LESSONS FROM THE STORMS 2006 LAITY ADDRESS George "Buzzy" Anding   Bishop Hutchinson, Provost Cottrill, Secretary Rhoads, members, guests and friends of the Louisiana Annual Conference, and my brothers and sisters in Christ:

My report to the conference begins at page 60 of your Preconference Report, and the reports of the various ministries that are supported by your Board of Laity follow in the succeeding pages.  I encourage you to read these reports, if you have not already done so, to be informed about what our laity are doing to help make and equip disciples and spiritual leaders in our conference and elsewhere.

The members of your Conference Board of Laity are listed in the Conference Journal, and you lay delegates were introduced to and heard from many of them in the laity session yesterday.  These officers and members are partners in ministry with all of you, and deserve your support and encouragement as they seek to carry out the missions and ministries with which they are charged.   At this time, I ask all members of the La. Conference Board of Laity to stand, so that you may recognize them and their efforts for you and with you.  I would also like to ask the following to stand and be recognized:  District 1000 Club Representatives, and those District representatives and all others who participated in the fundraising efforts for the D/M Scholarship Fund, the 1000 Club, United Methodist Men, United Methodist Women, Lay Speaking Ministries, Youth and Young Adults.  Please recognize their efforts with me.

As noted in my written report, last year three of our faithful officers and disciples resigned from their positions, including our Conference Lay Leader, Ned Randolph; our Associate Conference Lay Leader, Jim Anderson; and our Lay Speaking Ministies Chairperson, Joanne White.  We have this year recognized the service and leadership of those individuals by presenting them with plaques expressive of our gratitude to them, and I ask them to stand so that you can again express the thanks of our conference for their sacrifice and service.

There are a number of accomplishments of our lay ministries that were still in progress at the time the Pre-Conference Report went to press.  Rather than reiterate what you can find and read in the Pre-Conference Report, I would like to briefly highlight and bring you up-to-date on just some of the accomplishments of those lay ministries.

Through the leadership of Mr. Joe Page and our seven district lay leaders and superintendents, and even in this hurricane affected year, a new record amount of over $31,000 was raised for the Daughenbaugh-Matheny Scholarship Fund.   As the result, we were able to award scholarships to all of the twenty final qualified applicants, in the increased amount of $1200 each, and still have money left over to apply to future scholarships.  Congratulations to all those who participated in that effort, and  particularly to the Monroe District, which raised the largest amount, $7951.21, of all our districts.     

The Bob Lay Memorial 1000 Club, led by Mr. Fred Banks and with the able support of its district directors, was able to give $65,000 to Fairfield United Methodist Church in Shreveport, to aid in its relocation; and has this year set a goal of $150,000 to aid the hurricane-damaged churches of the New Orleans District. As the result of bylaws changes which were approved at conference last year, this fund-raising effort will continue through the end of 2006, and you have brochures before you setting forth that goal and providing information which can be useful in your fundraising efforts.  If you need additional brochures, they can be made available through your district lay leader, your district 1000 Club chairperson, or through Steve Stephens, the Conference Director of Church Extension and Transformation, at the conference office.  Fred and his group are working with Steve to finalize the selection of next year’s call, and Steve has promised me that this information will be available to you by the end of the summer.

Many of our laity were blessed to participate in this year’s Bishop’s Laity Retreat, which involved fellowship, fasting and faith development under the leadership of our Bishop, Rev. Carole Cotton Winn and Rev. Craig Gilliam.  Our sincere thanks go to all of them for leading us in such a meaningful faith-building experience.

Again, the accomplishments and goals of all our ongoing ministries are set forth in the Preconference Report.  Additionally, a number of new initiatives are planned for the coming year.  Mr. Fred Loy will chair a committee to explore and implement ways to raise additional funds for the Bishop’s Appeal, to provide additional financial support for displaced clergy, mission zone staff funding and other needed hurricane relief not available from other sources.  Mrs. Carolyn Dove is chairing a new committee seeking to improve communications among our laity and their leadership, including the revamping and improvement of the laity portion of our conference web site.  Dr. Sarah Kreutziger and I will co-chair a committee working toward publication of informational and educational manuals for new charge and district lay leaders.

These achievements have been accomplished, and these initiatives will be undertaken, even as we devote much of our other time and finances to hurricane recovery and restoration.  The perseverance of our laity and clergy to continue the missions and ministries of the church in the face of physical disaster, and to carry on the work of God’s kingdom in the most trying of circumstances, has served as a shining example of true discipleship to our communities, and even to the world.  Indeed, these countless acts of selfless, sacrificial service and love stand as, and teach us, important lessons from the storms, which we would do well to hear and heed as we consider what it truly means to be the church, even in such difficult times.         

In the aftermath of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, together comprising one of the greatest natural disasters in history, the question posed to us in our traditional hymn of gathering, “And Are We Yet Alive,” takes on new and profound shades of meaning --- both existentially and spiritually.  To paraphrase Charles Wesley, “What troubles have we seen, what mighty conflicts past, (hurricanes) without and fears within, since we assembled last.”

These storms have not just destroyed homes and churches and businesses.  These storms have staggered many of us to the very core of our faith, our hope – even our lives.  If we have not been their personal victims, we have certainly shared in the anguish, the fear, the distress, and the sorrow of those victims, and our lives have been profoundly changed in the process. 

“Yet,” as Charles Wesley continues in his great hymn, “out of all the Lord hath brought us by his love; and still he doth his help afford….”  Just as we witnessed the incredible devastation wrought by these aberrations of nature, we have also witnessed the incomprehensibly loving response of God, through the peace we have received from praying and knowing that He is with us still; and through the loving acts of kindness and the gifts by countless numbers of His disciples from our communities, from all over our nation and even from around the world.

Don’t misunderstand me.  I know that it has not been easy; and I know that it will not be easy.  We know that we face years of recovery efforts that will continue to tax us financially, spiritually, and in many other aspects of our daily lives.  But we also know that God has not deserted us, will not leave us, and will continue to restore and redeem us.  In fact, as you and I have witnessed and borne witness, we as laity, in partnership and ministry with our clergy, will be the loving acts of God, His acts of recovery, restoration, rescue and redemption.

As we in Louisiana have been the personal witnesses and recipients of God’s love through the loving acts of 10,000 and more disciples who have responded to our needs, we are able and eager to report to the rest of the world that God didn’t send these storms to test us, or to punish us.    Rather, as Christ witnessed and modeled, and as we have seen and experienced, love is God’s fundamental action, the fulfillment of all of His commandments and his ultimate goal for our lives. And God, in an act of the most remarkable love for his creation, has through Christ and His Holy Spirit given Himself into our hands, and has chosen to make Himself known not just in the occasional awesome acts of a distant and fearsome deity, but also in the form and daily actions of the men and women who know Him, who love Him, and who in gratitude and love have chosen to serve Him and His children.      

We – you and I – in our daily witness and walk, have through the grace of God and the guidance of His Holy Spirit been given the opportunity and authority to be the instruments of His love, His strength and His redemption.   Think about that for a moment, and how significant it is.  As Dr. Odell Simmons reminded us Sunday evening, the mantle of God’s authority has been passed on to all of us – laity and clergy alike.  And as Rev. Cliff Wright told us in a powerful laity breakfast message this morning, we – you and I – have been entrusted with Christ’s ministry of reconciliation and love to the world. Rev. Peter Gomes, the chaplain of the Memorial Church at Harvard University, puts it this way:  “By God’s love for us in Jesus Christ we are become in ourselves, in our own persons, in our daily work acts of God, evidence, living proof that the God who acted in the lives of the prophets, the martyrs, and the saints still acts in the likes and the lives of us.”      

Bishop, the laity of this great church are here to report and to witness to the lesson that, through the storms, after the storms, and through and after whatever storms may come, we believe, we know, that God has never left us; and that through our grateful responses to His grace and love for us – through our personal responses to his Holy Spirit guiding our lives – and through our acts of loving discipleship and Christian service – He will continue to be with us, will rescue us and others from the storms, and will repair and restore this broken and suffering part of His creation.

Even as we express such trust, though, we must also admit that, in the midst of such chaos and calamity, we have often become physically and spiritually fatigued.  We have prayed for God to continue or renew our strength, but sometimes it just does not seem possible that it will happen. 

Dr. Ernest Gordon, for many years the Dean of the chapel at Princeton, was more famous for the book he wrote about his captivity and time as a Japanese prisoner of war on the River Kwai during World War II.  Gordon said that during the early part of their captivity, he and his fellow soldiers were very religious, reading their Bibles, praying together, singing hymns, witnessing and testifying to their faith, and hoping and expecting that God would reward them and fortify them for their faith by freeing them, or at least giving them inner strength to bear their imprisonment.  When God didn’t deliver, they became disillusioned and angry, and some even lost their faith.  They didn’t lose their love for one other, however, and after a while, responding to the needs of their fellows – caring for them, protecting the weaker ones – they began to discern again the spirit of God in their midst.  They discovered – they learned the lesson – that compassion and the selfless service of others revealed anew the presence of God with them, and gave them the inner strength they needed to endure.

Hugh Martin in his book, The Beatitudes, writes that “(t)he strength that God gives is available to those who care for others, for they are showing the spirit of Jesus.  The power of God’s spirit fortifies them.” 

Bishop, we have learned a surprising lesson in the last few months.  We have learned that we serve others not just because they need it, but also because of what happens to us when we do.  We have realized that, when we are at our lowest points of Katrina and Rita fatigue, even the small and simple acts of kindness and thoughtfulness to our brothers and sisters, to God’s children, energize us, and give us the inner strength we need to carry on, even in the toughest of times.  It has been revealed to us that the inner strength of our faith is not just the capability to endure hard times -- it is also the spirit-given desire and the capacity to give of ourselves in loving service to others, and to each other; and that when we do so -- when we look not for what we can get, but for what we can give -- it is then that we find true strength and help in the time of even our greatest need.

Finally, Bishop, and despite our occasional grumblings and misgivings about sending our apportionment dollars to the far-flung reaches of the world for purposes and ministries with which we are not familiar, or about which we may not be sure, we have truly witnessed and learned the lesson of connection; that we are not isolated in our discipleship; that our brothers and sisters across United Methodism and around the world are truly in partnership with us in mission and ministry; and that they care and respond when we have need.

Rev. Darryl Tate, the director of our Storm Recovery Center, has reported that over 10,000 volunteer teams have responded to our need, from more than half the states around our nation and from as far away as Bermuda and South Africa, working for a reported total of at least 859,000 volunteer hours in the recovery effort.  One small village church in Liberia even took up a collection from the meager resources available to them, and sent our conference a twenty-dollar bill as their loving and truly sacrificial contribution toward our needs.  We have indeed been blessed to be a part of such a loving and caring connection.

My friends and family in Christ, God has saved us from our sins, and he has saved us from the storms – not just Katrina and Rita, but all of the storms that we may face in this life.  But these lessons from the storms of nature teach us also that we have been saved, justified, made right with God, not just into a state of being, but into a state of action.

 On the night before He died, Jesus gave to his disciples, to his church, what he called a “new commandment” to “love one another.”  He said, “just as I have loved you, you also should love one another.”  And how did our Lord model that love for his disciples?  He got up from the supper table, took off his outer robe, tied a towel around himself, poured water into a basin, and proceeded to wash their feet – to perform the most menial act of service, to those who had pledged their lives to serving him.  And He said, “By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another” – “just as I have loved you.”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, the world watched as many of you got into boats and rescued hundreds stranded by flood waters.  The world witnessed as you opened your homes and your churches to house those displaced by the hurricanes.  The world took note as you participated in work teams to help rebuild the homes, businesses, churches and parsonages damaged in the storms.  And God smiled as you performed countless other acts of kindness and compassion, both large and small, in witness to the fact that you have heard and heeded the commandment of our Lord to love one another, even as He loved us.

In his Daily Bible Study series, the great Christian author and commentator, William Barclay, tells this story about John, said to have been the only apostle who lived to a ripe old age.  It comes from a history of the early church written by Jerome the historian.  It seems that as John reached his final years in Ephesus, and could only with difficulty be carried to the church in the arms of his followers, he eventually reached the point that all he could say, and would say, at their worship gatherings was, “Little children, love one another.”  Eventually, the church fathers, wearied with always hearing the same words from this great disciple, asked John, “Master, why do you always say this same thing, time after time?”  “It is the Lord’s command,” John replied, “and if this alone be done, it is enough.” 

Friends, we are called by our Lord not to be foot shuffling Christians, but foot washing Christians.  We are commanded not to sit, but to serve.  We are justified and saved not just to be fed, but to go out into the world and to feed His lambs.  God in Christ has instructed us that, in the end, the question will not be about how much time we spent in doctrinal debate or in the resolution of intellectual disputes regarding the mysteries of faith, but rather how much time we spent in loving and serving one another and all the rest of God’s children.  The lessons of the storms, the witness and model of thousands of disciples showering God’s love upon us in countless acts of Christian charity, have revealed to us again -- as Christ witnessed to us ages ago -- that we are called to love one another, as he loved us; and if that alone be done, it is enough.