The Rev. John W. Coleman, a United Methodist freelance journalist and pastor in Greater Jersey, won four awards at the United Methodist Association of Communicators (UMAC) annual awards banquet Oct. 28. And each of his award-winning writing entries—two feature articles and two feature series—proved that for this reporter there’s no place like home.
The Eastern PA and Greater New Jersey conferences’ dismantling racism efforts were featured in one award entry, and five EPA&GNJ churches were featured in three others. Coleman, who retired from the two conferences’ joint communications office as editorial manager in June 2024, is a licensed local pastor on-loan from the Eastern PA to GNJ, where he serves Grace Union (aka Blue Anchor) and Winslow United Methodist churches in Winslow Township, located in South Jersey.
United Methodist Insight, a progressive, online newspaper, won second place for its Dismantling Racism’ Five Years Later digital booklet in the UMAC Awards Electronic Special Publication category. As UM Insight’s editor-at-large, Coleman co-authored and shared the award for the 52-page booklet of serial articles and discussion questions with editor Cynthia Astle, who founded the free, weekly online publication in 2011. UM Insight provides United Methodists with denominational news and commentary but with a particular focus on news relevant to “marginalized and under-served United Methodists.”
Descriptions of the once-separate but now conjoined dismantling racism campaigns of EPA (A Path Toward Wholeness) and GNJ (Journey of Hope) are both included in the comprehensive booklet’s extensively researched articles that examine the UMC’s five-year-long initiative to overcome racism in the United States. The four-part, monthlong series, launched June 19, aptly on the Juneteenth holiday, covers that broad topic from the multiple perspectives of the general church (that is, the Council of Bishops and general agencies), annual conferences in each of the five U.S. jurisdictions, and a number of local churches doing exemplary anti-racism ministry.
“What we uncovered in our research was a stunning revelation: United Methodist agencies, conferences and local churches wholeheartedly have embraced the goal of eradicating racism with remarkable success in many places,” Astle said. The study resource isavailable free onlinewithpermission granted for reproduction by churches without charge.
Five EPA&GNJ churches featured in winning articles
Moreover, three EPA&GNJ African American churches—Mother African Zoar and Tindley Temple in Philadelphia and St. Mark in Montclair, N.J.—are featured in another series of feature articles for which Coleman was awarded first place. His five-part series “Legacy Black Churches: Venerable but Still Vital ,” written for United Methodist News, reports on how dozens of historic Black churches, across all five U.S. jurisdictions, are employing creative ideas and inclusive ministries to remain vital today in attracting new members and serving their communities.
Mother African Zoar is featured in “Pouring new wine into old wineskins.” And Tindley Temple and St. Mark Montclair are featured in “Black churches preserve history, shape future.”
In addition, Coleman won first place for his feature article Church embraces its Muslim tenants as neighbors, also reported for UM News, the denomination’s global news service agency. The June 18 article features St. Luke UMC in Bryn Mawr, Pa., and its growing friendship with its tenants the As-Salaam Islamic Society. The society rents the church’s fellowship hall to welcome the local Muslim community for Friday prayers, Sunday school for children and special fellowship gatherings to which church members and others are invited.
While fulfilling a denominational commitment to bridge the divide between people of the Christian and Islamic faiths, St. Luke and its tenant neighbors are learning from one another through celebrations, conversations and cooperation.
Finally, Coleman won second place for his feature article, “A resurrection in the House of God promises ‘hope and a future’” written for GNJ in October 2023. The article features the resurrection of the former Bethel UMC in Camden, N.J., first born in 1864, then closed in 2022, and now reborn as the Imani Community Center, thanks to its director and pastor Timothy Merrill, who collaborated with former Delaware Bay District Superintendent the Rev. Glenn Conaway, GNJ’s conference trustees, and several churches and pastors who contributed funds and labor to renovate the old, once-dilapidated building.
“I am grateful and elated to have won these four awards through which my UMAC peers graciously recognize the quality and value of my reporting and writing,” said Coleman, who was unable to attend the UMAC meeting and awards ceremony at Resurrection, A United Methodist Church, in Leawood, Kansas. “But I am even more thankful for the spotlight all these articles have shined on some of our extraordinary EPA&GNJ churches and on our conferences’ dedicated efforts to end racism.”