The Morning Verse
The Morning Verse
The Rest That Is Offered, Not Earned
Weariness is not a failure of faith, and the invitation to rest is addressed to the tired.
Daily Briefing
Methodist numbers fall again as Anglican disputes move through synods and courts
Charisma News reports that the United Methodist Church lost approximately 174,000 members in the United States in 2025, another year of decline for a denomination it describes as marked by theological division, with thousands of churches departing. On the same denomination, United Methodist News reports that participants at the Council of Bishops Leadership Gathering spent their second full day moving from naming the realities the church faces to reflecting on ways to help it thrive. Read together, the two accounts set a shrinking body alongside its leaders' search for a way forward. For a reader in any tradition, it is a plain picture of what decline asks of those who lead through it.
Anglican Ink carries several developments. The Perth Anglican Synod passed a motion over the weekend in support of a conversion ban bill for Western Australia; the motion affirms that all people are created in the image of God and that LGBTQIA+ people belong in the Body of Christ as equal friends and fellow disciples. The Episcopal Church's Executive Council, which met on 19 October in New York City, issued a letter to the church following that meeting.