“The times they are a-changin’” is a phrase we’ve heard since childhood. We’ve learned by prayer and discernment and experience that “change” is constant. Even if everything in our environment and relationships could stay the same, change will still find us because, although we mature, grow wiser, and become more like Jesus (we hope) on our Christian journey, time acts on us in body, mind, and spirit so WE are changed!
Jesus encourages us not to be afraid of living out of the grace and peace we have received, especially as part of His eternal Body, the church. So, let’s embrace the vision, unveiled by United Methodist bishops and other denominational leaders, as Christian disciples “who, empowered by the Holy Spirit, love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously in local communities and worldwide connections.” We “continue to desire and strive to be a world-wide church that is one with Christ, one with each other and one in ministry to all the world while recognizing the unique contexts for that ministry.”
At the 241st Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference Session earlier this month, clergy and laity voted and added their voices to brothers and sisters across all the world’s Conferences who are voting on constitutional amendments. These amendments require two-thirds of all eligible voters to approve them in order to become church law. We won’t know the outcome until November after all Annual Conferences have met and voted. There were four such constitutional amendment ballots that the 2024 General Conference had overwhelmingly affirmed:
- Regionalization – which would organize The United Methodist Church into geographic bodies equalizing the power among them while maintaining the existing Book of Discipline’s core beliefs found in the sections: Doctrinal Standards and Our Theological Task, The Ministry of All Christians, and the Social Principles’ preface, preamble and paragraphs 160-166. The rest may be adapted by regional conferences to fit their contexts.
- Inclusion of “gender” and “ability” to the list of characteristics which do not bar people from membership in a UM congregation.
- The complete revision of the Constitution’s paragraph 5, Article V to strengthen the denomination’s longtime support for racial justice by commitment to confronting and eliminating all forms of racism, racial inequity, colonialism, white privilege and white supremacy in every facet of its life and in society at large.
- Clarification of the educational requirements for clergy who may vote for clergy delegates to future General and Jurisdictional Conferences.
There were also authentic, powerful, worshipful times at our session in Baltimore, with preaching, teaching, congregational singing, holy conferencing, fellowship, prayer, retirement celebration of combined 572 years of clergy service, honoring of the saints departed this year, the business of the conference stewardship, budget, operations, discipleship and revitalization planning through local collaborative “hubs” — all held in the Lovelight based on Philippians 4: 4-9, from which the theme: “Rejoice in the Lord: Dwell in Joy!” was derived. To read more about the Conference, click here.
We all are aware of so many changes swirling around us, wars and threats of wars, food insecurity and oppressive gangs in control, tariffs and threats of recession, relationships expected of employees and newly ruling employers, earned inclusiveness and imposed threats, rights of all to due process and deportations without any, among many more.
As Christians, still we choose — we are to love one another with the love and grace with which Jesus loved us to salvation, to pray always, even for our enemies, to act as if everything we are and do is for the Lord, and to serve him faithfully (not perfectly) by serving those God identifies as the least and in the most need (Matthew 25: 35-40): the hungry, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the oppressed, and the imprisoned.
The encouragement of the “rejoice in the Lord, dwell in joy” message and Annual Conference theme is that we DO have a choice about how we respond to change, individually and together, as Jesus’ Body and church, always!
If we choose the path of praying without ceasing and rejoicing in all circumstances, while doing what we can to elevate the situations we see, we stand in the company of a great cloud of witnesses, like Paul, whose personal encounter with Jesus strengthened his witness for the rest of his life and the early churches he planted.
Here at Community, we’ll be saying farewell and bon voyage to Pastor Erik on June 8. Another change, a bittersweet experience. We pray only the best retirement for him and Sheila, but will miss his faithful pulling us together, stretching our comfort zones, and holding us accountable for walking the talk of being Christ followers. Have you noticed the outpouring of love and wisdom and preparation he is lavishing on us before he leaves? Even so, at the same time, he is preparing us to receive Pastor Doug. It’s intentional. It’s a gift of love…
Pastor Erik, have we told you lately how proud and grateful we are to have you as our pastor? We are! We wish you joy for your next steps and the assurance of loving prayers, too. Go in the peace that only God can give, which flows from the grace of Love that died, rose, and lives in all of us by the power of the Holy Spirit. Till we meet again, God loves you and so do we!
On behalf of a grateful congregation, and me,
Barb Julian, Lay Leader and Lay Member to Annual Conference
