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
A United Methodist bishop from Mozambique reminded the 2008 General Conference that deeds, not words, are the key to making true disciples who can transform the world. Bishop João Somane Machado told the assembly that he was a product of the church’s “great and glorious” missionary and evangelistic efforts to Africa in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Just as much of Africa has been transformed by decades of work by followers of Christ, so can the rest of the world be transformed, he said.
Machado told of one missionary who came to Mozambique and was an agriculture expert. The missionary identified the widespread hunger in the region as a “beast” that needed to be killed, and went on to show the local residents what crops could be planted in each month of the year that would flourish and provide food. “He said which seeds to plant in the rainy season and which to plant in the dry season.”
Using the letter to the Galatians as his text, Machado said the Apostle Paul was asking the Christian community he had founded why it had stalled in its work of making disciples. “Paul is asking us, as the United Methodist Church, what has happened,” Machado said. “‘You were running so well…what’s the problem?’ There are no easy answers to that question.”
“The three simple rules (of John Wesley) are very important in the life of the church. A world with hope is only possible when the church goes back to its principle mission of making disciples for the transformation of the world.”
“But not just disciples,” he continued, “we need true disciples. To transform the world we must be transformed ourselves.” Referring to the “eloquent” messages presented to the General Conference, Machado told of a pastor sent to a church with the reputation for looking inward and not “out at the world.”
The pastor’s opening sermon was very well received, but after he repeated the same message in the second and third weeks, the church administrative council asked why he was delivering the identical sermon. He responded: “Until you show me that you can put into action the words I am preaching, I’m not going to change my sermon.”
During his 20 years as a bishop, Machado has seen “that the church is blessed with men and women, lay and clergy, with tremendous gifts and vitality. We need to do what we say … it’s the actions we are missing.”
Neill Caldwell is editor of the Virginia United Methodist Advocate and a reporter for United Methodist News Service.
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