Florida United Methodist Review Online

Superintendent nominated for episcopacy
Tampa District Superintendent David Brazelton may soon carry the title of bishop in the United Methodist Church. Brazelton was named by the Florida Conference's General and Jurisdictional Conference delegates as the conference's nominee for the episcopacy Feb. 5 and will go before the annual conference for its approval at the Dare to Share Jesus 2000 Annual Conference Event May 30-June 2 in Lakeland. Full Story

Institute challenges pastors to enter public squarer
"The pulpit has the responsibility to enter the marketplace," said the Rev. Bill Lawrence

From preaching atop gravestones to asking Britain's leaders if they were "humble, teachable, advisable; or stubborn, self-willed, heady, and highminded," the founding family of Methodism often took the pulpit into the public arena.
"The pulpit has the responsibility to enter the marketplace," said the Rev. Bill Lawrence. "They will not know the truth that will set them free unless we tell them." Lawrence, a pastor and former professor, was one of two featured speakers at this year's Institute of Preaching Feb. 5-7. Full Story

Florida church known by its fruit
Members of Friendship UMC, Punta Gorda collected more than 86,000 pounds of citrus

Members of Friendship United Methodist Church in Punta Gorda collected more than 86,000 pounds of unwanted citrus from back yards throughout their community to help feed people in Miami and North Carolina. That fruit is metaphoric for Christianity, said Dick Mead, the Society of St. Andrew's Florida State regional director. "Jesus took the people that nobody wanted and that's what he used to build his church," he said.
Full Story

New era requires new thinking
New Wine for the New Wineskins" workshop in Leesburg

The Christian church in the United States is in a new era, said the Rev. Roger Swanson, the conference's director of Operation Evangelization. The church is experiencing competition from popular culture for the first time in its existence. And while church membership and attendance are down, people still have spiritual longings and desires.
Those who are looking for spiritual meaning are not studying Christianity, but Christians themselves. "People know Christians. They don't know Christianity," Swanson said. "They learn from what they see from congregations." Full Story

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