Saturday, June 07, 2008

Annual Conference 2008

With the theme “Dare to Change the World”, South Carolina Methodists met in Florence for our Annual Conference this past week. Bishop Taylor led us in worship and business as we sought to chart our course into the future. Although there were no headline grabbing agenda items, the challenge for us to be faithful in and through our ministries was certainly put before us. Changing the world begins with expressions of grace – love, mercy, justice and peace. The traditional opening hymn for Annual Conference is Charles Wesley’s “And Are we Yet Alive”. I often think that we should use it as our closing hymn to evaluate our time spent together.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I have been thinking about Annual Confrence. It was not exciting this year, but I beleive God is speaking to us through the tedium, reminding us and calling us to be as faithful in boring times as we are in exciting times.

Anonymous said...

I agree with Anonymous that we did not experience the "highs" of last year (nor the painful tedium of countless ballots), but I did feel God's call through the messages of Eddie Fox, Bishop Taylor, the music, the times of prayer, and the day of service. We were being challenged to be a church that gets out of our churches and is present in the world, in our communities, in our neighborhoods. We can "Dare to Change the World", but it won't happen if we only do it from our pews and pulpits.