General Conference opens with hope
Personal ministry makes disciples
UMC formally admits Ivory Coast
Madam President, Mama President
Church retains stance on human sexuality
Pain and protest: A Good News response
Young people: a church to call home
Doubts arise following cellphone gifts
Sometimes a cellphone is just a cellphone
Deeds, not words, make disciples
Former abortion clinic owner shares story
U.S. Christians don’t feel persecution pain
Moved by the “water and the Spirit”
Church key to fighting AIDS crisis
Episcopal address focuses on hope
General Conference tackles global issues
Points of order, points of grace
CONFERENCE COMMENTARY
United Methodist teambuilding: Acevedo
Looking to the future with hope: Hamilton
Priorities transcend differences: McCurry
The dilemma of 3 Simple Rules: Reisman
COLUMNS
Editorial Reflections on the 2008 General Conference
RENEW Women’s Network Aftermath
Culture in View To Be a Friend of Caspian
Next Generation Responding to Speakaphobia
The Great Commission Brokenness
From the Hear Prison Praise
Hope was the theme of the Episcopal Address, delivered on behalf of United Methodist bishops to the 2008 General Conference. Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher’s message was filled with songs and provocative multimedia and multisensory images about how people received and experienced hope, gave hope and were transformed by encountering Christ and engaging in Christian community.
Christopher spoke of a church built just outside of a cemetery in Manila, Philippines, which offers hope and a future to the people, especially the children, who live in the tombs, and of a former addict in Nashville, Tennessee, who met a United Methodist faith community, was transformed and is now transforming others. She also spoke of battle-scarred Richard Toby of Liberia, who risked his life to bring Christ to others during that country’s civil war.
When people meet Jesus Christ, “relationships rent by class, race, political and ideological perspectives are mended and justice is restored,” she said.
The bishop told the United Methodists from 129 annual conferences and 50 countries that examples of hope and reconciliation can be seen in the partnerships the denomination has joined in order to save lives. She spoke of the historic partnership that brought United Methodists, other Christians and Muslims together after the 2004 tsunami to deliver aid; the interfaith work being carried out in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Sudan and in areas across the United States. She also noted the response of the church to natural disasters, civil wars in Africa, the war in the Middle East and the terrorist attacks throughout the world.
“We, the church, are God’s agents in the making of disciples for the personal and social transformation of the world,” she said. Congregations are to be centers that invite people into God’s grace and send people into the world to heal, proclaim, work for justice, encourage people to have a personal relationship with Christ and feed the spiritually and physically needy.
Christopher said the denomination’s internal struggles are adversely affecting its capacity to offer hope for the world. The church’s U.S. membership today is less than 8 million, the average member is 57 years old and those under 18 make up less than 5 percent of the church’s membership. While membership and church participation in the United States grew by 34 percent between 1995 and 2005, the number of members professing faith across Africa and Southeast Asia grew by 200 percent.
“Our United Methodist soul is fractured by it. We are plagued with deep fear and anxiety resulting in symptoms that mimic the reactivity of the world rather than the life, ministry, death and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ,” Christopher said amid generous applause.
Other internal struggles that diminish the church’s capacity to offer hope to a divided world are political, ideological and relational. “There are ruptures in our United Methodist relationships. Left or right, conservative or liberal, we treat our baptized brothers and sisters as if they are our enemies” and seek to destroy those who have a different viewpoint or perspective, she said.
“We abase one another as if our own salvation depends on the destruction of our Christian and United Methodist brothers and sisters. In the name of God, we do harm to one another,” Christopher said.
She added that church members harm one another when they fight over the nature of God, the authority of Scripture, the identity of Jesus and their relationship to Jesus, the societal issues of the day, who is welcome at the United Methodist table and how the table should be set.
“Our fervent pursuit of being right takes priority over right relationship,” she said. The disarray of the table, the fractured and ruptured United Methodist relationships, and “carefully calculated formulas of theology” make church members unable to hear and listen to the cries of a neighbor. “Our own need deafens us to the needs of others,” she said.
Everyone is guilty, she added. She invited each delegate to have the courage to examine his or her “complicity in the decline, distraction and division within our church.”
The United Methodist Church is called by God to be a sign, a demonstration of God’s purpose for the world, so that when the world looks at the church, the world sees people living responsibly and governed by the three rules of Christian life as outlined by Methodism’s founder John Wesley—do good, do no harm and stay in love with God.
Linda Green is a United Methodist News Service news writer based in Nashville, Tennessee.
Click here to send your response plus the title of this article to us at Good News.