Agency invites church members to online dialogue July 8
6/19/2003 News media contact: Tim Tanton · (615) 742-5470 · Nashville, Tenn. By United Methodist News Service United
Methodists are being encouraged to participate in an online
conversation July 8 about the future of the denomination and what it
means to be a global church.
The "Forum on the Future" webcast
will be at 8 p.m. Eastern time at www.gcom-umc.org/future.
Denominational leaders and scholars, meeting in Detroit, will be in
dialogue with one another and listeners around the world. The United
Methodist General Council on Ministries and the denomination's
Inter-Agency Research Task Force are sponsoring the two-hour event.
The
webcast follows an initial "Forum on the Future" dialogue Feb. 26,
which originated in Nashville, Tenn. Both share the same theme, "What in
the World Are We Talking About? Strengthening our Global Connection and
Ecumenical Relationships." The first dialogue focused on this question
from a U.S. perspective, and the upcoming webcast will focus on it from
the perspective of the church's central conferences - regional units
outside the United States.
"The first Forum addressed a wide
range of issues about the church and its changing world, and we expect
the second one will as well," said Craig This, director of the Council
on Ministries' office of research and planning in Dayton, Ohio. "The
first one showed us how diverse the U.S. culture is. The second one will
show us how diverse the world culture is as we hear from individuals
from Africa, Asia, and Europe."
The panelists will include United
Methodists from the central conferences - Emma Cantor, the Philippines;
Solomon Chiripasi, Zimbabwe; Øyvind Helliesen, Norway; and Roland
Siegrist, Austria - all of whom serve on the Council of Ministries. They
will join Bishop Alfred Johnson, leader of the New Jersey Area and
chairperson of the Advance for Christ and His Church, and two panelists
from the first webcast - the Rev. Bruce Robbins, top staff executive of
the United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious
Concerns, and Jay Williams, a member of the Council on Ministries.
The
Forum on the Future will also include Betty Jane and Martin Bailey,
co-authors of Who are the Christians in the Middle East? for part of the
conversation.
The conversation will focus on the United
Methodist Church's relationships with surrounding cultures, particularly
those outside the United States.
Small groups and individuals
are encouraged to participate in the Forum on the Future, and a bulletin
board has been created to generate conversation before the webcast.
People can log on to the bulletin board and talk about topics related to
the global nature of the church or begin submitting questions for the
panelists.
"We had roughly 500 computers logged on to the last
Forum on the Future," This said, "but there is no way to know how many
of these were single users or groups. Our hope is by having these groups
register we can get a better feel for our audience, and see how well
this format works to bring people together to discuss the future of the
church."
More details are available by contacting This at research@gcom-umc.org.
# # #
This report was adapted from a General Council on Ministries release.
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