By Rick Dee, Executive Director  

United Methodists Organized for Renewal and Evangelism (UMORE), now in its 26th year, began in the fall of l978, when I organized a retreat at Camp Wesley Woods, Indianola, Iowa, and invited United Methodist pastors who highly respected Wesleyan theology and the evangelical traditions of our faith.  More than a dozen pastors attended this first gathering and the group adopted a name:  Fellowship of Wesleyan Renewal (FWR).  For the next eight years, FWR sponsored fall retreats with leaders and speakers who encouraged Wesleyan principals of faith and practice. 

In l986, Bishop Job invited Pastors Bruce Wittern, George White and me to meet with him at the former United Methodist headquarters on “Methodist Hill.”  At this meeting Bishop Job suggested our organization become an affiliate member of the Iowa Annual Conference.  Our group unanimously agreed and changed its name to United Methodists Organized for Renewal and Evangelism.

In the next year, we began to debate whether we should represent at Annual Conference the evangelical, conservative viewpoints we all supported.  After several years of debate, we decided that Wesleyan theology and our social principles were deeply connected and we must represent our churches which were more conservative and Wesleyan than many of the decisions being made at Annual Conference.

We began to speak as a group at Annual Conference and then began to create our organizational newspaper called The UMORE Beacon.

Various victories were won at Annual Conference and we began to have more evangelical representation at General and Jurisdictional conferences. 

In l996, the Methodist Laity Reform Movement was created by laity throughout Iowa.  This group believed they could promote conservative Wesleyan social principles more efficiently and with much wider representation of Iowa laity. 

At that time, UMORE began to organize statewide Prayer Conferences which have been well attended.  UMORE still sponsors annual fall retreats.  This fall, November l9-20, at Camp Wesley Woods, our speaker will be R.D. Streeter who is the pastor of Arnold's Park UMC in the Spencer district.  Pastor Dick Streeter has been featured in the Des Moines Register and local publications for his evangelism in the lakes area.