wfn.org | Methodist educators urged to follow the heritage of John Wesley

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

July 21, 1998       Contact: Linda Green*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
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By Alan Griggs*

GRANTHAM, England (UMNS)-An international group of Methodist educators
were challenged by a prominent United Methodist layman and educator from
the United States to invoke the "astonishing heritage" of John Wesley
and empower their students to live the "richest, fullest lives possible"
in Christian service.

The challenge was made July 21 by James Laney, a former president of
United Methodist-related Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., and
ambassador to South Korea, as he addressed the 1998 International
Association of Methodist-related Schools, Colleges and Universities
(IAMSCU) conference meeting in Grantham, England.

Laney described John Wesley as an innovative and inclusive educator who
allowed the Spirit of God to move through him to unleash the power of
the Methodist movement in England.  From there, he said, the revolution
spread across the ocean to America and around the world were Methodists
were at the forefront in establishing schools and colleges. 

He said Wesley worked tirelessly to educate those less fortunate and
then to turn them out into the world to help others. That premise, said
Laney,  must never be forgotten.

Laney, a former educator who holds a doctorate degree in Christian
ethics, stressed two major components of today's Christian education.

First, he said, there must be inclusion. Those people who have not had
the blessing and opportunities of others, including minorities and
women, must be given a chance to learn. He urged his fellow educators
to make a conscious effort to reach out from the campus to "the world
outside." 

Second, Laney said students must be emboldened to perform acts of
service so that they are not only receiving an education but giving, in
return, acts of service to others.

Also addressing the IAMSCU conference was Tim Macquiban, director of the
Wesley and Methodist Studies Center, Westminster College, Oxford,
England.

He provided for the 200 educators an exploratory look at both John and
Charles Wesley as they formed the worldwide Methodist movement and the
role Oxford played in both their spiritual and educational formation.

Macquiban said that if Wesley were alive, he would be proud to see
Methodist educators from across the world gathered "in the city of his
intellectual training."  Wesley, he said, would have the World Methodist
family be a people on the move, committed like him to advances in
educational philosophy and practice, innovating in the methods and means
which are to be employed. "With his brother Charles, he would seek the
task of education as central to the underpinning of how we might display
the fruits of the spirit in the life of love, love of God and love of
neighbor," he said.

The IAMSCU participants are meeting through July 23 at Harlaxton Manor,
which is owned by United Methodist-related University of Evansville
(Ind.) as part of  the association's efforts to develop partnership and
connections among Methodist institutions worldwide. 

Participants represent  such diverse countries as Argentina, Zimbabwe,
Korea, Norway, India, Russia, Brazil, the United States and the United
Kingdom.

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* Griggs is director of media strategy for United Methodist
Communications

United Methodist News Service
(615)742-5470
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