I cannot explain the roller coaster of feelings I have had this past week and a half. During that time I was preparing for the final session, the 159th session of the Wyoming Annual Conference of the UMC. I was a part of the worship team as we put together services to help us have some closure, grieve and prepare for the future...a future in which God was doing something new. I was so busy through the two days of our conference, it really did not hit me what was happening. That was until the final worship service. We did a lot of remember our baptism, our history together and the fact that while we would no longer be an annual conference, we were still church of God and United Methodist. While one connection was ending many more were still in place. The idea of connectionalism was and is alive and well within us. My emotions came alive as I was one of a couple of people to help lower two banners, one for our NY districts and the other for the PA districts. The NY lay and clergy followed one banner out one door and the PA folks out the other. We came back together in place where our bishop offered a benediction and we sang "God Be With You Til We Meet Again." Tears flowed, hands held and hugs exchanged..again not saying Goodbye but til we meet again.Here is a link to an article about the final conference:
http://tinyurl.com/34j6wqa
I drove home just thinking about what I had just been through with so many others. The conference that so many were as part of for so long like my father and grandfather, both ordained in the conference, was no more. How would I feel as we headed into this "new thing" from God...the "Susquehanna Conference." Well I told myself I wouldn't have to wait long...One week later the former Central PA COnf reps and the former Wyoming Conference PA reps met at the Community Arts Center in Williamsport PA. I believe we filled the place with close to 2000 people including roughly 480 clergy. We started with worship and then moved into business. As the worship began, I felt a swelling in my heart (strangely warmed?) as we began to sing. As we moved through the business of enabling motions to begin as the new conference. But after lunch as we prepared for ordination/commissioning, it hit me. the feeling of being lost and now found, blind but now I see. The music, worship, ordaining/comissioning and recognizing 28 people, gave me a feeling of hope. Hope in the midst of uncertainty in beginning to be a part of this new thing God has created.
I started by candidacy process in the Central PA Conference. So being in this place, a part of this new thing, made me feel as though I was coming home. I saw a new friend whom I had met about a year ago, Mark Reisinger, be ordained elder in the UMC. I also saw and old friend, Jean Blackie ordained elder. I saw a friend from CPE at Hershey Med center in Hershey PA, Eric Funk, doing some of the behind the scenes work, while my new friends, Heather, Natalya were coordinating worship. Who would have thought one week ago, I was devastated by the ending of something that God started. Here now as Mark Miller lead the music, as we celebrated ordination, commissioning and Holy Communion, I felt the Holy Spirit moving. I felt the hope for the future with my new and my familiar brothers and sisters, together children of God, and Methodists at heart surrounding me singing the songs of faith. I left there on a high but not without a caveat: we have plenty more work to do. We are still in the wilderness time with this new thing. We need to stay faithful to the vision and when need be pull back to and reevaluate where we are and determine where God calls us to go. As my new bishop, well new to me for the most part, Bishop Middleton said, this is a new day. In the evening she said we have to answer the question that Jesus asked Peter, "Do you love me?" If we say yes then there is only one task we have...Go and tell about Jesus. Even amidst this new thing, as we search for a way to do ministry together in this new thing, that is our role as we work for the kingdom together. Please pray for us and we continue to wander in the wilderness!
www.susumc.org
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