Churches thrive when they challenge and exact high standards. Few are drawn to religions that merely echo talking points found in the surrounding culture. Religions typically decline or die not because they’re controversial but because they’re seen as boring or irrelevant. Methodism once appreciated this insight.

Contrary to the propaganda, American United Methodists are NOT overwhelmingly liberal, but much more evenly divided.

Bishop Mark Lawrence shares with IRD’s Jeff Walton about what he and South Carolina churches learned amidst a long season of legal dispute and waiting. Five years on from the shooting of nine people at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, Lawrence speaks to ministry in a part of the country with a complicated racial history.

A deep dive into the complexities of U.S. subsidies for United Methodist ministries around the globe, and how the most liberal American areas of the denomination not supporting bishops overseas.