The digital copies of this book are available for free at First Fruits website.
place.asburyseminary.edu/firstfruits

These essays about British Methodists in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries, explore the process of collective remembering. Three distinct aspects are probed in this volume: how telling life stories shaped identity for the Methodist movement; how remembering lives was both contrived and contested; how historians' techniques have exposed the process of memorialising and remembering in Methodism.

On February 2, 2006, two intrepid women set off from Portland, Oregon via Greyhound bus for Limon, Colon, Honduras. There they would establish a new thing, a small monastery and medical mission using sustainable living, voluntary poverty, and religious practice as nuns following Methodist and Quaker traditions of worship and governance. Soon La Doctora, Pediatrician Beth Blodgett, and La muchacha, her assistant, Prairie Naoma Cutting, would be deeply involved helping in nearby clinics. Reading like a frontier women's story, this adventure (still continuing in 2010) has fire, hurricanes, and a robbery as well as other exciting accounts. These gringas become, by the close of the collection of letters home, true hermanas, religious sisters to the neighbors in their rural community. Now professed nuns, they invite other courageous women to join them in a life of service.

The Land That Calls Me Home investigates the disappearance of small-scale farms from rural America and casts a vision for the church to lead in their recovery. The book goes beyond naming the usual suspects of industrialization, agricultural policies, and corporations most often blamed or credited with orchestrating the mass exodus of farmers from rural America and brings to light two overlooked contributors to driving farmers away from the land: Theology and the Church. The author shows how a misinterpretation of scripture erroneously equates farming with God's curse on Adam for eating the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden. That fallacy lies at the root of the uncontested takeover of agriculture by corporate powers. The takeover centralized farming so that today a few giant corporations monopolize global farm markets and only one-percent of all Americans farm full time. Globalizing farming promised to free the masses from the curse of having to work the land to survive. The author debunks the portrayal of tilling the soil as a curse and interprets the curse rather as the separation of human beings from the soil. The more distance we create between ourselves and the soil, the less healthy the earth and our human bodies become. Therefore, restoring the viability of small-scale farming is a means of counteracting the curse on Adam and the soil. The church has been an accomplice to the theft of agriculture from the people and forcing their mass migration from rural farmsteads to suburbs and cities. The church saw the increase in productivity of those who were left to farm on a large scale as a positive development to be celebrated. The negative impact of farming with pesticides, herbicides, genetically modified organisms (altered seed), and chemical fertilizers, along with the effect of agricultural runoff on the soil, rivers, oceans, and on human health were seen as negligible compared to the promise of increased yield that could be used to eradicate global hunger. Corporate greed, however, has stockpiled food while millions die of malnutrition annually. Furthermore, the church has too often separated the care of souls from the care of the earth and ceded earth and health care to government and free enterprise. In shrinking rural communities, decimated by the migration of farmers to the city, a few dwindling churches have remained open long enough to care for the lingering souls and to bury the dead. By confessing our complicity in causing the current farm crisis in America, church leaders can with renewed vision help restore the viability of small-scale farming in rural communities on the fringes of larger population centers. Churches can serve as network hubs for farmers, whose crops are too small to win contracts with large grocery chains, to sell their produce in local Farmers Markets and community supported agriculture (CSA) networks. Churches that catch the vision to support local agriculture have the volunteer base, the parking lots, and the presence in their communities to organize and run an effective Farmers Markets. They provide a service to the farmers and to their community while reconnecting people to the soil. The author researches the loss and revival of small-scale farming from the standpoint of a pastor and a farmer. He lived on and moved from a small-scale farm as a youth and has served in full-time pastoral ministry forty years, including the last twenty years when he has worked to revive and grow his family farm. His greatest discovery in seeking to make farming viable has been that the small-scale farm's best chance of financial solvency is having adequate local markets to sell farm products, markets which churches in population centers are ideally suited to provide. He has worked with lay leaders to establish a successful Farmers Market in his present pastoral appointment and serves as consultant to other congregations seeking ways to support local agriculture.

The digital copies of this book are available for free at First Fruits website.
place.asburyseminary.edu/firstfruits

This is a new release of the original 1943 edition.

The digital copies of this book are available for free at First Fruits website.
place.asburyseminary.edu/firstfruits

This book provides the history of black participation in the Church of the Nazarene from its very beginning.

Title: The life of the Rev. John Wesley, A.M.: sometime Fellow of Lincoln College, Oxford, and founder of the Methodist Societies.Author: Richard WatsonPublisher: Gale, Sabin Americana Description: Based on Joseph Sabin's famed bibliography, Bibliotheca Americana, Sabin Americana, 1500--1926 contains a collection of books, pamphlets, serials and other works about the Americas, from the time of their discovery to the early 1900s. Sabin Americana is rich in original accounts of discovery and exploration, pioneering and westward expansion, the U.S. Civil War and other military actions, Native Americans, slavery and abolition, religious history and more.Sabin Americana offers an up-close perspective on life in the western hemisphere, encompassing the arrival of the Europeans on the shores of North America in the late 15th century to the first decades of the 20th century. Covering a span of over 400 years in North, Central and South America as well as the Caribbean, this collection highlights the society, politics, religious beliefs, culture, contemporary opinions and momentous events of the time. It provides access to documents from an assortment of genres, sermons, political tracts, newspapers, books, pamphlets, maps, legislation, literature and more.Now for the first time, these high-quality digital scans of original works are available via print-on-demand, making them readily accessible to libraries, students, independent scholars, and readers of all ages.++++The below data was compiled from various identification fields in the bibliographic record of this title. This data is provided as an additional tool in helping to insure edition identification: ++++SourceLibrary: Huntington LibraryDocumentID: SABCP03669000CollectionID: CTRG01-B2217PublicationDate: 18310101SourceBibCitation: Selected Americana from Sabin's Dictionary of books relating to AmericaNotes: Collation: 323 p., 1] leaf of plates: port.; 18 cm

Built in 1894, the Great Auditorium in Ocean Grove, NJ, stands alone as a distinctive historic structure from the national Camp Meeting movement of the late 1800s. Authors Ted Bell, Cindy Bell and Darrell Dufresne provide a fascinating account of the history and development of this architectural treasure that occupies nearly an acre and is situated 1500 feet from the Atlantic Ocean. Included in the book are detailed diagrams and photos of the construction of the building, design aspects including original building contracts, and correspondence and observations by persons who were present at the time of its construction. www.oceangrovehistory.org Articles of Agreement and Specifications of Auditorium in Ocean Grove, NJ

At a time when Canadians were arguing about the merits of a new flag, the birth-control pill, and the growing hippie counterculture, the leaders of Canada's largest Protestant church were occupied with turning much of English-Canadian religious culture on its head. In After Evangelicalism, Kevin Flatt reveals how the United Church of Canada abruptly reinvented its public image by cutting the remaining ties to its evangelical past. Flatt argues that although United Church leaders had already abandoned evangelical beliefs three decades earlier, it was only in the 1960s that rapid cultural shifts prompted the sudden dismantling of the church's evangelical programs and identity. Delving deep into the United Church's archives, Flatt uncovers behind-the-scenes developments that led to revolutionary and controversial changes in the church's evangelistic campaigns, educational programs, moral stances, and theological image. Not only did these changes evict evangelicalism from the United Church, but they helped trigger the denomination's ongoing numerical decline and decisively changed Canada's religious landscape. Challenging readers to see the Canadian religious crisis of the 1960s as involving more than just Quebec's Quiet Revolution, After Evangelicalism unveils the transformation of one of Canada's most prominent social institutions.

The Salvation Army is a byword for philanthropy and charitable work, with its brass bands and uniformed officers indelible parts of the fabric of British life - yet many may not be aware of the real extent of its work and influence. This is the story of how Reverend William Booth's East London Christian Mission of 1865 (which became the Salvation Army in 1878) has become a truly global enterprise, one that in Britain is still second only to the government in the provision of social care. It is a symbol of charity that was forged in the crucible of mid-Victorian Britain and is now known in more than 120 countries, and Susan Cohen here explains and illustrates its activities and structures, its history and present, and its very important legacy.

A new and engaging collection of sermons that embraces the historic 44 sermons that John Wesley approved, plus the 8 more of the North American collection (52 sermons) and to this is added 8 sermons, carefully chosen, to fill things out for contemporary interests resulting in a grand total of sixty sermons. Each sermon (which employs the text from the Bicentennial edition of Wesley s works) is preceded by a brief introduction and an outline.The sermons are arranged in accordance with the order of salvation displayed in the key sermon, The Scripture Way of Salvation, from creation to the fall through justification and every step along the way culminating in the new creation.The purpose of this collection is to foster vital Christian formation for all of its readers."

This study explores the thesis that belief in the supernatural became a significant identifying mark of Methodists living in the eighteenth-century. Not only did John Wesley believe in the reality of angels and demons but he also reflected on witchcraft, visionary experiences, trances, healings, and providential portents in a way that both affirmed his commitment to the theological strictures of primitive Christianity and developed a religious self-awareness for Methodists living in a changing modern world. Additionally, contrary to previous approaches to the place of the Methodists in Enlightenment culture, this book argues that a belief in the supernatural was far from eclipsed in the minds and hearts of people living in the eighteenth-century.

Published in 1793-6, amid controversy following the death of John Wesley (1703-91), this two-volume work vied with others for status as the most authentic biography of the Methodist leader. Wesley had left his papers to his physician John Whitehead (c.1740-1804) and the ministers Thomas Coke and Henry Moore, but Whitehead monopolised the papers in the preparation of his biography, refusing to allow his fellow executors access. Volume 1 traces John's career up to 1735 and includes a substantial life of his brother Charles (1707-88), fellow founder of Methodism. Volume 2 continues the narrative from Wesley's voyage to America in 1735 until his death. It also includes assessments of his character and writings, as well as Whitehead's analysis of the state of Methodism at the time of writing. This remains an important critical appraisal of the movement's early history, offering researchers valuable insights into the contemporary debates over the future and structure of Methodism.

Committed to Christ: Six Steps to a Generous Life is a six-week stewardship program that presents giving as a lifelong journey in Christian discipleship. This Adult Readings and Study Book is designed for use in the six-week small group study that undergirds the program, as well as by others participating in the program. After an introductory Sunday stressing the importance of commitment to Christ, the next six weeks are spent exploring six steps to a generous life: Prayer Bible Reading Worship Witness Financial Giving Service With each step, readers are asked to assess prayerfully their own level of commitment and to consider increasing that commitment by one step. Equal emphasis is placed on each of the six steps, clearly communicating that this program is not simply about money, but rather cultivating a thankful heart that will lead us to giving more than we can ever imagine. For a program that focuses on the totality of stewardship, there is none better. -Jim Polk, Senior Pastor, El Dorado First United Methodist Church, El Dorado AR"

This book's novel approach shows how to order John Wesley's unsystematic practical theology around what and how he valued as a person and as a Christian. It applies philosophical value theory to John Wesley's theology, specifically the axiological theory developed by Robert S. Hartman,

Popular author James W. Moore recalls how several years ago, while delivering the sermon at his church one Sunday morning, he had told a moving story about a boy and his dog. The author s then-five-year-old son, Jeff, was fascinated by the story, but feeling a bit uncertain about some of the details of it, during the family s car ride home from church, Jeff asked his father, Daddy, is that story true, or were you just preaching? Highly amused by Jeff s question, Jim Moore went on to explain to his young son that there are two kinds of stories: TRUE stories, stories that happened factually in history; and TRUTH stories, stories like Jesus parables, which are shared to underscore a dramatic truth in life. The several short chapters and stories in this book are designed to highlight such life-truths, with chapter titles such as Go out Singing, Roadblocks, Should I Forgive? One Step at a Time, Who s in Control Here? What Can One Person Do? Tell Me, Please, How to Be Happy, Why not You? Keep on Keeping On, Jesus: The Message and the Messenger, The Importance of Uniqueness, and others. This book contains a discussion guide."

This book is a biography of Bishop J. Waskom Pickett and contains thorough documentation and extensive photographs. Bishop Pickett embodied the last generation of the missionaries of the great nineteenth and twentieth century missionary movement from the West. This monumental biography highlights his conversion movement studies, his service to the poor and sick, relief work, interventions with presidents, senators, and ambassadors in behalf of India, and friendships with Nehru, Ambedkar, and other leaders of the new nation-in multifarious ways. Pickett was, by any measure, among the noteworthy missionaries of his century or any other. The Church Growth Movement in India had its beginning with the missionary activity of Bishop Pickett.

This scarce antiquarian book is a selection from Kessinger Publishing's Legacy Reprint Series. Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment to protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature. Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

1878. Volume III of III. Stevens was an American editor, historian and Methodist Episcopal clergyman. He suffered the trials of poverty and hard work in childhood and early on he was converted and joined the Methodist Episcopal Church. He began to preach when a mere youth, and before he was twenty-one years of age was regarded as a prodigy of eloquence. He opened the vein of American Methodistic history, and gave a long series of historical articles, which afterward appeared in the form of books, and, indeed, entered upon the investigations which produced his History of Methodism, one of the ablest and best-known works of its class. This volume covers from the Death of Wesley to Centenary Jubilee of Methodism. In his preface Stevens writes: This volume concludes my task-The History of the Religious Movement of the Eighteenth Century called Methodism, considered in its different Denominational Forms and its Relations to British and American Protestantism. See other titles by this author available from Kessinger Publishing. Volume 1 ISBN 0766196194, Volume 2 ISBN 0766196208.

Kessinger Publishing is the place to find hundreds of thousands of rare and hard-to-find books with something of interest for everyone!

Methodism started out as a missional alternative to establishment Christianity, but is now like the establishment Christianity it once critiqued. In this book, Dr. Hunter asks whether enough New Testament Christianity exists in any institutional form of Christianity, including The United Methodist Church, to change the world. If United Methodism is to survive, it must recover bold directions in ministry, in addition to Wesley s theological vision. If only it was so simple as to stand on Wesley s shoulders to see our way forward. This means that laity and clergy must be biblically informed, spiritually energized, and systematically organized. If United Methodism is to thrive, it needs to focus on mission, recalling that early Methodism was an extravagant expression of missional Christianity. Net membership decline is not from losing more people but from reaching fewer people than it used to. The need for the gospel of Jesus Christ is greater than ever. United Methodists must create structures and serve God and neighbor in order to spread, as Wesley admonished, scriptural holiness throughout the land. George G. Hunter III is Distinguished Professor of Church Growth and Evangelism at Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky. He is the author of several books, including Radical Outreach and The Celtic Way of Evangelism, both published by Abingdon Press."

The Essentials of Methodism is a small group study which focuses on the basic beliefs and ethics of what it means to be a Methodist or Wesleyan Disciple of Jesus Christ. This book contains ten lessons on Methodist Essentials