Your sleep deprived seminarian has arrived in Minnesota for the United Methodist Ecuminical and Interreligious Trainings (UMEIT) and the National Workshop on Christian Unity (NWCU) Conference and the first thing I have to talk about…is the weather. As I’m sure many of my fellow Ohioans can relate, usually when I’m travelling somewhere, it’s to a place where it’s so much nicer and I’m just thankful to be out of Ohio. I can’t say the same for Minneapolis this week. I left Columbus on Sunday where it’s 85’ and sunny to here…where it’s 34’.  And today, well, there were snow flurries. Yes, snow flurries!! No amount of caffeine is going to make this more tolerable, and I’m told the weather won’t improve…until the day I leave.

Anyway, on to the important stuff. With a can of Monster energy in hand, I made my way down to the conference room for the all-day UMEIT training sessions. The first half of the day was about Christian Ecumenism and Interreligious relations and the second half of the day we focused on the 500th anniversary of the Protestant Reformation, whose legacy is the overarching theme of this year’s conference.

Ephesians 4: 1-6  “I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4 There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all” is seen as the basis for our call to unity. Based on these words, we are called to integrity, authenticity, respect, and accountability when it comes to all ecumenical encounters. As a whole the participants in the NWCU are guided by the Lund Principle, which states that churches should act together in matters except those in which deep differences of conviction compel them to act separately.

They also emphasized that we are called to be in dialogue with people of other faiths, citing scriptures such as Acts 10 and Luke 10: 27 as pointing us in that direction. They also quoted John Wesley from sermon 91 “On Charity” and his emphasis that concerning people of other faiths, we ‘are not required to determine anything touching their final state’ which hit me like a much needed shot of espresso.

We closed the day with a moving ecumenical worship service at the beautiful St. Mark’s Episcopal cathedral. I’ll leave you with a picture of the amazing interior of the church, and the words of the Five Ecumenical Commitments which were recited at the close of the service.


Stay tuned because I’ve got a fridge full of energy drinks and I’ll be blogging throughout the week. If you have any questions feel free to post or message me on Facebook.

Blessings.




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