General Conference News Archive

United Methodist delegates receive message of hope

Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher names different hungers during the Episcopal Address to the 2008 United Methodist General Conference. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.

By Linda Green*
April 24, 2008 | FORT WORTH, Texas (UMNS)

The 992 delegates and visitors attending the legislative assembly of The United Methodist Church were provided with a message of hope, reconciliation and a blueprint for Christian life.

In a prayer for the church and the rest of the world, Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher of the Illinois Great Rivers Annual (regional) Conference said people "in God's human family" hunger for hope.

Hope was the theme of the Episcopal Address, delivered on behalf of United Methodist bishops to the 2008 United Methodist General Conference. That address, the Laity Address, along with a first-ever Young People's Address, are highlights of this April 23-May 2 meeting, which brought delegates and visitors from around the world together to discuss and handle matters for the denomination.

Christopher's April 24 message at the Fort Worth (Texas) Convention Center was filled with songs and provocative multimedia and multisensory images about how people received and experienced hope, gave hope and were transformed by encountering Christ and engaging in Christian community. The message allowed the delegates to experience hope rather than listening to the often-delivered message about the church.

"All around this world there is physical, mental and spiritual hunger for the bread of life," she said.

There are various types of hunger – food, education, freedom, meaning and purpose, and a relationship with God. But, "in the midst of the world's hunger pangs we gathered here and connected around the world, are the church of Jesus Christ – The United Methodist Church – together with Christians with names and histories different from our own yet bound with us in common mission," she said.

The power of meeting Christ

Christopher spoke of a church built just outside of a cemetery in Manila, Philippines, which offers hope and a future to the people, especially the children, who live in the tombs, and of a former addict in Nashville, Tenn., who met a United Methodist faith community, was transformed and is now transforming others.

Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher offers a prayer of consecration during the Episcopal Address to the 2008 General Conference.

She spoke of battle-scarred Richard Toby of Liberia, who risked his life to bring Christ to others during that country's civil war, and of Candis Shannon of Fairbanks, Alaska, who was 31 years old when she lost her hearing as a result of meningitis. On video, Shannon talked about how she found hope after participating in church worship services.

When people meet Jesus Christ, "relationships rent by class, race, political and ideological perspectives are mended and justice is restored," she said.

The bishop told the United Methodists from 129 annual conferences and 50 countries that examples of hope and reconciliation can be seen in the partnerships the denomination has joined in order to save lives. She spoke of the historic partnership that brought United Methodists, other Christians and Muslims together after the 2004 tsunami to deliver aid; the interfaith work being carried out in Sri Lanka, Indonesia and Sudan and in areas across the United States. She also noted the response of the church to natural disasters, civil wars in Africa, the war in the Middle East and the terrorist attacks throughout the world.

"We, the church, are God's agents in the making of disciples for the personal and social transformation of the world," she said. Congregations are to be centers that invite people into God's grace and send people into the world to heal, proclaim, work for justice, encourage people to have a personal relationship with Christ and feed the spiritually and physically needy.

The church seeks to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world through four areas of focus – leadership development, congregational renewal and growth, engagement in ministry with the poor and stamping out killer diseases by improving global health. "In our mission lies a role for each and every United Methodist."

But, she said, the denomination's internal struggles are adversely affecting its capacity to offer hope for the world. The church's U.S. membership today is less than 8 million, the average member is 57 years old and those under 18 make up less than 5 percent of the church's membership. While membership and church participation in the United States grew by 34 percent between 1995 and 2005, the number of members professing faith across Africa and Southeast Asia grew by 200 percent.

Distractions and division

Christopher noted that The United Methodist Church and its members are distracted not only by numbers but by glitz and division.

"Our United Methodist soul is fractured by it. We are plagued with deep fear and anxiety resulting in symptoms that mimic the reactivity of the world rather than the life, ministry, death and resurrection of our Savior, Jesus Christ," Christopher said amid generous applause.

The Rev. Tim McClendon and Carolyn Briscoe share Holy Communion during the Episcopal Address at the 2008 General Conference. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.

During a press conference, she explained the picture she painted of the church's decline and gave reasons for the decline in the United States. "Part of it has to do with the nature of consumerism, and when we live in a consumerist society that invites us all the time to take care of ourselves and feed ourselves, it is hard to be clear about what it means to us to feed others,” she said.

Other internal struggles that diminish the church's capacity to offer hope to a divided world are political, ideological and relational. "There are ruptures in our United Methodist relationships. Left or right, conservative or liberal, we treat our baptized brothers and sisters as if they are our enemies" and seek to destroy those who have a different viewpoint or perspective, she said.

"We abase one another as if our own salvation depends on the destruction of our Christian and United Methodist brothers and sisters. In the name of God, we do harm to one another," Christopher said.

She added that church members harm one another when they fight over the nature of God, the authority of Scripture, the identity of Jesus and their relationship to Jesus, the societal issues of the day, who is welcome at the United Methodist table and how the table should be set.

"Our fervent pursuit of being right takes priority over right relationship," she said. The disarray of the table, the fractured and ruptured United Methodist relationships, and "carefully calculated formulas of theology" make church members unable to hear and listen to the cries of a neighbor. "Our own need deafens us to the needs of others," she said.

Everyone is guilty, she added. She invited each delegate to have the courage to examine his or her "complicity in the decline, distraction and division within our church."

The United Methodist Church is called by God to be a sign, a demonstration of God's purpose for the world, so that when the world looks at the church, the world sees people living responsibly and governed by the three rules of Christian life as outlined by John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, she said. Those rules – do good, do no harm and stay in love with God – are as relevant today in Fort Worth and in every place in the world, as they were when Wesley authored them, she added.

Wesley’s three rules

During the press conference, Christopher said the top executives of the church’s agencies, the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table are working together to measure spiritual growth and accountability as people begin to live out the three rules.
"We United Methodists, in partnership with other Christians, must go into the nooks and crannies, the highways and byways, the peaks and valleys and invite the people we encounter into God's hope by doing no harm, doing good and loving God."

Praying over covenant cards they signed at the 2008 General Conference are (from left) Dan Zogimba Danjuma, the Rev. Isa Audu Dunah and Nuhu G. Bulus. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.

She encouraged the delegates to be the church of Jesus Christ at this appointed time and threaten the world with Christ's resurrection.

"In the midst of the world's desperation, we must set God's table of grace with conviction and passion so that the physically, mentally and spiritually hungry of our world may know the hope we know in Jesus Christ."

At the conclusion of her message, the 992 delegates were invited to sign a card and covenant with others to live a life following Wesley's three rules. After committing to do no harm, do good and stay in love with God, the delegates were encouraged to keep the card in a place that would remind them of their connectional covenant.

News media contact: Linda Green, e-mail: newsdesk@umcom.org.

Phone calls can be made to the General Conference Newsroom in Fort Worth, Texas, at (817) 698-4405 until May 3. Afterward, call United Methodist News Service in Nashville, Tenn., at (615) 742-5470.

Video

Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher:
"The secret of fulfilling our mission lies in our own dying to live."

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