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The Rev. Ted Campbell edited and published “A Core Methodist Hymnal,” a collection of 126 hymn texts by Charles Wesley, Isaac Watts, Fanny Crosby and others. Campbell intends the book as a devotional and teaching resource “to form people today in a Wesleyan and Methodist way of being Christian.” Photo courtesy of the Rev. Ted Campbell.

New attention for old hymn texts

Scholar Ted Campbell has edited a book for devotional reading of early Methodist hymns. Each of the 126 hymn texts is followed by a short commentary from Campbell.
Faith Stories
The Rev. Elaine A. Heath, a United Methodist elder and founder and “abbess” of Spring Forest, visits a herd of goats at the “intentional faith community” in Hillsborough, N.C. Spring Forest combines elements of monasteries and nunneries, regenerative farming, communes, churches and small businesses. Photo by Jim Patterson, UM News.

Growing a new kind of Christian community

Spring Forest in Hillsborough, North Carolina, is part monastery, part collective farm and part any number of other things.
Faith Stories
The Rev. Elaine A. Heath, former dean at Duke Divinity School and abbess at Spring Forest in Hillsborough, N.C., stands amid some of the crops at the farm portion of the 23-acre property that also contains two homes, large outdoor tables for community meals and a stage for entertainment. The monastic community is in stark contrast to Heath’s difficult childhood. Photo by Jim Patterson, UM News.

Pastor creates the community she longed for as a child

The Rev. Elaine A. Heath overcame a difficult childhood to make a successful career as a church leader and educator. Her latest incarnation is as the abbess of a new kind of Christian community.

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