The Center for the Study of World Christian Revitalization Movements

From the Director

Steven O'Malley

             

     This fall important steps are being taken to launch planning for the first annual consultation of the Center, scheduled for October 2009, and funded by the Henry Luce Foundation.

     On October 29 the action committee met with our project consultant, Professor Bryan Froehle of Dominican University, to develop a design for the first consultation. The consultation will bring together from around the globe practitioners of revitalization and scholars representing many disciplines. We will receive the most current data on revitalization events and movements occurring in the world church, in multiple cultural settings. Bringing together the best minds of the church representing varied perspectives and movements should lead to significant new insights. Our intent is to learn what God is about in bringing new life to the world Christian movement.

     The outcomes of the consultation will be made available in products that will be shared in future reports.

     We are pleased also to report that one of the recent publications in our Revitalization Studies Series has won the 2007 Saddlebag Award of the United Methodist Historical Society, which is awarded to the year’s most important new book in Methodist history. The award went to John Tyson, author of In the Midst of Early Methodism: Lady Huntingdon and Her Correspondence (2006).