Grace for the Future

Rev. Jaye White, of the North Carolina Annual Conference, and Rev. Jim Savage, of the Kentucky Annual Conference, join Bishop Leonard Fairley in our seventh installment of the Grace for the Future podcast and video blog.
White is an ordained deacon who serves as Conference Director of Outreach Ministries. Savage, an elder in the Kentucky Conference, serves as Director of Missions and Outreach Ministries and Assistant Conference Superintendent in the Central Appalachian Missionary Conference (formerly the Red Bird Missionary Conference). 
In this episode Bishop Fairley and his guests explore the second half of the Great Thanksgiving section of our Communion Liturgy. They look at the means of grace as a way to lead us through this liminal season that we find ourselves in as the church. In this season of change where there is so much uncertainty and anxiety, is there enough grace? Is there enough grace for the journey is there enough grace for the future?
Spoiler alert! Yes, there is. Indeed, there is enough Grace for the Future!

Holy, holy, holy Lord, God of power and might, heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest.
In this month’s episode of the Grace for the Future podcast, Bishop Leonard Fairley and his guests are Rev. Jason Villegas and Eliza Love. Rev. Villegas is an ordained Elder in the North Carolina Annual Conference, serving Murfreesboro UMC and also on the Conference task force on reimagining youth ministry and the Hispanic Latino Committee. Eliza Love is in the candidacy process in the Kentucky Annual Conference and is in her second year at Duke Divinity school working on her Master of Divinity degree.
On this episode of Grace for the Future, Bishop Fairley and his guests look at what it means to sing that Hosanna of how grateful we are for God's grace. How does gratitude for God’s grace manifest itself in our lives? Join us for this month’s episode of Grace for the Future!

You formed us in your image and breathed into us the breath of life. When we turned away, and our love failed, your love remained steadfast.

In episode 5 of the Grace for the Future podcast, Bishop Leonard Fairley and his guests, Rev. Dr. Jean Hawxhurst, an Ecumenical Staff Officer for the United Methodist Council of Bishops and member of the Kentucky Conference, along with Rev. Dr. Gray Southern, the Assistant to the Bishop and Conference Secretary for the North Carolina Annual Conference, discuss the Great Thanksgiving section of the communion liturgy.

Bishop Fairley and his guests explore that portion of the liturgy and seek to help us gain insight as we look at that section with fresh eyes. Looking to see something new that, perhaps, we've never thought about before that may be useful as we navigate this liminal season in which we live. Join us for this month’s episode of Grace for the Future!

It is right, and a good and joyful thing, always and everywhere to give thanks to you…

In this month’s episode of the Grace for the Future podcast, Bishop Leonard Fairley and his guests, Pastor Won Namkoong, an elder from the North Carolina Annual Conference, and Rev. Robert Amundsen, an elder in the Central Appalachian Missionary Conference (formerly the Red Bird Missionary Conference), discuss The Great Thanksgiving section of the Communion liturgy.

What does it mean when the pastor takes the bread, the body of Christ, and offers it to the congregants? What does it mean to receive the body of Christ as a congregant? How does this means of Grace inform who we are as Christians? The two pastors and Bishop Fairley discuss this very meaningful portion of our Communion service. Join us for this month’s episode of Grace for the Future!

As forgiven and reconciled people, Let us offer ourselves and our gifts to God.

In this month’s episode of the Grace for the Future podcast, Bishop Leonard Fairley and his guests, Pam Moran, former Chairperson of the Kentucky Conference CFA Team, and Melba McCallum, Executive Director of Partners in Ministry and a deaconess in the North Carolina Conference, discuss what it means to be a forgiven and reconciled people. How does it look when we know that by the sacrifice of our Lord, Jesus Christ, we are forgiven? How do we then offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God and a hurting world? Join us for this month’s episode of Grace for the Future!

Let us offer one another signs of reconciliation and love.
In this month’s episode of the Grace for the Future podcast, Bishop Leonard Fairley and his guests, Cindy Stamper, Conference Lay Leader for the Red Bird Missionary Conference, and Susan Graebe, the RIOM Coordinator for the North Carolina Conference, delve into the confession and pardon section of the communion liturgy. Bishop Fairley and his guests ask: What does it mean to be an obedient church? How does it look when we love the Lord with our whole heart, and what does it look like to love your neighbor? Join us for this month’s episode of Grace for the Future!

Christ our Lord invites to his table all who love him, who earnestly repent of their sin and seek to live in peace with one another. Those are the words of the invitation to communion in the United Methodist Church, an invitation to be as one with one another and with Christ.

In the inaugural episode of the Grace for the Future podcast, Bishop Leonard Fairley and his guests, Rev. Dr. John Hatton, a District Superintendent in the Kentucky Conference of the United Methodist Church, and Rev. Lisa Yebuah, the North Carolina Conference Spiritual Director and Advisor for Inclusion and Equity for the Cabinet and Leadership Team and Lead pastor at Southeast Raleigh Table, explore how this invitation into Christian Discipleship informs our decisions, conversations, and discernment about the future.

Bishop Fairley and his guests will also look at where and how they have seen this means of grace lived out in this season of transition, uncertainty, and anxiety.

Welcome to Grace for the Future, a podcast with Bishop Leonard Fairley where we use the means of grace to help us love, learn, and lean into conversations in this liminal season of uncertainty and anxiety.