Respite Ministry Research Presentation

Bishop Lawson Bryan and Dr. John Bell presented findings of a discipleship research project during the Festival of Wisdom and Grace held in August 2024 at Lake Junaluska, NC. Lawson was serving as senior pastor of First United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, in 2012 when the congregation launched its Respite Ministry to serve individuals living with dementia and their care partners. Today, he is a board member and Bishop in Residence for the Respite for All Foundation, which is seeking to spread this faith-based, volunteer-supported model of care across the country. John, a retired educator, is a long-time volunteer with FUMC-Montgomery’s Respite Ministry. Together, Lawson and John conducted a research project on how volunteers grow in discipleship through their participation in Respite Ministry. To do so, they led several long-time volunteers in the Montgomery ministry through a weekly study of Bishop Kenneth L. Carder’s book, Ministry with the Forgotten, and they asked the participants to consider how serving as a volunteer has had impact on their lives.