Welcome
Newcomers!
First
a word about us
The rest of this
Web site contains information about Harvard-Epworth United
Methodist Church. We have been located on our site--nestled
within the Harvard Law School complex, across from Cambridge
Common, and five minutes from the middle of Harvard Square--since
the 1860s. (Here's
directions.)
Because of our location, our ministry has always included
university students and faculty. Unlike many "campus
churches," however, our ministry is not solely to the
university community. It is hard to put firm numbers on a
thing like this, but probably half our members and regular
participants have some active connection to area universities,
as students, faculty, or staff, but the other half don't---they
are typical Cambridge and Boston-area folks who have become
active in Harvard-Epworth for a variety of reasons.
Because
we draw from such a wide variety of constituencies, there
is little about Harvard-Epworth that is typical. Most members
would consider themselves "liberal" in one way or
the other, but we do have active members whom many would regard
as "conservative" or "evangelical." Our
worship and liturgy tend to be on the traditional side, reflecting
a mix of traditional practices that come from the various
regions our members come from---New England, the South, and
the midwest. One feature of our worship that certainly marks
us as Methodist is that we like to sing, and do so frequently
each Sunday. The rest of this Web site concerns our congregation,
so if you'd like to learn more, click here
now.
Our
ministry to undergraduate students: The Undergraduate Ecumenical
Forum (Plus a word about the Wesley Foundation)
The special way
we minister to area undergraduates (mostly from Harvard, and
occasionally those from elsewhere) is through the Undergraduate
Ecumenical Forum, which is a gathering of undergraduates in
the Protestant tradition who come together for a home-cooked
meal and discussion each Sunday during the school year on
Sundays at 5:30p.m. The chaplain who helps lead the UEF is
Carolyn Dittes, a United Church of Christ minister sponsored
by the Boston/Cambridge Ministry in Higher Education to do
work on the Harvard campus. The format for the meetings is
simple: A group come together early and cook dinner that is
then shared with the whole group at 5:30. Following the meal,
a discussion follows, which is usually led by a member of
the Cambridge community---sometimes a Harvard or MIT faculty
member, an area minister, author, leader of another religious
tradition, or simply someone in the area who has something
interesting to say. If there is a theme to these meetings,
it is the attempt to understand the various ways in which
faith is at work in the world in all sorts of unexpected ways.
If
you are a United Methodist, and particularly if you are a
United Methodist from the Midwest or South, you may be familiar
with the Wesley Foundation, which is often the formal incarnation
of Methodist campus ministry on college campuses. For a variety
of reasons which we needn't go into here, the work of the
Wesley Foundation was merged with the Boston/Cambridge Ministry
in Higher Education in the 1960s. There is, in fact, a board
which still oversees the legacy of the Foundation, from the
days when it was a more traditional Wesley Foundation, but
the board now works to help support ministry to the campus
through Carolyn Dittes's work and the work of the senior pastor
at Harvard-Epworth. So, if you're looking for the Wesley Foundation,
the Undergraduate Ecumenical Forum is the place to look.
The
Boston/Cambridge Ministry in Higher Education (BCMHE)
If you are not
a student at Harvard, you may be interested in knowing about
the ministries of the Boston/Cambridge
Ministry in Higher Education (BCMHE), which is the United
Methodist mission arm to area college students. The BCMHE
is a cooperative effort among the American Baptist Church,
the Presbyterian Church (USA), the United Church of Christ,
and the United Methodist Church. Right now, there are BCMHE
chaplains located at Harvard
University,
MIT,
Boston
University,
UMass
Boston, and Suffolk
University. Because
the campuses served are diverse, the ministries themselves
are diverse.
Area
United Methodist Churches
If
you are searching for a United Methodist Church and, for whatever
reason, Harvard-Epworth isn't right for you, here are the
links (where they exist), phone numbers and addresses of the
United Methodist Churches in Boston, Cambridge, and the surrounding
towns. You can also search for United Methodist Churches through
the web site of the New England
Annual Conference.
A
Word
about Cults
It's an unfortunate
fact of life that a few individuals and groups seek to prey
on college students, taking advantage of the special vulnerabilities
of young people who are often asking foundational questions
about their faith and their relationships to God, family,
friends, career, and academics. The Boston area constitutes
the largest concentration of college students in the world.
Thus, it shouldn't be surprising that the efforts of religious
"cults" are particularly strong in the area. Be
wary of groups that demand too much loyalty, use deceptive
recruiting practices, or ask you commit too much of your time.
The
Dean of the Chapel at Boston University has created a Web
page that addresses some of the issues of religious cult behavior
and provides links to further resources. Be especially
aware of the International
Church of Christ (formerly called the Boston Church of Christ),
which is still active in the area, and which has been especially
deceptive in its recruitment practices and destructive
of the wellbeing of many college students. (The Boston Church
of Christ is not to be confused with legitimate denominations
with similar names, such as the United Church of Christ or
the Churches of Christ.)
A
Final Word about Religious Resources on Campus
If you've gotten
this far, you're probably very interested in finding out more
about religious life on the campuses in Boston and Cambridge.
To find out more about the religious life scenes on the campuses
of Cambridge's two major universities, you might start with
the directory of the United
Ministry at Harvard and the Web
directory of religious student activities at MIT.
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