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People are different. Some might hear wrath first. However, for me the wrath did no good. When I figured out the connection between the love of God and the cross that connection made me believe that I could give my life my life to God through Jesus and that he really would forgive my sin and welcome me into his eternal kingdom. We need to be careful when we say that one way or another is the only way to lead people to Jesus. I am a GMC Elder and former UMC pastor for 33 years. In that time I have seen people come to Jesus in many and varied ways.

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Good thoughts, but as an administrator on the Facebook group Jeffrey Rickman quotes, I want to add a key point. There were numerous people who responded to his post, who have long agreed with the diagnosis that Jeffrey has made, but who find the quote he cited on the OP to be an overstatement of that diagnosis. When we preach and teach, we definitely must re-establish doctrines of the fall, of sin, and of holiness (I completely agree with that), but when we witness one-on-one there is no universal starting point. There are people who do need to first be challenged directly about the sin in their lives, but there are others who carry so much self-condemnation (which can also come from Satan) that they do need to hear the "good news" part of the Gospel first, before they can hear anything else. (e.g. Bishop Moore is the founding pastor of a church for single moms, which intentionally reaches out to people coming out of jail and addiction - they may already be in touch with the fact that there is something wrong with them.)

In the LCMS and industrialization ,on set of corperate inflictions..Orthodox Lutherans..🤔☝️🕊️

White & Wilson are way off base with this.

It seems to me this is totally illegal. Denomination governments are intrinsically evil. You should fight this in court.

As a young Clergy; I pastor a church by myself in the GMC. I've not been an associate, and I agree with the assessment of Kevin Watson--and what I seemed to gather from this video--that seminary focus ins't to disciple the pastor, nor is it the focus of the denomination. At least it defiantly wasn't in the UMC. I always felt that was my largest frustration in the UMC going through residency in ministry, etc, is that the focus was not to disciple the young clergy so we are prepared, but rather to 'educate' us on whatever they thought was important. Jeff, my question is; do you have any advice on how to seek out being discipled by someone so that I can be better equipped to disciple and lead the Church God has brought me to serve? In my mind that would be the purpose of being an associate at a church, to have a 'spiritual father' as you and Kevin talked about. But how should I go about finding a personal spiritual leader while I myself am tasked with being the primary spiritual leader for a community? Thanks!

This is the big danger of being a part of an ecclesiastical hierarchy Church system, like the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the Anglican Church, and others. The headquarters, most likely, OWNS the building that you worship and pay your tithes and offerings in. Also your pastor works for the hierarchy. They pay his salary. Not the local Church. Some Baptist Churches are like this system in some varying degrees (e.g. The Southern Baptist Convention).

The problem is that churches AGREE to let something go into a SECULAR court. Otherwise, it is completely a church matter in the sacred realm and not the secular. So, pastors and churches should never agree to go to a secular court. (My thoughts)

It is very nice that you offer prayer in your video. Blessings in Christ Jesus.

I well recall my 31 year old parents expressing concern when the UMC formed in 1968. I was eleven years old. Dad had been Methodist all his life. They voted with their feet about two years later as we left for a Baptist congregation. I came to Christ in a Methodist church and continue to be interested (and saddened) by developments such as you reported in this episode.

Hate, fear, and retribution is no part of Christianity.

I would like to see an Anglican Church take the property. usually Anglicans would be gracious to share the property.

After witnessing the ways in which the woke progressives hijacked the UMC, it is long overdue for the UMC to change it's name to the Progressive Methodist Church. They are no longer "united". This new version of the UMC now worships other gods.

From the Philippines.Here there are churches who have left the UMC and seized control of their properties.The Philippines Central Conference has not yet taken legal actions but their attempt to even step into the church was met with resistance.The paragraph 2553 was declared not applicable in the Philippines.Good for us then we will just take our buildings since in reality the members are the ones who contributed to the construction of the buildings and not the denomination.UMC people leaving the denomination should show courage and resist unjust practices of UMC.UMC always say uphold love , justice,grace and inclusion . There is no justice in seizing properties of the congregation.

It's funny you bring up street preaching, in March I believe we'll have a chance to do that while I'm over in England. If we do, I'll be sure to let you know how it goes!

The Antioch Declaration is proof positive the CREC church leaders have lost the narrative. When a bunch of head men have to come together behind closed doors and all come out to make and sign a statement, it is already too far gone. Here's the gist, Covenant Theology in Calvinism necessitates Supersessionism. When you discuss supersessionism, you are labeled an antisemite. So a bunch of guys have been labeled antisemites for their Christian beliefs and after this happened, they started to "notice" things about the jews. Once you see a truth, you can't unsee it, so when the leadership starts to catch whiffs of these discussions, for fear of their hard-earned notoriety being tarnished in the public sphere, they started name-calling and denouncing their own sheep, contrary to the truth and their own beliefs. This has obviously made their sheep indignant, because their so called pastors are attacking them for following the theology they learned from their pastors to conclusion. TL;DR - You can draw the sword against anyone who threatens the Kingdom of God, unless they are from a single ethnicity.

The Bishops' actions are disgusting.

I love these conversations. As someone who is neither Calvinist nor Arminian, I have had to ask myself these very questions, For what its worth, here is what I have learned and concluded 1) Love and wrath can be presented together. However, there is a vast difference between "threatening" someone with hell and WARNING them of hell. God prepared hell for the devil and his angels, not humanity. God gives every person what they choose, and if you choose to live life without God, then He will allow you to send yourself to a place where you will not be bothered by Him for eternity. A person can tell when someone warns them because they love them, and a person who threatens, as tho they seemingly have some kind of pleasure in knowing that people perish. Let the sinner know that God the father has already poured out His wrath on God the Son. In other words, God poured out His wrath on Himself so that we could go free. Once this is truly understood, they will understand Jesus' words when he said "Greater love has no man, than the one who lays down his life for his FRIENDS. God has called us "friend" even while still in our sin. Even as Judas was betraying Jesus, the Lord called him "friend". Many times as an act of kindness, the one who truly is a friend, even calls his enemy the same in order to show the desire that the friendship go both ways. 2) Make sure "repentance" is defined as "change of mind" or seeing your sin for what it really is which is absolutely ugly. If you define repentance as a "turning from sin" and you make that a condition to salvation, then you are requiring a sinner to do something they cannot do until AFTER they believe. This is why Calvinism has to redefine regeneration and make it come BEFORE faith. This is also why Calvinists believe God MUST have those he hates and gets glory from their condemnation. If a sinner is told they must stop sinning before they can come to Christ, they will never come. Try telling the sinner that they must STOP before they can be saved. They will walk away, for they know they have no power to stop. Jesus MUST be the reason they come. If they could stop in their own power, then they can save themselves. Of course they must KNOW they are sinners. You cant be found until you are first convinced that you are lost. 3)Calvinists and some Arminans believe God must regenerate someone first, before they can exercise faith. This is because of the doctrine of total depravity which both groups share. Some Arminians believe prevenient grace comes to each individual as the gospel is presented, while others say it was poured out by God on the whole world, and we all possess it already, so total depravity was prevented. I believe examples such as God hardening Pharaoh's heart shows we only get totally hardened as we reject the light that has been given us. This is why it is imperative to show sinners that TODAY is the day of salvation. The longer you say "no" to God, the more hardened you become, and He will eventually leave you alone altogether. God made sure Cornelius heard the gospel, because God had already heard his prayers before he was saved. 4) I love the quote from Adiel Sherwood, one of the founders of the Georgia Baptist Convention, and who rejected both Calvinist and Arminian points, when he said “I am aware that there are staunch professors to be found, who would smite me on one cheek, for displacing a fold of Mr. Wesley’s prunella gown-and others, who would smite me on the other cheek, for disturbing a curl of Doctor Gill’s wig. But I trust that the truth is found between the extremes.” And here is where I will bow out, before I get shot at from both sides :-) The Calvinist arrows and Arminian arrows becomes fast friends when aimed at me lol, but oh how JESUS SAVES!

This declaration is at odds with itself. I thought it was going to be some kind of theological thing in the Preamble it sounds theological but then everything that follows in the key statements below the Preamble pretty much are not backed up by scripture. They may sound Christian or they may sound like something you may hear partly in a church or in discussion among Christians but the scholarship in this declaration looks really lazy and not only that the reason that it's been brought about I don't think it has anything to do with racialism. It has to do with a few web personalities who are authoritarian minded in the reformed theology wanting to try to End discussion by being an authority instead of having honest discourse and there is so much smoke now that those of us who sit outside this and look in are like what is going on none of us understand and I'm sure God is not pleased and frankly I'm not sure this has anything to do with the right at all it may signal that it does but it's so incoherent I feel Dumber for having read it

An idea for the Global Methodist Church the Global Methodist Church should teach New Testament Greek and Christian Latin the languages of Christianity spread the idea please!

I am encouraged seeing Methodists take a stand against the madness of the UMC. But this rise of allergic reaction to anything “established” among young reformed is alarming. I see it online all the time, and they do not realize what they’re heading into. So many of them are going to be intellectually and possibly spiritually crippled if they keep on this path. I hope this declaration causes them to seriously look at history and examine the claims made by the Holocaust deniers. I have, and those arguments all fall apart with the most basic examination.

I've been following Plain Spoken for a while now. It seems that the UMC is "transitioning," to borrow a phrase, to a property managment concern and also an NGO.

Excellent video. Yes and amen. Wrath first or the love is not understood. I agree with all you said. And I watched until the end. 😂

They should get an attorney and challenge the conference.

The notion that most people think they are sinners is absolutely incorrect. I believe it is sometimes used a smokescreen to conceal the fact that the person is generally uncomfortable with the true gospel. The overwhelming majority of people(secular and most evangelicals) believe themselves to be "good" or "neutral". When someone starts from that prior, they mentally cannot make the jump to any scenario where God could eternally punish them. In a way it makes sense since one wouldnt expect eternal punishment for a neutral or good person. The flaw in this is obvious in that the Bible clearly teaches that we are completely hostile to God in our natural state. Unless there is adherence to the Calvinist doctrine of TOTAL depravity, the church it will continue to be boxed into accepting the idea that there is some natural "goodness" inside the unregenerate person to which an appeal can be made.

Why is the “Book of Discipline” something other than the Bible?

Thank you, Jeffrey, for a thoughtful and edifying conversation.

Odd that all of us who left was because we felt they were not following the Book of Discipline so of course they now use it against the loyal followers. Yeah, real Christian thinking. Amen.

As for Wesley on prevenient grace, he says that the vast, overwhelming majority of people "stifle [it] as soon as possible, and after a while forget, or at least deny, that they ever had [it] at all.” The difference between prevenient grace and convincing grace (aka legal repentance) is that with prevenient grace, we might recognize that we’ve done evil things, but we don’t actually care all that much about it. Convincing grace, on the other hand, helps us to realize the seriousness of our sin to the point that we understand we need to turn away from it, we sincerely desire to turn from it, and recognize that something needs to be done about it. Unlike prevenient grace, convincing grace gives us a servile fear of God for having violated His law/commands. Whereas prevenient grace is intended to address, deal with, and overcome the thoroughly devastating effects of original sin on the human person (i.e. total depravity) and sufficiently free our will so that we can genuinely respond to God's offer of salvation, convincing grace is intended to address, deal with, and overcome our apathy toward sin.

We need to recapture and re-recognize God's wrath - His unwavering opposition to all evil and a willingness to confront and eliminate it - as a necessary aspect of God's love.

This is Texas where the UM Trust Clause isn't recognized as valid by state law. It's interesting that the congregation isn't lawyering up and telling the AC to kick rocks. They'd probably win.

You commented about traces of DEI appearing in the GMC. Could you expound on this or perhaps direct me by link to that which you reference? Thanks for your dedication. I am always interested to hear what you will tell us next.

i find it so ironic that the Bishops want to hide behind the book of discipline now, when not long ago it was ignored and they did whatever they pleased.

John Wesley's sole requirement for entry into the Methodist movement was a sincere desire to flee from the wrath to come. That sounds like starting with conviction, not love. The description of what a fully mature Christian's heart looks like given in the Beatitudes starts with mourning over our sinfulness. The hardest people to evangelize are those who do not know they need a Savior. None of these sound like talking about God's love is the right starting point.

Excellent, and long overdue interview🙌

These two pastors are both good guys. Its a small church in a small town where people are being spread thin. Pray for them.

I’m Anglican (Church of England), and more specifically, Anglo-Catholic. I appreciate what you Methodists tried to offer us centuries ago: we would be stronger if we had been able to receive your charism. I’m used to Methodists having little use for my kind. Nevertheless, what is happening in the UMC today grieves me deeply. I am glad to pray for the survival of the Methodist charism around the world and especially, at this time, in the US. May the Paraclete guide you through this trial with wisdom and love.

Here's my take on it and it's not as "concrete" as some may like. In order to answer the initial question about whether God loves people, I go to Romans 5:8. I think this is straightforward enough to make clear that God loves people prior to their salvation. God loves everyone and has the true desire to see everyone saved, thus the general prevenient grace offered to everyone. I think holiness is a bit more dynamic - NOT in the sense that holiness changes, but rather in how holiness impacts the individual. One the one hand, I have listened to an atheist say, "I do not believe in God and if I were somehow convinced he exists, I would still reject him because I find him repulsive." You can preach sin all day long to someone like that and it will never be convicting. Granted, preaching "love" to such a person is no MORE effective. Moving from the most extreme to a slightly less extreme, it has been my experience that people are not concerned about holiness and sin until they are convinced that there is a God who has an interest in them. One example I have, is where I met someone who flat out despised God. Over the course of time and our interactions, this individual has moved from hating God to being open to God, though still reluctant to accept his standards of holiness. And that is what I mean by "holiness is dynamic." As people are learning who God is through us, they become more aware of how unworthy they are. I realize at this point, that my thoughts on this are probably more extensive than I have want or time to type out. . .

Please pray my church, Lawrenceville Rd. UMC, Tucker, GA., comes to its senses concerning homosexuality being sin. I guess when they do, we'll all have to leave in unison and start our own Global Methodist Church.

As someone who loves to visit old churches, that breaks my heart. And what the UMC is doing is petty. 75k is a drop in the bucket for them. I recently heard a liberal UMC minister say that if the people of his church gave more money, he would lower his salary by 35k.

The UMC will simply become a real estate trust company The book of discipline. It is the Book of Non-Discipline. They turned a blind eye to so many obvious clergy who thumbed their noses for decades at the BOD

man, all that figurative language is worthless gobbledygook that means whatever any person wants it to mean.

The hearers must hear the bad news before they are ready for the good. People today do not believe they are sinners, they think God loves them unconditionally. The love of God must only be presented as it is attached to the cross of Christ, for anyone not connected to that remains under God's wrath.

Great topic....I think the love of God is part of the gospel message, however the gospel message doesn't make sense unless we know we are sinners and deserving of Hell. Like you said, I don't believe most people understand our sinful depravity, we must reveal The Law to them as Jesus did in Mark 10 with the Rich Younge Ruler. God bless

Here’s the actual story: as happened in many UM churches, I’m sure, many folks left this congregation after General Conference. Regular attendance is about 2 dozen people. Because of this there are now, obviously, financial difficulties especially trying to maintain a big old church building. Church leadership is trying to determine how best to proceed.

I'm really surprised that a Texas congregation would walk away from its property instead of go to court. Texas property law seems in favor of upholding property owners rights, even for churches in trust clause systems.

I was a Methodist and attended West Virginia Wesleyan and studied Christian Education. While learning more about Wesley and attending conferences I started to encounter Orthodoxy. I converted to the Orthodox Church in 2004. Wesley prayed the hours, fasted on Wednesdays and Fridays, etc.

I’ll see if I can find out more about this. I know pastor Ricky Nelson