What happens when the promises we make at the baptismal font stop being liturgy and start being a way of life?

This episode of The Unfinished Church brings host Bishop Gregory Vaughn Palmer together with Bishop LaTrelle M. Easterling, Resident Bishop of the Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware Conferences of the United Methodist Church. Bishop Easterling is one of the original architects of this podcast's first iteration, alongside Bishop Palmer and Bishop Michael McKee, which makes this conversation something of a reunion and a return to the questions that gave the show its name. She also leads the Council of Bishops' ongoing work on anti-racism, which she helped transition from a temporary task force into a permanent part of the Council's life.

The Unfinished Church takes its name from a Wesleyan conviction: that we are always going on to perfection, not as a claim of arrival but as a prayer. Bishop Easterling grounds that conviction in the waters of baptism. We are not saved as isolated individuals. We are saved for community, and that community has obligations to the world outside its walls. The church's work on race, justice, and belonging is not a response to a news cycle. It is what the baptismal covenant has always required.

Together, Bishop Palmer and Bishop Easterling trace that conviction from the font into discipleship and public witness. They talk about why the anti-racism work of the Council of Bishops was never meant to be episodic, what it looks like when a commitment stops belonging to one committee and starts belonging to everyone, and how to name white supremacy and Christian nationalism honestly in a moment that would rather look away.

Bishop Easterling's hope is not sentimental. It is rooted in a long view of how movements survive and in a Wesleyan yearning to love completely, which she names as the church's most unfinished and most urgent work.

Guest

Bishop LaTrelle M. Easterling serves as the episcopal leader of the Baltimore-Washington and Peninsula-Delaware Area of The United Methodist Church. She was assigned to serve the Baltimore-Washington Conference in September 2016, becoming the first woman to lead this historic conference. She became the bishop of the Peninsula-Delaware Conference in September 2021, when the two conferences were affiliated. Prior to being elected, she served as superintendent of The Boston Metro District, the most diverse and inclusive district within the New England Annual Conference. She was also selected to serve as Dean of the Cabinet. Easterling was elected a delegate to General and Jurisdictional Conferences in 2012 and 2016. Before her election to the episcopacy, she served as a pastor, district superintendent, and dean of the cabinet in the New England Conference. A lawyer, preacher, speaker, and author, she's served in leadership roles focused on anti-racism, immigration, and Hispanic and Latino ministries within The United Methodist Church.

Connect

Visit our show's website at https://wesleyanimpactpartners.org/the_unfinished_church/.

#TheUnfinishedChurch #FaithInAction #FaithAndJustice #ChurchLeadership #SpiritualFormation #ReimaginingChurch #HumanFlourishing #AntiRacism #BaptismalCovenant #WesleyanTheology #BelovedCommunity #UnitedMethodist

What if the word unfinished is not a verdict on the church, but an invitation to it?

The Unfinished Church begins with a simple conviction. The church is unfinished, not because it is failing and not because God has abandoned it, but because every generation is invited to discern again what faithfulness looks like. In this first conversation, Rev. Dr. Blair Thompson welcomes Bishop Gregory Vaughn Palmer to talk about the phrase that gives this show its name, the earlier season of work it grew out of, and the questions worth carrying into a moment of extraordinary change.

Bishop Palmer has served the church for more than four decades with wisdom, humility, and a pastor's heart. He traces the roots of this podcast back to a season of national grief and reckoning around race, and then further back still, to the verse he claims as his life verse from the first epistle of John and to the Wesley hymn that prays, "Finish, then, thy new creation.” Out of that comes a vision of a church that can affirm what it does well and still critique itself honestly, along with a conversation wide enough to include people of faith, people of other faiths, and people of no faith at all. As he puts it, everybody has a stake in a church that is in the process of becoming.

Listen as Blair and Bishop Palmer explore why retirement has sharpened, rather than softened, his sense of urgency, what it means to turn walls into bridges and walk across them, and why the first place we find the power to do any of this is less in isolation and more in conversation and community.

#TheUnfinishedChurch #FaithInAction #FaithAndJustice #ChurchLeadership #SpiritualFormation #ReimaginingChurch #HumanFlourishing #WesleyanTradition #FaithfulImagination #ChurchAndCommunity

Host

Bishop Gregory Vaughn Palmer is senior advisor for Texas Methodist Foundation and Wesleyan Impact Partners. He works closely with Rev. Lisa Greenwood, president and chief executive officer, and the executive team to shape initiatives to establish and deepen relationships with leaders and ministries across the Wesleyan ecosystem.

Bishop Palmer is currently serving as the Council of Bishops' executive secretary and in 2008, he served a two-year term as the Council of Bishops’ president. He has served as president of the General Board of Higher Education and as a board member of numerous organizations, including The United Methodist Publishing House, Methodist Theological School in Ohio, United Theological Seminary, and OhioHealth.

Bishop Palmer earned his undergraduate degree from George Washington University and a Master of Divinity from Duke Divinity School. In 2000, Bishop Palmer was elected to the episcopacy and was the resident bishop of the West Ohio Conference of The United Methodist Church before retiring in September 2024.

Co-Host

Rev. Dr. Blair Thompson is Chief Learning and Innovation Officer at Texas Methodist Foundation and Wesleyan Impact Partners, where she leads the organizations’ work to form leaders, ignite imagination across the church, and generate and share learning for a changing landscape.

Connect

Visit our show's website at https://wesleyanimpactpartners.org/the_unfinished_church/.

What if the most hopeful thing about the church is the work it has not finished yet?

The Unfinished Church is a new podcast series from Wesleyan Impact Partners and Texas Methodist Foundation, hosted by Bishop Gregory Vaughn Palmer. It is a conversation for people willing to hold the questions that do not resolve neatly, and who believe the church still has real work to do in the world.

This season, Bishop Palmer sits down with Bishop LaTrelle Easterling, Dr. Ashley Boggan, Rev. Dr. Candace Lewis, Rev. Dr. Edgardo Colón-Emeric, Bishop Sandra Olewine, Reba Collins, and Rev. Dr. Kathleen McShane. Together they reckon with what it means to repair and restore alongside people wounded by incarceration, to pursue Christian unity when the questions have been shaped too long by the global north, and to sing about the goodness of God on Sunday while facing a week full of systems that harm other children of God.

The Holy Spirit is never done with us, and neither is this work. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts and join us as we explore what God might be doing in and through an unfinished church.