Podcasts – MethodistThinker.com

The final podcast of our spring season features a conversation with Mark Tooley, president of the Institute on Religion and Democracy and the author of Taking Back the United Methodist Church (Bristol House, 2010). To listen (7 min.), click the arrow on the audio player below — or download an mp3 file (6.7 MB). For […]

This edition of the Methodist Thinker Mini-Podcast features a teaching excerpt from the Rev. Rob Renfroe, pastor of discipleship at The Woodlands (Texas) United Methodist Church and the president of the UM renewal ministry Good News. The excerpt is from a 2009 sermon series, “The Trouble with the Truth,” preached at The Woodlands UMC . […]

On this edition of the MethodistThinker Mini-Podcast, Dr. Stephen P. Wende, senior pastor of First United Methodist Church–Houston, Texas, urges the election of delegates to the 2012 UMC General Conference “who will represent God-honoring, Kingdom-focused, Christ-first, biblically strong positions.” He says that the outcome of this year’s elections will determine whether or not the future […]

On this edition of the MethodistThinker Mini-Podcast, Bishop Lindsey Davis of the Kentucky Annual Conference says the United Methodist Church must repent of its missional lethargy and re-commit itself to the purposes of God in Jesus Christ if it hopes to have renewed life. In his remarks, recorded last fall at a meeting of the […]

The MethodistThinker Podcast has returned from hiatus with a new, shorter format. Rather than featuring longer-form presentations, as it has for the past two years, the refashioned podcast is only five minutes long. Each “mini” podcast will feature a brief teaching excerpt from a Methodist leader. We hope the shorter format will make the podcast […]

The final MethodistThinker Podcast of 2010 features an address by the foremost American evangelist of the 20th century, the Rev. Dr. Billy Graham, speaking at the 1980 United Methodist Congress on Evangelism. Born in North Carolina in 1918, William Franklin Graham gave his life to Jesus Christ at a evangelistic service in Charlotte in 1934. […]

The latest MethodistThinker Podcast features an address by the Rev. Rob Renfroe, president of Good News, the flagship renewal ministry of the United Methodist Church. Robert Lane Renfroe earned a B.A. magna cum laude from Rice University in 1977 and an M. Div. summa cum laude from Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary in 1982. After graduating from […]

The latest MethodistThinker Podcast features an address by Bishop Alfred Norris, currently interim president of Atlanta’s Gammon Theological Seminary. Born in Louisiana in 1938, Alfred Lloyd Norris was educated at Dillard University (New Orleans) and Gammon Seminary. After serving for 16 years as a United Methodist pastor and district superintendent in his native state, he […]

The premiere podcast of our fall 2010 season features Methodist theologian Dr. Billy Abraham, the Albert Cook Outler Professor of Wesley Studies at SMU’s Perkins School of Theology Born in North Ireland in 1947, William J. Abraham was educated at Queen’s University in Belfast, Asbury Theological Seminary in Wilmore, Kentucky, and the University of Oxford […]

The final podcast of our spring season features one of the most prominent United Methodist leaders of recent decades: Dr. Maxie Dunnam. Maxie Dunnam was born in Mississippi in 1934. After earning a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Southern Mississippi (1955), he went on to earn a Master of Theology from Atlanta’s […]

Today (May 24) is observed by members of the Methodist and Wesleyan family as Aldersgate Day, commemorating a pivotal event in life of John Wesley — an experience of God’s grace that began his transformation from a largely ineffective Anglican clergyman into one of the most effective and influential leaders in Christian history. At a […]

The third podcast of our spring season features one of the most influential United Methodists of the 1960s and 70s: Dr. Charles W. Keysor, founder of the Methodist renewal ministry known as Good News. In a 1986 tribute, published several months after Dr. Keysor’s cancer-related death at age 60, Good News magazine described him as […]

John Wesley, co-founder of the Methodist movement (along with his brother Charles), once wrote: I am not afraid that the people called Methodists should ever cease to exist either in Europe or America. But I am afraid lest they should only exist as a dead sect, having the form of religion without the power. And […]

The premiere podcast of our spring 2010 season features the leader who served for two decades as the bishop of the Los Angeles Area of The (United) Methodist Church: Bishop Gerald Kennedy. Born in Michigan and raised in California, Gerald Hamilton Kennedy was schooled at the College of the Pacific, the Pacific School of Religion, […]

The final podcast of our fall season features prayer leader Terry Teykl, author of Acts 29, The Presence-Based Church, and Pray the Price: United Methodists United in Prayer. Dr. Teykl, an elder in the Texas Annual Conference, is a “prayer evangelist,” traveling across the U.S. and around the world encouraging  churches to develop and maintain […]

The current MethodistThinker Podcast features an address by the late Bishop William R. Cannon, a theologian and church historian who authored more than a dozen books, including History of Christianity in the Middle Ages, Theology of John Wesley, and Evangelism in a Contemporary Context. William Ragsdale Cannon was born in Tennessee in 1916. He attended […]

The latest MethodistThinker Podcast features a sermon by Bishop James King, episcopal leader of the United Methodist Church’s South Georgia Conference. Before being elected to the episcopacy in 2000, James R. King, Jr. served as a pastor in Alabama, California, and Tennessee, and as a District Superintendent in the Tennessee Conference. Prior to being assigned […]

This year marks the 60th anniversary of the Foundation for Evangelism, founded in 1949 by the featured speaker on this week’s MethodistThinker Podcast, Dr. Harry Denman. As young man in the 1920s, Harry Denman showed exceptional gifts in evangelism and administration — both in his service at the First Methodist Church of Birmingham, Alabama, and […]

This week’s MethodistThinker Podcast features a presentation by Dr. James V. Heidinger II, recently retired as the president and publisher of Good News, United Methodism’s flagship renewal ministry. Born into a political family in Illinois (his grandfather was a three-term U.S. Congressman and his father a state officeholder), Jim Heidinger decided his calling was in […]

The premiere podcast of our fall 2009 season features one of the most influential Methodists of the 20th century: the Rev. Dr. Sir Alan Walker. Born in Sydney, Australia, in 1911, Alan Walker was the 13th person in his family tree to become a preacher. In the 1950s, he became known for leading evangelistic meetings […]