Wonder, Love, and Praise: An Invitation to Conversation

The United Methodist Committee on Faith and Order has drafted a statement on ecclesiology for The United Methodist Church entitled “Wonder, Love, and Praise.” General Conference 2016 affirmed further study and refinement of the document during the next quadrennium, with the goal of adopting a revised version at General Conference 2020 to stand alongside such other official theological statements of the denomination such as “This Holy Mystery,” on the Eucharist, and “By Water and the Spirit,” on baptism.

There will be several avenues for assessing and reflection on “Wonder, Love, and Praise,” but UM & Global is inviting its readers to participate in their own conversation around this document. In particular, UM & Global encourages its readers to read the document and reflect on such questions as the relation between church and mission in the document, the attention to the church as a world-wide phenomenon in the document, the Wesleyan and Methodist distinctives noted in the document, etc.

Readers are invited to submit their theological and missiological reflections on the document to the UM & Global blogmaster, David Scott, by email to david.wm.scott (at) gmail.com. Submissions should be between 700 and 1,000 words long and should examine the document from a scholarly (though not necessarily formally-cited academic) perspective.

While it may not be possible to feature all submissions on the blog, the intention is to host a scholarly conversation about the document through the blog. It is our hope that this conversation will not only be of scholarly interest but will be able to influence the revision of the document over the next quadrennium.