Heritage Sunday 2019
Featured Heritage Sunday 2019
Heritage Sunday May 19, 2019: "Bold Women, Audacious Faith"
The 150th Anniversary of United Methodist Women
Heritage Sunday shall be observed on Aldersgate Day (May 24), or the Sunday preceding that date. The day provides an opportunity for reflection on heritage, celebration of where the Church has been, how it understands itself as it shapes us today, and the meaning of Christian conferencing. Heritage Sunday calls the Church to remember the past by committing itself to the continuing call of God (paragraph 264.1, The Book of Discipline, 2016).
Heritage Sunday is set aside for remembering our legacy as United Methodists. It is an ideal time for local churches and Annual Conference Commissions on Archives and History and Historical Societies to develop programs and projects reflecting the importance of history in congregational formation and casting the future.
This year's approach to Heritage Sunday is a celebration of the 150th Anniversary of United Methodist Women and is themed "Bold Faith, Audacious Women."
The General Commission on Archives and History's (GCAH) History and Interpretation Committee urges your annual conference, district and congregation to discover and then celebrate all that women have accomplished in the last 150 years. Use this Special Sunday and the resources provided below to serve as a vehicle for launching any number of history-related projects in the Annual Conference.
History and historians sometimes get a bad rap, as if the subject and its devotees are only interested in the past and tediously preserving it. At GCAH, we believe and experience every day the power of history not merely as remembrance but active engagement, the past pointing to purpose, the DNA that makes us who we are, forming how we live-into the future.
We hope you will give us feedback about this year’s Heritage Sunday resources and tell us how you used this material in your celebration!
If your church is looking ahead for Heritage Sunday themes for the rest of the quadrennium, you can look forward to:
2020 - "200 Years of the General Board of Global Ministries"
Fred Day, General Secretary
General Commission on Archives and History
Heritage Sunday Resources
Powerpoint:
Bold Women PDF Version of Powerpoint
Bold Women Powerpoint Leaders Guide
Timelines:
http://s3.amazonaws.com/gcah.org/WOMENS_TIMELINE.pdf
https://www.unitedmethodistwomen.org/about/history/timeline
https://www.unitedmethodistwomen.org/rjtimeline
http://www.umc.org/who-we-are/timeline-of-women-in-methodism
Websites:
http://gcah.org/resources/womens-history
https://www.unitedmethodistwomen.org/about/history/
https://gcsrw.org/MonitoringHistory/WomeninUMCHistory.aspx
http://www.umc.org/what-we-believe/archives-notable-women-in-methodist-history
https://www.umcdiscipleship.org/worship/womens-history
Books:
Schmidt, Jean Miller. Grace Sufficient: A History of Women in American Methodism, 1760-1939. Nashville, Abingdon Press, 1999.
Dougherty, Mary Agnes Theresa. My Calling to Fulfill: Deaconesses in the United Methodist Tradition. New York: Women's Division, General Board of Global Ministries, the United Methodist Church, 1997.
Russell E. Richey, Rowe, Kenneth E. and Schmidt, Jean Miller.The Methodist Experience in America: A History, Volumes I and II. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2000 and 2010.
United for Change by Ellen Blue is the first in a two-year study commemorating United Methodist Women’s 150th anniversary in 2019. It will provide a historical survey of United Methodist Women and its predecessor organizations and amplify the voices that shaped the work through an overarching story of United Methodist Women changing the fact of mission. This study is about women who established vibrant societies to support mission. First organized in the United States, those societies sent missionaries overseas and later engaged in mission at home. Each was a heroine who was willing to stand over and against what her culture—and sometimes even her church—expected of her. Learning about the early female leaders who created what would become today’s United Methodist Women can help us understand who they truly were beyond who we expected them to have been. You can read more about it and purchase it here: