Follow that lead

Some stories require a lot of planning. Other stories are spontaneous -- no matter what you're working on, you know you've got to drop everything and follow that lead.
 
Our top two most-clicked headlines in September are examples of both. The report on a "Holy Conversations" meeting followed by a Wesleyan Covenant Association meeting was discussed well ahead of time as an opportunity to cover opposing viewpoints in a fair way. (See #1.)
 
The story about a Chattanooga church member who takes leftovers to the homeless was a gift that just popped up in the process of covering another story. (See #2.) "Chattanooga Street Buffet" has been so widely shared that it's now the highest-read post on our food and faith blog, The Call to Cook.
 
Another spontaneous story happened one afternoon when Bishop Dindy Taylor was visited by Bishop Seul Chul Ahn and a group of Korean clergy. Our bishop's assistant, Lori Sluder, saw an opportunity for coverage, and we jumped on it! (See #5.) We were pretty excited when the resulting story was translated into the Korean language and published for Korean Methodists by UMNews.

See the list.