; What Makes "United Methodist Theology" Methodist?; The Church as a Community of...

The title of this volume is as old as the Wesleyan movement and apt for the very latest Methodist theological self-designation. Marks of Methodism points back to John Wesley himself and to his efforts to define the movement. Such marks or hallmarks prescribe a basis for Methodist identity, purpose, and unity. They also serve to differentiate Methodists from other Christians, to sketch the boundaries of our movement, and to mark us off. Marks also invite attention to the conjunction of precept and practice, to the considerable recent affirmation of practices as the traditioning and...

Broken bodies mend. Depressed minds heal. Storm-tossed cities rebuild. Troubled institutions recover. Churches experience renewal. So why not the Methodist Church? This book confronts the facts and invokes the Spirit. It will explore the multiple meaning of recovery and the denomination's prospect for recovering. It will take seriously the possibility that recovery of Methodism may not require--or include--the survival of The United Methodist Church as a denomination. That is part of the mystery of recovery. By confronting provocative questions relating to funding missions, declining...

In Ordained Ministry in The United Methodist Church, author William B. Lawrence gives us a gift in this history of ordination in the Methodist tradition. From our beginnings, ordination has always been about the community. The community confirms one's call, helps him/her make decisions about preparation for ministry, and shares in the supervision and ongoing evaluation of the ordained. Ordination is a communal affirmation for the common good. Dr. Lawrence challenges us to look outside the church to the needs of the whole world as we make decisions about who will be ordained and how they will...