The Woodlands United Methodist Church outside Houston is one of global Methodism’s great churches, today, and in history, with over 11,000 members and missions around the world. Pastor Edmund Robb III, a former IRD board member and brother of IRD board member James, founded the church in 1978. His late father, Edmund Jr., was an evangelist who helped found IRD and who personally inspired my own entry into United Methodist renewal over 25 years ago.
Visiting Woodlands United Methodist is always enjoyable, and today was no exception. The church remarkably has several different congregations and worship spaces on its vast campus, from very contemporary to traditional, simultaneously reaching different audiences with sophistication and spiritual discernment. Naturally I chose a traditional service, meeting in the chapel, which was as large as most sanctuaries and easily seated several hundred, with the space pretty filled.
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