Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist

Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Journalist @baltimoresun writer artist runner #amwriting Md Troopers Assoc #20 & Westminster Md Fire Dept Chaplain PIO #partylikeajournalist
Showing posts with label Religion United Methodist. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Religion United Methodist. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 12, 2012

Westminster Maryland Online: The Rev. John Buchheister, 87, a retired Elder, di...

Westminster Maryland Online: The Rev. John Buchheister, 87, a retired Elder, di...: The Rev. John Buchheister, 87, a retired Elder, died Dec. 8. December 10, 2012 PRAYERS FOR THE PEOPLE The Rev. John Buchhe...

+++++++++++++++
Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoffTwitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff
Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net

Tumblr: Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems www.kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/
Smurfs: http://babylonfluckjudd.blogspot.com/
Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/

E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/
+++++++++++++++

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

The Rev. John P. Buchheister, United Methodist district leader

The Rev. John P. Buchheister, United Methodist district leader

He led churches in Homeland and Perry Hall and was a gifted singer

By Jacques Kelly, The Baltimore Sun 8:11 p.m. EST, December 10, 2012 People ObituariesReligion United MethodistReligion Westminster United Methodist


The Rev. John Paul Buchheister Sr., a retired pastor who had been a United Methodist Church district superintendent, died of cardiac failure Saturday at Oak Crest Village. He was 87 and had lived in Lutherville.

Born in Baltimore, he was the son of Harry Buchheister, a chocolate candy and taffy confectioner. He grew up on Wilkens Avenue in Violetville in Southwest Baltimore and was a 1943 graduate of Polytechnic Institute, where he was quarterback of the school's football team.

He joined the Navy and was sent to the University of North Carolina, where he took courses at its preflight school. There he played for the school's football and lacrosse teams. He also played sandlot football for the old Wilkens Athletic Association.

After the war he considered joining the family candy business but instead enrolled at the Westminster Theological Seminary in Westminster. He had earlier organized a men's Bible study class at Violetville Methodist Church.

As a student minister, he served United Methodist congregations at Level in Harford County, where he helped organize a volunteer fire company. When assigned to Perry Hall, he built a new church and helped form a recreation council so his son could play football.

A 1956 article in The Baltimore Sun noted that he led the singing at a Methodist youth meeting sponsored by the Temperance League of Maryland and Delaware.

From 1964 to 1971, he was pastor of Westminster United Methodist Church. While in Carroll County, he saw a need for housing for the elderly and began the planning for the Timber Ridge Apartments… http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/obituaries/bs-md-ob-john-buchheister-20121210,0,6829650.story



+++++++++++++++
Kevin Dayhoff is an artist - and a columnist for:
Twitter: https://twitter.com/kevindayhoffTwitpic: http://twitpic.com/photos/kevindayhoff
Kevin Dayhoff's The New Bedford Herald: http://kbetrue.livejournal.com/ = www.newbedfordherald.net

Tumblr: Kevin Dayhoff Banana Stems www.kevindayhoff.tumblr.com/
Smurfs: http://babylonfluckjudd.blogspot.com/
Google profile: https://profiles.google.com/kevindayhoff/

E-mail: kevindayhoff(at)gmail.com
My http://www.explorecarroll.com/ columns appear in the copy of the Baltimore Sunday Sun that is distributed in Carroll County: https://subscribe.baltsun.com/Circulation/
+++++++++++++++

Friday, June 17, 2011

United Methodist Church Ordinands called to be 'real world' leaders

Ordinands called to be 'real world' leaders

Ordination at Lovely Lane
As she knelt at the Service of Ordination beneath the stars painted on the dome of the Lovely Lane UMC, the Rev. Bonnie Scott remembered when she was 15, and attended a similar ordination service of a friend at National Cathedral in Washington, D.C. She had shared a sense of call that stirred within her at that event with her pastor, the Rev. Rod Miller. Bishop Felton May found her on the steps of the cathedral, laid hands on her and prayed with her that May night.
"God is faithful," said Scott as she robed, preparing for the processional that would lead to Bishop John Schol praying over her and commissioning her as an Elder in The United Methodist Church.
Scott, one of the 13 people commissioned as Elders and three commissioned as Deacons, stood among the seven others ordained as Elders and two as Deacons in the Baltimore-Washington Conference May 27.
As the service began, Bishop Forrest Stith explained that "ordination is a gift from God and a response of the individual to God's grace and stirrings of the Holy Spirit."... http://www.bwcumc.org/news/ordinands_called_be_real_world_leaders

United Methodist Church Ordinands called to be 'real world' leaders
*****

Wednesday, May 25, 2011

Annual United Methodist Baltimore Washington conference e-connection, May 25, 2011


http://m1e.net/c?38618800-V.38eCUjvqM42@6482555-.8v3e2cq6tyTw

Annual Conference Edition - May 25, 2011
http://m1e.net/c?38618800-jju6G/nifDSoo@6482556-1JRyThpuyKzks
The annual State of the Church address, delivered by Bishop John R. Schol, will be streamed live on the
Baltimore-Washington Conference website Thursday, May 26, at 2 p.m.  Viewers can engage in holy
conferencing with others in the conference via a live Facebook chat on the streaming page.
Additionally, attendees are encouraged to tweet about events using the official hashtag, #bwcumc2011.
 A collection of conference tweets are visible on the main conference page.

The bishop’s address will examine the challenges, accomplishments and possibilities facing area
United Methodist churches. It will be delivered before an audience of more than 1,500 clergy and
 lay members and guests at the Waterfront Marriott Hotel in Baltimore, where the 227th session
of the Baltimore-Washington Conference will be held this Thursday through Saturday.

The theme of the conference is “Connect as One.” As part of the worship experience, artisans
will be illustrating that theme by creating a quilt during the session. Everyone attending the
annual conference is invited to bring an 18 by 21-inch piece of brown, orange, green and y
ellow fabric to be included in the quilt.

For more information on the annual conference session, visit www.bwcumc.org/events/2011annualconference.

*****

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Peggy Johnson elected bishop in The United Methodist Church









July 17, 2008, By Melissa Lauber



The Rev. Peggy Johnson, pastor of Christ United Methodist Church of the Deaf in Baltimore, was elected July 17 to be a bishop in The United Methodist Church.

Johnson was elected, from a pool of 13 candidates, on the 10th ballot by the 249 delegates to Northeastern Jurisdictional Conference.

She was presented to the conference by Bishop John Schol of the Washington Area, who explained to the audience that in American Sign Language one says bishop by mimicking a pointy hat, or miter, on one's head. In Kenyan sign language, one slaps oneself in two quick motions on the forehead and back of head - in a spirit of bemused wonderment.

"It's true," said Johnson, who promises to bring "a sense of wonder, creativity, compassion and grace" to her ministry as bishop.

Bishops bring the totality of who they are with them into the episcopal leadership, Johnson said. The pastors, congregations and communities she will lead can expect her to be humble, to listen, learn and be a servant leader. She intends to be relational and bring a spirit-centeredness to her first year. "You can't do anything unless you have the heart of Christ deeply embedded in your heart," she said.

Johnson's heart has been shaped over the years by her ministry to people in the margins. Her work in the Deaf community draws people from every socio-economic group, including the very poor, who bring with them a vast array of social, human and spiritual needs.

The church, she said, is at its best when it opens it doors to those who society looks down upon. "I am a strong believer in the love that draws people into our world," Johnson said. "We have to be out there doing love."

The bishop celebrated Johnson's election, saying "her gracious heart and proven leadership will enable her to serve the church as we move together, as a body connected in Christ, to make disciples and transform the world."

A child of the church, Johnson traces her family's roots back to some of the first members of Old Otterbein UMC in Baltimore, the mother church the Evangelical United Brethren.

She was baptized and confirmed at Lansdowne UMC, where her husband, the Rev. Michael Johnson, now serves as pastor.

A graduate of Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Ky, she was ordained in 1980, following a career as a vocal music teacher.

While teaching music her voice failed. She was discouraged, but her hope was renewed when she attended a concert by a Deaf choir that performed the "Hallelujah Chorus."

This visible music touched something in her soul and she began learning American Sign Language, she said.

Following ordination, she served a four-point charge in Frederick before working as a chaplain at Gallaudet University, a college for the deaf in Washington, D.C., and then becoming pastor of Christ United Methodist Church of the Deaf.

Her ministry there has taken her around the world, where she helped to start or enhance Deaf ministries in Zimbabwe, Cuba, and a myriad of other places in the United States and abroad.

Johnson received her doctorate from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington and is the author of the book "A Joyful Silence."

She acknowledges that she does not come to the episcopacy through the traditional paths. "I'm not your typical profile," she said.

Instead, Johnson hopes her gifts, along with her desire to work in partnership with others, and being faithful to God, will enable her "see with the heart," where God is calling her, and the church, to go.

Johnson will begin her term as a bishop in September.
20080717 Peggy Johnson elected bishop in The United Methodist Church

Sunday, March 23, 2008

19450323 Cleric - Rev. Dr. Lowell F. Ensor, pastor of the Methodist Church at Westminster - Urges Repeal of Jim Crow Law

Cleric - Rev. Dr. Lowell F. Ensor, pastor of the Methodist Church at Westminster - Urges Repeal of Jim Crow Law

Democratic Advocate, March 23, 1945.

Following taken from Baltimore Sun March 18: Rev. Dr. Lowell F. Ensor, pastor of the Methodist Church at Westminster, yesterday urged support of the repeal of the Jim Crow law in Maryland.

He declared a state that will send citizens to the fighting fronts of the world and at the same time deny to any group of those citizens equal rights, is un-American and un-Christian.

Reference to this law was make in his sermon, in which he also urged opposition to a Senate bill now in the Legislature that would permit sale of alcoholic beverages in Carroll county hotels, and a House bill that would allow pari-mutuel betting on horse racing at Baltimore county and Carroll county fair grounds.

Tuesday, March 11, 2008

20080310 Sarah Babylon Dorrance appointed to Taylorsville United Methodist Church


Sarah Babylon Dorrance appointed to Taylorsville UMC, Mt. Airy, Md.

March 10, 2008

Sarah Babylon Dorrance was in international marketing prior to going into the ministry.

She will graduate from Wesley Theological Seminary with a M. Div this coming May and will be commissioned as a Probationary Elder of the Baltimore-Washington Conference.

Dorrance has a passion for mission, teaching, preaching and discipleship in the local church.

She has served on the Latino Advisory Board for the Frederick District, has been an intern at Faithpoint UMC, and was instrumental in bringing her home church, Calvary UMC in Mt. Airy, to a new level of serving in the mission field.

She has also directed the youth choir at Calvary UMC for the past 10 years. Dorrance recently co-authored a book titled “Reclaiming the Wesleyan Tradition: John Wesley’ s sermons for Today.”

She is very excited about receiving her first full-time appointment at Taylorsville UMC.

Taylorsville United Methodist Church, in Mt. Airy, has been serving the people of western Carroll County for more than 125 years. The average worship attendance is 79 and in 2007 the church paid 100 percent of its apportionments.

The church’s United Methodist Men and Women serve the community and world through outreach programs, work projects, and mission activities. Church activities also include Vacation Bible School, a mother-daughter banquet, Christmas bazaar, Bible study groups, Friday Family Game Nite, and an annual church picnic.

The congregation supports missionaries in Alaska, Turkey, China and India. Taylorsville is continuing to search for ways in which they can reach out to the community to invite people to experience God’s love through the ministry of the church.

http://bwcumc.org/content/2008-appointments

Babylon Family, Babylon Family JAMS, Dayhoff personal, Religion Taylorsville United Methodist Church, Religion United Methodist Church

20080310 Sarah Babylon Dorrance appointed to Taylorsville UMC

Thursday, March 31, 2005

20050300 United Methodist Church Resolution # 115 Care for Persons Suffering and Dying

United Methodist Church #115 Faithful Care for Persons Suffering and Dying

March 2005

http://www.umc-gbcs.org/issues/resolutions.php?resolutionid=194

Christians affirm that human beings are creatures of God. As such, we are not the authors of our own existence, but receive our lives as gifts from God, who has made us as embodied spirits, capable of transcendence but also vulnerable to illness, accident, and death. God has endowed human beings with capacities for freedom, knowledge, and love, so that we might freely enter into the communion with God and each other for which we were made. The Creator's gift of liberty has been abused and distorted by sin. In Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit we meet God as Savior, Redeemer, and present Advocate, who has acted in love to free us and all creation from captivity to the power of sin and death. To know God in these ways enables us to receive God's sovereignty over life and death not just as a limit or a neutral fact. It is a source of comfort and peace, as we wait for the final victory over death which is the hallmark of the finished work of redemption.

Therefore, Christians gather as forgiven sinners, redeemed by Christ and empowered by the Holy Spirit to discern and to choose the path of faithfulness to God and one another, as a community seeking to know and to do the truth. It is within the framework of these affirmations, and within the context of these relationships, that we grapple with the questions of faithful care for the sick and the dying.

Through the examples and command of Jesus Christ, the church receives the task of ministering to the sick, relieving what suffering can be relieved and undertaking to share and to lighten that which cannot be eliminated. This mandate calls upon us to address all the needs of the sick. These needs include relief from pain and other distressing symptoms of severe illness, but they also embrace the need for comfort and encouragement and companionship. These needs are expressed particularly by the very ill and the dying who confront fear and grief and loneliness. They are in critical need for emotional and spiritual care and support. The duty to care for the sick also calls upon us to work to reform the structures and institutions by which health care is delivered when they fail to provide the comprehensive physical, social, emotional, and spiritual care needed by those facing grave illness and death.

Care for the dying is an aspect of our stewardship of the divine gift of life. As human interventions, medical technologies are only justified by the help that they can give. Their use requires responsible judgment about when life-sustaining treatments truly support the goals of life, and when they have reached their limits. There is no moral or religious obligation to use them when the burdens they impose outweigh the benefits they offer, or when the use of medical technology only extends the process of dying. Therefore, families should have the liberty to discontinue treatments when they cease to be of benefit to the dying person. However, the withholding or withdrawing of life sustaining interventions should not be confused with abandoning the dying or ceasing to provide care. Even when staving off death seems futile or unreasonably burdensome to continue, we must continue to offer comfort care -- effective pain relief, companionship and support for the patient in the hard and sacred work of preparing for death.

Historically, the Christian tradition has drawn a distinction between the cessation of treatment and the use of active measures by the patient or care-giver which aim to bring about death. If death is deliberately sought as the means to relieve suffering, that must be understood as direct and intentional taking of life, whether as suicide or homicide. This United Methodist tradition opposes the taking of life as an offense against God's sole dominion over life, and an abandonment of hope and humility before God. The absence of affordable, available comfort care can increase the pressure on families to consider unacceptable means to end the suffering of the dying.

Health Insurance in the United States

(While this section explores this topic in the United States context, we encourage further understanding and knowledge of practices and traditions around the globe.)

In the United States today, many millions of people have either no health insurance or grossly inadequate coverage which gives them no reliable access to medical treatment. Even for those who do have basic access, good quality comfort care, -- including effective pain relief, social and emotional support and spiritual counsel -- is often not available from a medical system geared toward cure and rehabilitation rather than care for the dying. Such circumstances leave people with a distorted choice between enduring unrelieved suffering and isolation, and choosing death. This choice undermines rather than enhancing our humanity. When cost control measures and for-profit health care institutions bring economic pressures directly to bear on treatment decisions such as the cessation of care, the United States system of health care financing and administration has distorted and corrupted the practice of medicine. We as a society must assure patients situations where their desire not to be a financial burden does not tempt them to choose death rather than receiving the care and support that could enable them to live out their remaining time in comfort and peace.

Pastoral Care

The church's unique role for persons facing suffering and death is to advocate for and provide care in all of its dimensions to the very sick in the form of pastoral care. Such pastoral care is the calling of the whole community of faith, not only pastors and chaplains. Because Christian faith is relevant to every aspect of life, no one can cope successfully with life's pain and suffering and ultimate death without the help of God through other people. In Pastoral care God's help and presence are revealed. Persons offering and receiving pastoral care include the patient, the community of faith, family, friends, neighbors, other patients, and health-care teams.

Those offering pastoral care empathize with suffering patients and share in the wounds of their lives. They listen as patients express their feelings of guilt, fear, doubt, loneliness, hurt, and anger. They can provide resources for reconciliation and wholeness and assist persons in reactivating broken or idle relationships with God and with others. They can provide comfort by pointing to sources of strength, hope, and wholeness, especially reading Scriptures and prayer.

This same pastoral care must be provided to the family and friends of those who are suffering and dying. They too, must have an opportunity to share their feelings of guilt, hurt, anger, fear, and grief. Grieving persons need to be reminded that their feelings are normal human responses that need not cause embarrassment or guilt. Families have long-established patterns of relationships and attention to the entire family unit must be incorporated into pastoral care. Religious, cultural, and personal differences among family and friends must be considered with special sensitivity.

Health care workers also need pastoral care. Doctors and, especially, support staff have intimate contact with dying persons in ways experienced by few others. They live in the tension of giving compassionate care to patients while maintaining professional detachment. Pastoral care for health-care workers means helping them take loving care of themselves as well as their patients.

Pastors and chaplains are called especially to sustain the spiritual growth of patients, families, and health-care personnel. They bear witness to God's grace with words of comfort and salvation. They provide nurture by reading the Scriptures with patients and loved ones; by Holy Communion; by the laying on of hands; and by prayers of repentance, reconciliation, and intercession. They provide comfort and grace with rituals of prayer or anointing with oil after miscarriage, or after a death in a hospital, nursing home, or hospice. They develop rituals in connection with a diagnosis of terminal illness, of welcome to a hospice or nursing home, or of return to a local congregation by persons who have been absent for treatment or who have been in the care of a loved one.

In all these ways, pastoral-care givers and the community of faith are open to God's presence in the midst of pain and suffering, in order to engender hope, and to enable the people of God to live and die in faith and in holiness. They assist persons in coming to peace with themselves and others as they accept the realization that death is not always an enemy. They affirm that there is only one possible ending to the Christian story. Regardless of the tragedies and triumphs, the youthfulness or the age, the valleys of doubt and despair, the suffering and loss, and the soaring as things turn out all right -- we come to the only one certain end: "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, though they die, will live, and every one who lives and believes in me shall never die" (John 11:25-26) (NRSV).

In addition to offering comfort and hope, pastoral-care givers are trained to help patients understand their illness and can assist families in understanding and coming to grips with information provided by medical personnel. Pastoral-care givers are especially needed when illness is terminal and neither patients nor family members are able to discuss this reality freely.

The complexity of treatment options and requests by physicians for patient and family involvement in life-prolonging decisions require good communication. Pastoral-care givers can bring insights rooted in Christian convictions and Christian hope into the decision-making process. If advance directives for treatment, often called "living wills," or "durable powers of attorney" are contemplated or are being interpreted, the pastoral-care givers can offer support and guidance to those involved in decision-making. They can facilitate discussion of treatment options, including home and hospice care.

Decisions concerning faithful care for the suffering and the dying are always made in a social context that includes laws, policies, and practices of legislative bodies, public agencies and institutions, and the social consensus that supports them. The social context of dying affects individual decisions concerning treatment and care and even the acceptance of death. Therefore, pastoral-care givers must be attentive to the social situations and policies that affect the care of the suffering and dying and must interpret these to patients and family members in the context of Christian affirmations of faithful care.

United Methodist Response

To insure faithful care for the suffering and dying it is recommended that United Methodists:

1. Acknowledge dying as part of human existence, without romanticizing it. In dying, as in living, mercy and justice must shape our corporate response to human need and vulnerability.

2. Accept relief of suffering as a goal for care of dying persons rather than focusing primarily on prolonging life. Pain control and comfort-giving measures are essentials in our care of those who are suffering.

3. Educate and equip Christians to consider treatments for the suffering and the dying in the context of Christian affirmations of God's providence and hope. This should be done especially through preaching and adult Christian education programs addressing these issues.

4. Train pastors and pastoral care-givers in the issues of bio-ethics as well as in the techniques of compassionate companionship with those who are suffering and dying.

5. Acknowledge, in our Christian witness and pastoral care, the diverse social, economic, political, cultural, religious and ethnic contexts around the world where United Methodists care for the dying.