"When
the Counselor comes, whom I will send to you
from the Father, the Spirit of truth who goes
out from the Father, he will testify about
me.... He will bring glory to me by taking from
what is mine and making it known to you." (John
15:26; 16:14)
The gathering of the annual conference is a
time when clergy and lay representatives from
each of our region's approximately 950 UM
churches gather to worship, to learn, to
fellowship, and to conduct denominational
business.
This year's
conference gathering had a Pentecost theme:
"Come Holy Spirit, Wind and Flame, Fall Afresh
on Us." I am pleased to report that, by the
grace of God, the theme became more than just
words on the page of the conference
notebook.
The activity of
the Holy Spirit at Annual Conference 2000,
though not spectacular in the sense of overt
manifestations, was nonetheless real. Indeed,
the truth of what Jesus said in John 15:26 and
John 16:14 (quoted above) was confirmed: when
the Spirit came at Annual Conference 2000, He
testified of Christ.
In recent
decades, too often our denomination has focused
more on Methodism than on Jesus. But at this
year's conference session, the name of Jesus was
lifted up again and again -- in the worship, in
the preaching, in the teaching, and even in some
of the many business reports that were discussed
and approved.
Monday, June
12
At the opening
communion service, the Rev. Jonathan Holston,
superintendent of the Atlanta-Decatur-Oxford
District, set the Christ-centered tone for the
conference in a sermon based on Acts 1:6-8. "Who
will be a witness? Who will be a witness for my
Lord? Will you?" he asked. "[Jesus] says
you will be my witnesses when you receive the
power of the Holy Spirit!"
Mr. Holston
urged individual believers to be faithful to
Jesus' command: "If you and I would be just
willing to talk to one person about the goodness
of God, just to talk to one person about how He
saved you and made you whole! Talk to to one
person about how, if you'll give yourself to
Christ and seek to be His person, and seek to do
His will, God will bless you in ways you've
never been blessed before!"
In Monday's
business session, delegates focused on the
Vision 2020 strategy, a planning document, not
yet in final form, which lays out three
priorities for the North Georgia Conference over
the next 20 years: leadership development,
church planting, and creation of new
"transformational mission efforts."
In
remarks
about the plan,
Bishop Lindsey Davis voiced concerns that the
Vision 2020 strategy is designed to address.
"While we rejoice in our membership growth of
over 26,000 persons this past quadrennium, it
grieves my heart that one-third of our churches
in 1999 -- one-third of our churches -- did not
have a single profession of faith last year. And
it grieves my heart that 50 percent of our
churches had 'one profession of faith or less'
last year."
Noting continued
rapid population growth in North Georgia, the
Bishop said, "This is truly harvest time for the
kingdom of God in our area."
The Vision 2020
document calls for the planting of what the
Bishop described as "200 new, biblically based,
vision-driven, mission-minded,
community-focused, culturally relevant,
ethically [grounded], cutting edge,
well-equipped, spiritually healthy, Holy
Spirit-vibrant United Methodist congregations in
North Georgia by the year 2020."
At least 100 of
those church plants would replace dying
churches. "If you looked at demographics and our
growth patterns, it does not take a rocket
scientist to figure out that almost 100 of our
950 congregations are teetering on the brink of
collapse," the Bishop noted. "If we're going to
plant churches, and if we're going to evangelize
the 72 counties of North Georgia, we have to not
only replace those congregations, but we have to
build 100 more."
After
introducing the Vision 2020 plan, Bishop Davis
asked delegates to meet in small groups to
discuss the plan and to offer feedback. "This is
our draft, and we dare not go any further
without your input, without your
recommendations, without your insight, and your
wisdom," he said. Each small group submitted
written responses to the proposed Vision 2020
strategy. Those responses will be used in
preparation of a final plan.
A Service of
Ordination and Commissioning
was held
Monday, at which which many conference clergy
were either commissioned or ordained, depending
on their status as probationary members,
deacons, or elders.
To be
commissioned or ordained, each candidate had to
answer the following question affirmatively:
"Are you persuaded that the scriptures of the
Old and New Testaments contain all things
necessary for salvation through faith in Jesus
Christ, and are the unique and authoritative
standard for the church's faith and
life?"
Each candidate
also pledged to uphold the "doctrine and
discipline" of the United Methodist Church, and
commit themselves to accountability within the
church.
Tuesday, June
13
At 7 a.m., a
handful of Athens-area folks gathered in the
conference prayer room to intercede for the
North Georgia Conference and for the UM church
at large. Similar small prayer
gatherings
were held on Wednesday and Thursday. Attendance
was sparse -- no more than four -- but the
prayers were powerful.
At 7:30 each
morning (Tuesday-Thursday), a few hundred
conference-goers took time to participate in a
communion service, held in the Classic Center
Theater.
On Tuesday, the
Rev. Bridgette D. Young, outgoing director of
the Georgia Tech Wesley Foundation -- and a
self-described "Catho-Bapti-Metho-costal" --
preached a challenging sermon on the sufficiency
of Christ, titled Jesus is All
That:
"What I want us
to think about is how much abundance God
provides for us through Jesus Christ." She
warned against taking on an attitude of scarcity
in the ministry of the church. "We limit our
ministry because we think that somehow we have
scare resources, but God is able to provide
'exceedingly abundantly'! Isn't that what we
claim when we claim to be followers of Jesus the
Christ?....
"When we say,
'We don't have enough money,' when we say, 'We
don't have enough people,' when we say, 'We
don't have enough faith,' when we say, 'We don't
have enough cooperative attitude,' when we say,
'We don't have support from the big church,'
when we say, 'Our friends that are going to
laugh at us,' Jesus says: 'The best is still to
come'!"
The morning
session opened with a time of rich praise and
worship, led in vibrant fashion by Diane
Parrish, executive of Prison Disciple Ministry,
based in Marietta.
Bible teachers
this year were Dr.
Ben
Witherington
and Sue Nicholson, both from Asbury
Seminary
in Kentucky.
Dr. Witherington
noted that many United Methodists had been
"holding their breath" during the recent General
Conference, waiting to see if the denomination's
doctrinal standards would be upheld or
overthrown. Now that the General Conference has
affirmed strongly biblical teaching, he said, it
is time for United Methodists "to exhale" and
get on with the work of ministry in the name of
Christ.
Just as God told
Elijah to "go back the way you came" in 1 Kings
19, Dr. Witherington challenged United
Methodists who have been worried about the
future of the denomination "to go back into the
fields of ministry and be faithful, and make it
what it ought to be for the glory of God and the
edification of his people."
Tuesday's
business session included a report
from leaders of North Georgia's delegation to
the recently concluded General Conference of the
UMC. Held every four years, General Conference
is the only body authorized to set and/or alter
church policy.
Joe Whittemore,
incoming lay leader of the North Georgia
Conference, and Martha Forrest, superintendent
of the Atlanta-College Park District, delivered
the General Conference report.
"Possibly the
most important action of General Conference,"
Mr. Whittemore said, "was the adding of a
sentence to the mission part of [the
church's Book of] Discipline,
which says: 'Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the
Savior of the world and Lord of all.'" Mr.
Whittemore called the clear proclamation about
the person and work of Christ "a significant
addition" in the light of increasing pluralism
in some theological circles.
Mr. Whittemore
also noted the important role
of the the North Georgia
delegation
in putting forth a resolution that resulted in
an important ruling from the UM Judicial
Council, the denomination's supreme court. The
case involved the California-Nevada Conference's
refusal to prosecute 67 pastors who violated the
provisions of church law by officiating at a
"union ceremony" for two homosexual
women.
"The resolution
confronted, without being confrontational, the
major issue of our church today, which is that
of an annual conference doing whatever it wants
without regard to church law," Mr. Whittemore
said. "It would have been real easy for our
delegation to back away from this, but we
didn't."
The Judicial
Council, responding to the resolution, ruled
that no annual conference has the right to
negate or ignore provisions of the Book of
Discipline.
Martha Forrest
reported on specific legislation before General
Conference: "We voted not to delete the phrase
'Fidelity in marriage, celibacy in singleness';
we voted to retain the language 'the practice of
homosexuality is incompatible with Christian
teaching';... [we] retained
[the] prohibition against ordaining
practicing homosexuals; [and we]
defeated several attempts to water down these
strong provisions."
The General
Conference also passed legislation "requiring an
evangelism course of study for ministry
candidates," Ms. Forrest said.
One of the
biggest issues facing our conference came before
delegates on Tuesday afternoon. Due to rising
medical costs and changing demographics, the
conference is facing, over the next 20 years, a
more than $30 million unfunded liability for the
cost of "Medigap" insurance for retired pastors.
No one knows how this liability will be met.
Delegates voted
to commit the conference to raising an
additional $700,000 yearly for 20 years to help
make up for the shortfall. A special, one-day
called session of the annual conference will be
help in October to develop specific ways to
raise the money.
Tuesday
evening worship, which turned out to be quite
lively, included music by the Africa
University
choir and a sermon by Bishop Mike Coyner, bishop
of the Dakotas
area.
Wednesday,
June 14
Following
another time of rich worship, Bible teaching,
and prayer, the Wednesday business session
commenced with the annual report of the
Conference Board of Laity. Outgoing lay leader
Rubin Perry challenged
the delegates,
both lay and clergy, to open themselves to
ministries of the Holy Spirit.
"Our theme for
this year's conference -- 'Come Holy Spirit,
Wind and Flame, Fall Afresh on Us' -- reminds of
the necessity of having a supernatural encounter
with the Holy Spirit if we're to successful in
Christian service. This is an encounter that is
in addition to our new birth experience," he
said.
Mr. Perry
observed that Methodists in North Georgia "have
only scratched the surface and have much more to
learn about the workings of the Holy Spirit, and
yet we appear to be slow to move into this
spiritual encounter." He called for the
conference to "build a spiritual house where all
of the spiritual gifts are freely
exhibited."
Noting that
spiritual forces of evil are real, Mr. Perry
stressed that they can be defeated "only by
casting them out and believing in and using the
name of Jesus."
He challenged
the conference to intentionally pursue the gifts
and ministries of the Holy Spirit. "I pray we
all will get to know Him -- not draw back, but
open ourselves to this marvelous move of God
that transforms us into power-filled servants of
the Most High of God, equipped to defeat the
forces of evil."
Wednesday
afternoon worship included music by the
UGA
Wesley
Foundation
Praise Band, plus an excellent sermon by Bishop
Coyner, from the Dakotas area, on the necessity
and the means of leading people to
Christ.
UGA Wesley
director Bob Beckwith opened the service by
reminding delegates that "as a church...our
focus must be outward [toward] those who
have yet to come into a saving relationship with
Jesus Christ." He prayed for God to impart to
the UM churches in North Georgia "a passion for
Jesus Christ" and "a hunger for the lost."
The Wesley band also provided pre-service music
for the Wednesday night worship service, which
was billed as a Pentecost 2000/Vision 2000
Celebration. "We have much to celebrate," Bishop
Davis told a cheering crowd of several thousand
as he opened the service. "Most of all, we are
here tonight to celebrate the risen
Christ!"
The event
featured both humor and testimony from
nationally known comedian Jeff Foxworthy, a
member of Mt.
Pisgah UMC
in Alpharetta. Mr. Foxworthy noted that fame and
fortune are world's criteria for judging
success, but God has different criteria. "God
looks at some pretty insignificant-looking
people in some pretty mighty ways," he
said.
Thursday,
June 15
The morning
Bible teaching, by Dr. Ben Witherington and Sue
Nicholson, focused on holy living, especially as
it relates to sex, marriage, and
singleness.
Stressing the
language of the Book of Discipline that
calls for "fidelity in marriage and celibacy in
singleness," Dr. Witherington said Christians
fail to show the compassion of Christ if we
choose "to baptize somebody's sin and call it
good."
Instead,
compassionate Christians must be willing to
confront sin in a loving manner. "If you really
love [someone caught up in sexual sin],
you must do what God calls us to do: love the
sinner but don't love their sin. It's the cancer
that's killing their spiritual life," he
said.
In the prayer
time that followed, the Rev. Joe Peabody, pastor
of Marietta
First UMC,
asked delegates to pray for holiness to
characterize all our relationships, and to
repent over lingering racism in the North
Georgia Conference.
The conference
session then moved toward a close, with routine
reports and resolutions.
Just before
adjournment, the Bishop read the list of clergy
appointments. I am pleased to report that our
pastor, the Rev.
Jerry Varnado,
is returning to us for a 16th year!
For Bishop
Lindsey Davis' summary
of the Annual Conference Session, click
here.
