This coming Sunday, I am preaching a text I have never preached before. Whenever we talk about Resurrection Sunday, most preachers immediately focus on the empty tomb, or the encounter between Jesus and Mary, or even His appearance to the disciples in the upper room. But

My father was a twin! His twin brother, my uncle, is Donald Bell. Ronald and Donald were identical twins! In fact, my grandmother had another set of identical twins—my aunts Darleen and Doreen. So out of the nine children she had, two sets of them were

Do you remember that song, “Back Stabbers” by the O’Jays? Every time I think about the story of Lazarus ‘being raised’ from the dead, I can almost hear that song playing in the background. Let me pause and explain. Lazarus was not resurrected, he was resuscitated.

Beloved, This coming Sunday I will be preaching from the lectionary text, Psalm 23. It is a psalm we know by heart. We all grew up hearing it, praying it, or reciting it at some point in our lives. It carries a unique gift: it is

Beloved, This coming weekend we will gather for Vision Day. It is not simply a meeting or a presentation. It is an invitation. An invitation to pray together, dream together, and discern together what God is calling us to become in this season of our life

Mercy Amba Ewudziwa Oduyoye is a brilliant Ghanaian Methodist theologian, and the founder and former director of the Institute of African Women in Religion and Culture at Trinity Theological Seminary in Ghana. I referenced her work this past Sunday when I talked about reframing our theology

The Bell Family, The Pearl, and the Sacred Thread that Still Holds Us. Can I share a story with you? My daddy’s name was Ronald. His father’s name was Charles. Charles’ father’s name was Percy. Percy’s father’s name was Henry. And somehow—Henry Bell was family to

I have never been comfortable with the name Black Harry. “Black” was not a neutral descriptor. It functioned as a divider in the road—marking Harry Hoosier as ‘other’ to white Methodists while quietly reminding him that he was not quite the person that the movement claimed

There are moments in the life of a community when faith is not loud, not dramatic, or rushed—but firm, quiet, and deeply rooted. This past Sunday we sat with one of those moments as we listened to the words of Psalm 46: “Be still, and know

Beloved, When I was in high school, I served as president of the Youth NAACP for our county. One of our first goals was bold but simple: we wanted Black History taught as an independent course in our high school. We had a plan. We formed