Omnia Methodist Posts

What happened at the 2026 General Conference of the Global Methodist Church? And what does it reveal about the future of Methodism around the world? In this episode of It’s Elementary, Dr. David Watson and Dr. Jessica LaGrone reflect on their experience at the Global Methodist Church (GMC) General Conference in Johannesburg, South Africa. Just […]

Dear Clergy and Laity of the Baltimore-Washington & Peninsula-Delaware Area: I greet you in the precious name of our Lord and Savior, Jesus the Christ. It is with regret, but also with resolve, that I write to inform you that the Baltimore-Washington Conference of The United Methodist Church has filed a lawsuit in the United […]

Asbury Theological Seminary in Kentucky has become the first confirmed collegiate ministry program to phase out federal student loans after the Trump administration cut aid for low-paying degree programs.

The subject before us is the theology of John Wesley. But the question I want to ask this morning is not simply, what did Wesley teach? It is a bit more searching than that. I want to ask: what kind of human self is brought into being by the transforming, redemptive graces of God?

There is a song in the musical Hamilton called “The Room Where It Happens.” It is about power, about who gets to sit at the table where decisions are made. I think about that song often because, in a very real sense, I am often in the room where it happens. I have served as […]

In 1768 John Wesley wrote to Jane March and told her that there are “innumerable degrees, both in a justified and a sanctified state, more than is possible for us exactly to define.” I begin with some background before explaining Wesley’s five basic degrees of justification: the responsive unregenerate, sacramental justification, the faith of a […]

Asbury Theological Seminary, where I serve as President, recently announced its intention to withdraw from Title IV funding. This means our students will not receive federal student loans, participate in federal work-study programs, or receive grants from the federal government. Much of the U.S. higher education system is tied to Title IV funding. For Christian […]

Brandan Robertson has been in the headlines quite a bit in the last year or so as he is an openly homosexual, self-described “pastor” who opposed traditional, biblical theology while installing himself as a biblical scholar and theologian. Robertson is an advocate for sexual immorality and teaches that premarital sex is “good” and “healthy.” Of […]

In the lead up to General Conference, I hosted a series of panels on various topics pertaining to the Global Methodist Church. One of those panels was on the topic of the global nature of our connection. I had two guests help my audience think through the different considerations in assessing whether or not the […]

In the early first century, in Antioch, they gave us the name “Christians.” This name, likely coined satirically due to its connotation with slavery, Χριστιανός, or “those belonging to the Christ,” was received gladly by our earliest church family. After all, what better way to describe those who were committed to following The Way1 as […]

Perhaps you’ve had the experience. At some point in the past, you met Jesus. You were forgiven. You were reconciled. You were loved. And for some time you walked in the joy of your newfound faith in Christ. There was an awareness of God’s nearness—an abiding experience of newness of life. You experienced the assurance […]

What should the study of apologetics produce in the life of a Christian? This on its own does not sound like an interesting question. The obvious answer is likely—knowledge. We want Christians to know why the Gospels can be trusted, why the Resurrection belongs to history and not mythology, why belief in God remains intellectually […]

My own twins were born prematurely, and both of them suffered consequences of their premature birth. One of my twins was born with a congenital heart defect that recently required open-heart surgery—and the other suffered from other effects. Both are autistic. And yet, despite repeated warnings from our doctors, we never once considered abortion an […]

To many modern observers, evangelism seems like an antique chair in a museum: a curious relic of the past and an interesting phenomenon for study, but not to be sat on, not fit to bear the weight of today’s burdens — a hopeless anachronism in the twentieth-century world.

What makes theology distinctly Wesleyan? And why does every generation need to wrestle anew with the great doctrines of the Christian faith? In this episode of It’s Elementary, Dr. David Watson and Dr. Jessica LaGrone welcome Dr. Tom McCall of Asbury Theological Seminary and Dr. Jason Vickers of Baylor University’s Truett Seminary to discuss their […]

If a Methodist church does not recognize the authority of its regional conference or its bishop, is that congregation still a United Methodist church? In its legal dispute with the Horizon West Conference of The United Methodist Church, Highland Park United Methodist Church is pushing boundaries not often tested in the nation’s second-largest Protestant denomination.