Research Projects
In 2012, Bishop Lawson Bryan was serving as senior minister of First United Methodist Church in Montgomery, Alabama, when the congregation launched a Respite Ministry to support the families of individuals living with Alzheimer’s disease and other types of dementia.
The original intent of the ministry was to give care partners a break while their loved ones were enjoying enrichment and fellowship activities in a community filled with trained, loving volunteers. As the ministry grew, Lawson could not only see the impact this ministry was having on care partners and participants, but he also began to see the impact it was having in the lives of volunteers serving as the hands and feet of Christ. At the same time, he could see the vitality this ministry was bringing to a church where members were actively engaged in hands-on ministry.
These thoughts continued to percolate after Lawson was elected Bishop and assigned to the South Georgia Annual Conference, and he came back to them following his retirement.
Today Lawson serves as a board member of the Respite for All Foundation, through which he has an opportunity to fully invest in efforts to spread the concepts of respite ministry across the country – and especially in the idea that respite ministry is a laboratory of Christian discipleship.
As Lawson knows, laboratories conduct research, and he began to pursue data that could demonstrate to laity and clergy the impact Respite Ministry can have on the members within their local congregations.
In Spring 2024, Lawson joined with John Bell, a volunteer with FUMC-Montgomery’s Respite Ministry, to conduct 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 UMC Bishop Ken Carder’s book, Ministry with the Forgotten, and asked about the impact serving as a volunteer has had on them.
Among the takeaways, as volunteers used words like patience, love, joy, etc. to describe their experiences, Lawson and John couldn’t help but recognize that these are essentially the “Fruit of the Spirit” from Galatians 5.
They presented these and other findings during the Festival of Wisdom and Grace, held August 19-22, 2024, at Lake Junaluska, NC. Click to view the presentation (PDF).
Respite Research Project
If you are a respite volunteer and would like to participate in the Respite Research Project, please complete this survey.