Various Thoughts From Dennis Shaw

(Words that are bold and underlined are hyperlinks to something whiz bang.) My conversation this podcast is with Kristi Kinnison, the Executive Director of the Methodists Helping Methodists Foundation.  Kristi has a fourteenth anniversary as the Executive Director this month (October, 2024).  Her earlier Mindful Leader podcast was a joyful ode to Wesleyanism (HERE.) and, as of October 2, 2024, it was the most listened to Podcast on ML. Kristi can be reached from resources HERE.   We mention a national foundation "type" Board Kristi was/is on and that is HERE.   I am trying to do two podcasts a month.  Life is a little complicated right now, but if you have any thoughts -- my email is dennis@mantuan.org and I welcome email.  Fire away! If you desire a transcript, send me a note and I will get you a PDF.  

My guest, Zach Bechtold, Pastor at Bozeman UMC and I talk about the potential role of the "Conference" in the UMC.   The Annual Conference is a component part of the structure of the United Methodist Church.  Mountain Sky Conference is vast in geography:  all of Montana, Wyoming, Utah, Colorado, and one county in Idaho. I posit, that besides it administrative role, it should also be the key developer of leadership, lay and clergy, in our area. Draft paper I mention in the show is HERE.  Those that have heard me speak at Annual Conference are probably not surprised that I am a believer when it comes in the positive net benefit from the conference.   My conversation with Co-Lay Leader Gayla Jo Slauson is HERE and my conversation with District Superintendent Mark Calhoun is HERE. (I do put a "chapter" mark at about 37 minutes and again at 38:22 to see if I could help you find his thoughts.) Zach has his own, excellent, podcast -- Bearded Theologians.    

This is a quick biography and theological exposition of the German Theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer:  1906 to 1945.  Such a short life with so much good crammed into it.   A movie about his life is coming out in November and the 80th anniversary of his execution by the Nazis will be in April, 2025.  

This Podcast is a little "inside baseball" and focuses on both General Conference of the United Methodist Church in Charlotte this Spring as well as Jurisdictional Conference in Washington State in August.   My guest for this podcast is District Superintendent, Mark Calhoun.  Mark is a thoughtful observer of all things United Methodist.   If you like it, forward it to someone, or more than one!   This is Mark Calhoun's second visit and his first Mindful Leader Podcast is HERE. Mark's' first conversation focused on context and how much that matters in our local church leadership.   Discussion with Lonnie Brooks, Alaska Conference Lay Delegate to General Conference, about Regionalization is HERE.   Conversation with Gayla Jo Slauson, Lay Delegate to General Conference from Mountain Sky Conference, is HERE.   I mention, positively I hope, Jeremy Smith and his blog Hacking Christianity.  The blog I specifically addressed is HERE.    HERE is a Chart I created of Episcopal Elections in the West since 1968.  I think

Kent Ingram spent 41 years in leadership of the United Methodist Church in Oklahoma, Wisconsin and Colorado.  Kent has excelled wherever he has been.  His last fifteen (or so) years in ministry was at Colorado Springs First UMC, a high steeple, downtown church.   Our conversation is wide ranging and is a look at history and how that shapes our present.  In reality, Kent sees a period of leadership uncertainty because we don't know what we are going to look like win the near future, let along the distant.   HERE is a link to a thought Kent wrote for Wesley Theological Seminary in 2012 that is quite good.   HERE is a link on a talk I had last year (this podcast says several months, it was more like nine) with Danish Pastor Tomas Risager that Kent and I briefly discuss in context.