General Conference Opening Worship

Last night I had the privilege of participating in the opening worship service for the 2008 United Methodist General Conference. If you don’t know, General Conference is the global gathering of United Methodists that happens every four years. It just happens to be taking place about 30 minutes from where I live in Fort Worth, Texas. Our conference area has been preparing for over two years for this event.

One of the main reasons that I was in attendance was to see and support our choir and orchestra who participated in the worship service. It was certainly a special honor for them to be invited and they did a wonderful job sharing several pieces of music during the preservice concert and participating in the mass choir during the worship time. I was so proud of these dedicated volunteers and certainly our excellent staff who leads them.

The actual worship time was an incredibly moving moment. Perhaps you can relate to the experience I had last night when I had to stop singing because my heart was “welling” up, and I needed to take a moment and regain my composure. Seeing hundreds of bishops from all around the world process into the worship space, sharing in songs and hearing prayers in languages from around the globe, and imagining the 11 million United Methodists throughout our world who were represented in that place made me take a step back and recognize the size of our effort… and at that moment, the word effort really felt appropriate.

Now certainly I could go on to talk about the fact that the number today should be more like 30 million… that the UMC faces incredible challenges over the next 15-20 years… that there are issues on the agenda for this week that can either springboard us into revival or further cripple our connection… But last night, as I worshipped with brothers and sisters from all over our world, the prayer that was given to me was this…

God, please bless our efforts. God, please bless the desire that is in this room to serve you well. Even in the midst of our struggle and past failures, bless us because we long to be a blessing in your name in your world.

Bishop Huie’s message last night was so appropriate to begin this gathering. She talked about “Resurrection Hope.” To read more about last night’s gathering and Bishop Huie’s message, click here.

I was blessed to participate last night and to see again our old friend named Hope. Regardless of what your eyes or ears tell you over the next 10 days of General Conference, remember that Hope is alive and well.

Related posts:

1. A great moment in worship
2. The Annual Conference experience…
3. Twitter Updates for 2008-04-23
4. Annual Conference
5. Wrapping up with Worship

Tags: United Methodist

Category: United Methodism