Celebarating our Heritage

This morning I attended one of the most moving worship services that I have attended in a long time. The service was lead by Bishop William Hutchinson. This service was to me a recommitment service and a remembrance of our baptism. The message was very inspiring and the music was once again spiritually moving. It was wonderful to see some of the young adults were involved in the worship service, To most this is a once in a lifetime experience. In fact one of my dear friends had a young adult from her local church to participate in the worship service and it gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling to experience her excitement.

There was also a celebration of the “Rural Church”; being a person reared in a rural church it was great to see the celebration. Banners of beautiful pastel colored butterflies (approximately 20,000) were carried to the arena to open the celebration of the Rural Church. Each butterfly represented a rural church that is a part of our denomination. All who attended the morning worship received a package of seeds to represent the seeds that have been plant in Rural America. The celebration again made me feel very proud to say I am a United Methodist and a product of a rural church. It was also great to see an individual whom I knew as a youth stand on the stage and tell his accomplishments in the United Methodist Church.

I am looking forward to the rest of the conference especially next week when all of the legislative work goes to the floor of the conference. Yes, I know it sounds like a term that all of us have used when studying about our U. S. Government. If you really want to know how the government works attending the General Conference is a real good example. Tomorrow we will be recognizing the Retiring Bishops and this includes our own Bishop Ben Chamness. We will also Have a strengthening the Black Church Initiative and celebrate the 40th dissolution of the Central Jurisdiction. After all of that we will go back to work to finish our legislative work. Stay tune tomorrow for “the rest of the story”…..