Central UMC Blog

Matters of Creed II: I Believe in God the Father Almighty  The traditional version of the Apostles’ Creed is recited almost every Sunday during worship at Central. The language of the creed comes from scripture and contains the twelve most basic affirmations of the Christian faith...

7 “Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. 8 For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. 9 Is there anyone among you who, if...

In his book, Give Them Christ, Stephen Seamands tells the story of taking a trip a with his wife and another couple to a Mennonite Community in the Southern Fork area of Case County, Kentucky. Part of their agenda for the day included visiting Nolt’s Bulk Food Store. Seamands comments...

High school and college years excluded, I’ve been an early riser for most of my life. My poor mother had a hard time keeping me from getting up early in the morning. She knew when I got up that I would wake her up. I knew that as soon as she got up, I could go outside and play. I was...

For a decade or more, I’ve started almost every morning with the same “centering” prayer to give focus to my day and to my early morning time of Bible study and prayer. The prayer didn’t originate with me. It originated in the heart of King David who was inspired by the...

For seven weeks or so we have been social distancing, but it seems to be just recently that the distancing began to fully sink in for me. Sure, I’ve felt melancholy at times, missing my people and my routines and the things I look forward to each week, but not the full weight of sadness...

We all know that the struggles and fears related to the COVID-19 pandemic are not solely centered on physical health. One of the well-documented struggles in this time of social distancing is loneliness. In my phone, text, and email conversations with others, loneliness is taking a toll on...

Hello friends!  It probably goes without saying, but I will say it anyway, “I miss being with you in person!” While it is a necessity, the new normal of physically distancing can take a toll after a while. Zoom meetings are great in order to see one another’s faces, but...

I don’t know if this is a scientific fact, but I would guess most of us thrive on normal life patterns and routines.  Now, these patterns and routines have been deeply disrupted in the wake of COVID-19. The Coronavirus has seemingly left no one untouched. Schools and universities have...

As Dr. Jan Davis correctly pointed out in her first writing in The Pastor’s Corner, the “main” focus of the deep divide within the United Methodist Church is upon disagreements regarding the church’s teaching on marriage and qualifications for ordination. Let me be clear...