New here? Read me first.


Posts are intended to be read in chronological order, with a new theme starting each week.

Read Me First

This blog is primarily written for Michigan United Methodists as we design a new statewide conference. As such, it assumes that the typical reader is a Christian, a United Methodist, and interested in ideas that may be counter-cultural if they can help a conference that has been shrinking in size and power since its inception.

Each week, a topic will be covered from four connected perspectives: Scripture, Tradition (the tradition of the Christian church in general and Methodism in particular), Reason, and Experience. These four perspectives form the Wesleyan Quadrilateral. Some weeks may have a fifth post with specific ideas for a new conference.

If you're curious about the author's credentials and/or motivation, read on.

Credentials

Charlie Farnum is a pastor and past professor.

He received a BS in Math Education at Michigan State University in 1985 and a PhD in Computer Science at the University of California, Berkeley, in 1990. As a scientist, he is an MSU Alumni Distinguished Scholar and a National Science Foundation Fellow.

Charlie received an MDiv at United Theological School in 1997. As a pastor, Charlie has led three congregations in the West Michigan Conference of the United Methodist Church. Each was declining when he arrived; each grew over his tenure, the last over a five year period when two-thirds of WMC churches were in decline. Charlie currently is the director of Wesley@CMU, a United Methodist campus ministry. Religious participation has quadrupled since his arrival in 2006.

Motivation

I have a definite goal in this blog: I want to convince you that the United Methodist Church in Michigan will be best served by leaders who live a simpler lifestyle than the typical upper-middle-class American, and that the conference design should take account of this fact. The blog is my defense of this position.
I've thought this for some time. When I joined the conference, members of the Board of Ordained Ministry noted my commitment to a simple lifestyle, and said they looked forward to the prophetic gift I would bring. I've rarely exercised this gift in the conference to date - I don't like writing, and while I have preached frequently on the proper use of money, I've written very little. My congregations, and especially Wesley@CMU, have benefited from the way I view and use money, but the conference has not. 
The time has finally come. I believe the creation of a new conference provides us a rare opportunity to change the status quo, stand counter to the culture around us, embrace Jesus' (and John Wesley's) views on money, and reap great rewards. To do so, we'll need to think very differently about money than we have in the past. It will take some time. I invite you to join me on the journey.