Bishop Fisher Challenges Us

On Wednesday morning we were honored to have a timely and inspirational message from Bishop Violet Fisher. In her message Bishop Fisher stated “God is calling the church to be the church”. She stated that necessity calls the church to take a more challenging route to end racism. “If we are going to be serious about the future of our church around the sin of racism, some tables will have to be overturned.” Bishop Fisher went on to quote Bishop Leontine T. C. Kelly in her message by saying “Racism does not belong in the church”! This is so true, racism, in any shape fashion or form has not place in the church neither does it has a place in society. Bishop Fisher challenged the denomination to put the elimination of racism.

John Salley presented a report on Africa University. In his report Mr. Salley stated that the Africa University is bringing about a continental and global change in the name of Jesus Christ. He stated the education that Africa University provides is evident in the 2008 General Conference. Attending the conference are twenty-four graduates who are providing some type of leadership in the General Conference. Of the twenty-four, nine are delegates and the other fifteen are providing translating services to the General Conference Delegates. John Salley told of the political situation in Zimbabwe, location of Africa University, the inflation rate is over 200,000 percent which is the highest inflation rate in the entire world. He said that most residents live in poverty. To explain this he said that sixty percent of the people live on less than two dollars per day and thirty one percent live on less that one dollar per day. Mr. Salley went on to say that because of African University and the support of the United Methodist Church insures the students a brighter future.

The last couple of days have been hard for me because I have seen some very disturbing things to take place. I am not going to get into it at this time but we must be careful and not let special interest undo what has been done. As we leave this place we must continue the work that has been started, we must draw together as the United Methodist Church and continue to follow Wesley’s three simple rules “Do Good”, “Do No Harm” and most of all “Love Good”.

This will be my final blog from General Conference 2008, but I will do a wrap when I return home to summarize my impress form GC 2008.