Reflecting On The Week

For the past week, I have been at the Council of Bishops meeting in St. Simons Island, GA. The work has been important, at times difficult, yet through the power of the Holy Spirit — always rewarding. 

This is our last meeting as a Council before gathering in St. Louis at the special called session of General Conference and everything that goes with that important work. 

We met, we worked, we worshipped, we laughed and we worked some more. 

If you’d like to catch up on the work we were able to accomplish this week (and it was a lot), please go here.

But as this week winds to a close, I stare at TV screens and am reminded that our world is indeed broken. Reminded that there are, once again, too many victims to senseless and random acts of violence. 

When we are in St. Simon’s, we gather at Epworth by the Sea, a retreat center with deep Methodist roots. In fact, it’s named after John and Charles Wesley’s childhood home. 

As I stare at these beautiful oak trees, with incredible roots, I can’t help but reflect on the roots of the Wesley’s — roots that continue to give life to God’s beautiful church known as The United Methodist Church. 

Wesley often spoke of ‘social holiness’ which was his way of saying we show how we love God by the way we love others. 

Right now, there are families in Thousand Oaks, California who are grieving in ways none of us wish to ever grieve. 

They need to experience a ‘social holiness’. And when they do, a portion of Christ will be revealed and when Christ is revealed, there is the promise of a lasting healing and a transcending, everlasting peace. 

Will you join me in praying for these families? 

Will you join me in intentionally living into a ‘social holiness’, in whatever context that might be for you and your loved one's today and every day? 

May we be the living Christ for someone hurting in this hurting world. 
 

Dear friends, if God loved us this way, we also ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. If we love each other, God remains in us and his love is made perfect in us. This is how we know we remain in him and he remains in us, because he has given us a measure of his Spirit.

1 John 4:11-13 CEB