Bishop Hutchinson, Provost Cottrill, Secretary Rhoads, Members, Guests and Friends of the Louisiana Annual Conference, and my brothers and sisters in Christ:
The Board of Laity’s report to the conference can be found at page 66 of the Preconference Report, and is followed by the reports of the several ministries that are sponsored and supported by the Board. These reports highlight some of the important ways that our laity are working to make and equip spiritual leaders and disciples, and I commend them to your reading if you haven’t already done so.
The officers and members of the Conference Board of Laity are listed and named in the Conference Journal, and include its officers; the chairpersons of laity-driven ministries including the Daughenbaugh-Matheny Scholarship, Lay Speaking Ministries, the Bob Lay Memorial 1000 Club, United Methodist Youth, Young Adults, Men and Women; our district lay leaders; our immediate past and all former conference lay leaders; lay delegates to General and Jurisdictional Conferences; and several at large members. Lay delegates heard from many of them during the laity session yesterday; but I would like to take this opportunity to recognize them before the entire conference body. Would all members of the Conference Board of Laity please stand at this time, so that we may recognize your leadership and service?
In this past year one of our faithful servant leaders, Mr. Joe Page, was forced to step down from chairing the Daughenbaugh/Matheny Scholarship ministry due to work commitments and health issues. During the period of Joe’s leadership, we were able to set new records in terms of both the numbers and amounts of scholarships awarded to Dillard and Centenary students. Joe is out-of-state attending the college graduation of a family member, but I want to express and make a part of the Journal record the gratitude of the Conference for Joe’s diligent service. The Board of Laity has further recognized Joe with a plaque expressing our appreciation, which was presented to his district lay leader yesterday for delivery to him.
I would certainly be remiss if I didn’t also recognize and thank his successor, and the wife of our provost, Mrs. Glennell Cottrill, for assuming this important lay leadership role. Glennell, would you please stand so that we may express our thanks to you?
I will not bore you by reiterating what is reported in the Pre-Conference Journal; but I would like to briefly highlight and bring you up-to-date on some of the efforts and accomplishments of our lay ministries:
Lay Speaking Ministries continue to offer training and education to equip our laity not just to serve as occasional substitute preachers, but also to fill many other needed service and leadership roles in our churches. Basic and advanced lay speaking courses are offered regularly in each district, and I encourage all of our laity to consider seeking certification in this area as a means of both spiritual growth and discipleship.
The 2004 General Conference approved the formation of the new position of Certified Lay Minister, for the purpose of enhancing the quality of ministry to small membership churches, expanding team ministry in churches both large and small, and, as the Discipline adds, “in deference to an expression of gifts and evidence of God’s grace associated with the lay ministry of early Methodism.” The ministry of a Certified Lay Minister, as specified in our Book of Discipline, includes preaching the word, providing a care ministry to the congregation, assisting in program leadership, and being a witness in the community for the growth, missional and connectional thrust of The United Methodist Church as part of a ministry team, with the supervision and support of a clergy person.
The laity section of the conference web site (la-umc.org) contains additional information regarding the requirements and qualifications for this position, as well as the potential it has to enhance the effectiveness and reach of ministry in all our churches. Bishop Hutchinson has appointed a Certified Lay Minister Task Force, chaired by Mr. Tim Hebert, who will be working in the coming year to educate both laity and clergy regarding the benefits afforded by this position, and to help implement the conference structure and program for this promising new tool of team ministry.
Our Louisiana Conference Youth continue work in the spiritual development of young disciples, and in service to our conference and communities, with their usual unbridled energy and eagerness. Through their Fall Convocation, Junior and Senior High Retreats, Louisiana United Methodist Happening, participation in service projects and other ministries, our youth have demonstrated to us that the future of United Methodism is in competent, committed and lovingly enthusiastic hands. Ample evidence of this can be found in the fact that -- as noted by Chris Deano in his report to the Conference -- of those youth who have attended and participated in Youth Louisiana United Methodist Happenings, seven have become ordained United Methodist ministers, one has become a deacon, four are in seminary working toward their ordination, and two are in the United Methodist course of study. God’s Kingdom is indeed well served by our youth.
United Methodist Women and United Methodist Men continue to provide programs and avenues of Christian fellowship, spiritual growth, discipleship, and mission, as well as the development and training of new church leaders. If your church does not have the benefit of a charter group of one or both of these vital ministries, Joe Kelley and Harriette Elrod would love nothing more than to show you how and to assist you to get one started.
Students from our conference attending Dillard University and Centenary College continue to benefit from our laity-funded Daughenbaugh-Matheny Scholarship Fund. This year, as in past years, we will be able to fully fund scholarships for all of the qualifying applicants from those United Methodist-supported institutions; and I am proud to report that each scholarship this year will be in the amount of $1200, which equals the highest amount ever awarded. Our thanks go to all of our District Lay Leaders whose fundraising efforts allowed us to meet our goal.
The Bob Lay Memorial 1000 Club will continue its efforts for the remainder of this year toward the goal of raising $150,000.00 for the repair and restoration of hurricane damaged churches in the New Orleans District. As you have already heard, the call for 2008, which will begin in January of that year, will benefit a new church start-up in the Watson-Denham Springs area.
I am pleased and excited to reiterate what you heard from Bishop Hutchinson yesterday, that the Bishop’s Laity Retreat, to be held at the Wesley Center in Woodworth on March 14 and 15, 2008, will be led by Dr. Lovett Weems. Dr. Weems, who also led the clergy retreat this year, is Distinguished Professor of Church Leadership and Director of the Lewis Center for Church Leadership at Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D.C. He is a truly dynamic speaker, and the author of several books on church leadership, including Leadership in the Wesleyan Spirit and John Wesley’s Message Today. Laity, you will not want to miss this opportunity for fellowship, spiritual growth and leadership development with our Bishop and Dr. Weems, so be sure to watch for further news and registration information about this exciting event in Louisiana Now, the conference web site, and mailings to your churches.
In reflecting upon the discipleship and loving witness and service demonstrated in the work of Louisiana laity during the past year, our theme for this conference – “Means of Grace: Becoming Grace-full People” – took on new shades of meaning for me, that I’d like to share with you in the next few minutes.
The first step in becoming “grace-full people” is understanding just what “grace” is, and is all about. Fortunately, definitions of “grace” abound in both doctrinal and popular Christian literature, and you also heard several from Dr. Suchocki this morning. Grace is defined in our Book of Discipline, for example, as “the undeserved, unmerited, and loving action of God in human existence through the ever-present Holy Spirit.” In their book, If God Is Love, Philip Gulley and James Mulholland explain it this way: “I believe God is love and that everything God does, God does because of love. When this love is poured on the wicked, the rebellious and the resistant – adjectives that fit all of us on occasion – we call it grace.” In What’s So Amazing About Grace, Phillip Yancey adds, “(G)race means there is nothing I can do to make God love me more, and nothing I can do to make God love me less. … Grace means that God already loves (me) as much as an infinite God can possibly love. … It means that I, even I who deserve the opposite, am invited to take my place at the table in God’s family.”
Frederick Buechner, who has such a great way of putting difficult doctrinal concepts in understandable terms, says in his book, Wishful Thinking, that “(g)race is something you can never get but only be given. There’s no way to earn it or deserve it or bring it about any more than you can deserve the taste of raspberries and cream or earn good looks or bring about your own birth. A good sleep is grace and so are good dreams. Most tears are grace. The smell of rain is grace. Somebody loving you is grace. Loving somebody is grace.”
Buechner goes on to remind us, however, that like most things in life, grace is not quite as simple as it might appear. He tells us that even grace has a catch, warning us that “(l)ike any other gift, the gift of grace can be yours only if you’ll reach out and take it.” In other words, grace is indeed freely given, but it is operative and effective only if we are willing and ready to receive the gift. John Wesley recognized this fact in his sermon, “The Means of Grace,” when he wrote that even engaging in the sacraments, the instituted means of grace, is “less than nothing and vanity” if our participation is nothing more than “outward religion … without the religion of the heart.” He added that “external worship is lost labor, without a heart devoted to God.” Wesley was quick to follow that admonition, however, with the assurance that “he that does truly trust in Him cannot fall short of the (love and) grace of God, even though he were … shut up in the center of the earth.”
Equally as important as this understanding of God’s wonderful gift of love and grace is the realization that God was not content just to love us from a distance, but loved His creation so much that He gave us the ultimate expression of that love by coming to be with and among us, sending us Himself in human form, through his son, Jesus Christ. As Rev. Peter Gomes puts it, God’s grace, God’s “love is a participating love such that he engages with us and in our behalf in the work and labor of the world … by becoming a part of it so that we might participate with him in the making of a new creation. The God who acts in Jesus Christ does so in such a way as to stir us up to action wherever we can and with whatever we have, so that the love of God can be translated into human form and human effort.”
Writing to the church in Corinth, Paul expressed it this way: “So we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.” (II Corinthians 5:20) As William Barclay interprets this passage, “Here is the Christian’s proud privilege and almost terrifying responsibility. The honor (and work) of Christ and of the church are in (our) hands. By (our) every word and action (we) can make men think more – or less – of (our) Church and of (our) Master.”
The practical implications of this truth for us as Christian people are tremendous. The Discipline states that “God’s grace calls forth human response,” and that “salvation evidences itself in good works.” When we realize that for many people in this world, the way we live out our lives, the way we express our Christianity, in their presence may be the only “sermon” they experience – their only link to a loving God – we cannot help but take our jobs as “ambassadors for Christ” seriously. If God can invest Himself and His ultimate, infinite love in us, can we invest less in ourselves, in our world, in each other, than God does?
As Dr. Suchocki reminded us, in addition to the instituted means of grace, John Wesley recognized prudential means of grace, reflecting God’s ability to use any means, in addition to those instituted, in accordance with different times and circumstances. Included in Wesley’s list of the prudential means were such things as “visiting the sick,” and “doing all the good one can.” Again, the implication for us is clear. As “ambassadors for Christ,” we are, then -- in ourselves and in our acts of discipleship -- means of God’s grace, and instruments of God’s love, to a hurting and suffering world. To quote Gomes again, “(w)e become then, you and I, not simply the objects of a benevolent, a wrathful, or an indifferent God, pieces of furniture to be arranged at will, but rather we are licensed, as it were, by the incarnation to be the action, the activity of God in the world, for it is through us … that God will be known and served.”
“For Wesley,” our Book of Discipline reminds us, “there is no religion but social religion, no holiness but social holiness. The communal forms of faith in the Wesleyan tradition not only promote personal growth; they also equip and mobilize us for mission and service to the world.” If we accept the gift of God’s grace seriously, with trust in him and a heart devoted to Him, the transforming, life-changing effect of that grace – and our response in love and gratitude – will inevitably lead us to serve as vessels of God’s grace, as instruments of God’s boundless love, to others.
Brothers and sisters, I realize that I am “preaching to the choir.” You are here at this Annual Conference because you have demonstrated through your service and discipleship that you are indeed “grace-full” people, and faithful ambassadors of Christ. John and Charles Wesley both taught us, however, that Christian conversion does not end with being justified, that we all can grow in grace, and that we all can move on toward Christian perfection with Jesus Christ as our model. And our Discipline reminds us that as United Methodists, “devising formal definitions of doctrine” – finding ways to distinguish and separate ourselves from others of God’s children – “has been less pressing” for us than “summoning people to faith and nurturing them in the knowledge and love of God.”
In other words, and to paraphrase Rev. Fred Wideman in a sermon I heard him preach recently, while we may indeed be, or are in the process of becoming, “grace-full” people, we are not called to gather together as United Methodists for the purpose of celebrating our distinctiveness, of taking pride in and reminding each other about how much grace we have, or to congratulate each other about being grace-filled containers. Rather, God calls us, converts us and commissions us as his ambassadors, to find and put into practice new and better ways to pour out that grace and His love upon everyone, even the least, the last and the lost of His children.
Brothers and sisters, I thank you all for being not just “grace-full” people, not just containers of God’s grace, but vessels from which His grace and love flow and will continue to flow freely and bountifully, nourishing and nurturing all of God’s children.
May it always be so. Amen.
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