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Author: Elizabeth Glass Turner

Guest Post ~ Church Cancer

Of course, no pastor – myself included – has the guts to say, “I don’t care about making disciples; I only care about making my church bigger.” We don’t want to think of ourselves as having the “ideology of a cancer cell.” Every one of us is, in theory, willing to let people walk away. Every one of us is, in theory, willing to suffer the loss of audience for the sake of the gospel.

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Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Blood, Ash, Tears: The Ashiest of Days

Oh, God, love – it hurts. It hurts to want to be loved. It hurts to refuse or betray love. It hurts to lose love. And the pastor or priest bending with blackened thumb and murmuring says, I see your pain. It is recognized. Today others will see it too. You have a chance. Love Made Flesh bleeds for you.

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Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Good Reads

If your soul and mind need quieted and fed at the bird feeder before flying off into the storm again, here are a few good reads from around the online meadow. Maybe one of them will sustain you in flight. Sparrows aren’t forgotten, no matter what tasks on your to-do list regularly slip your mind.

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Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Leadership Qualities that Can’t Be Faked

There are very few leadership qualities that can’t be faked. You and I both know that real leadership costs something – and that every newly elected President of the United States who has worked hard to prove him or herself a worthy leader finds out quickly just what it costs to be one of the leaders of the free world.

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Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Testify: Many Voices, One Song

“Because I’m from a rural and conservative hometown in south central Pennsylvania, it was rare to learn about black men and women who were whitewashed from our textbooks outside of home or church. So my first lessons about the Civil Rights Movement and the men and women who led it like Martin Luther King, Clarence Mitchell, Thurgood Marshall, Daisy Bates, Rosa Parks, Joseph DeLaine and so many others were from my Grandmother and Mother. They demanded that I emulate these men and women and commit my life for justice as well. ” – Rev. James C. Simmons

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Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ Everyday Saints: Faith and Cancer

Lori has been enrolled in hospice – and un-enrolled. She’s been through multiple kinds of chemo, of drugs that required special special permission to try. And while she uses words like peace and faith, I keep thinking of the word grace.

I think it’s because her peace and faith become grace to the rest of us.

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Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Most Underrated New Year’s Prayer

That’s the big New Year fear, isn’t it? That we’ll grow weary of carrying out our resolutions. That we’ll grow weary of driving to the gym in cold wind. That we’ll grow weary of eating lettuce instead of crispy golden potato wedges. That we’ll grow weary of monitoring our spending, going on another blind date, volunteering at the dingy soup kitchen.

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Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Narrative of Evil

We are not at the mercy of terrorists. They are at our mercy as we live in flesh and blood and bone the loving mercy of Jesus Christ, Emmanuel-God-With-Us, who was and is and is to come. As the orange-suited martyrs cried to Jesus on their sandy beach deathbeds, evil crumpled. They have no power over Jesus Christ, they have no power over the world to come, they have no power over your soul.

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Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ The Binary Eucharist

The Body of Christ can’t be reduced to a series of zeros and ones. This is why a nursing home resident may watch sermons on their television but still ask to be wheeled down to the weekly worship service in the multipurpose room. This is why that same resident may request that their pastor bring them communion occasionally.

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Elizabeth Glass Turner ~ At Your Table: New Room Deconstructed

All of this makes for a great conference, but people weren’t hungry for a great conference, refreshing as one is. They were hungry for what only God can give.

And God showed up.

How can you tell?

Well, tools and models and statistics and great public speaking skills are methods, and they’re methods the Holy Spirit can use, but they’re not identical with the methods of the Holy Spirit.

And Wesleyan Methodists from varying backgrounds experienced the methods of the Holy Spirit last week.

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