From June 7, 2007 to June 10, 2007 I was stay at Grove City College for Western PA United Methodist church annual conference.
Ministry Night, on Friday of the 2007
Annual Conference of the Western PA United Methodist Church, celebrated those who have responded to the call of God by saying, Here I am, send me.? The evening held many special moments.
Retiring pastors and those who have accepted the call into lay and clergy ministries were recognized. The mantle of active clergy ministry was passed from the shoulders of Arnie Rhodes, who is retiring, to those of Lynn Yeso, who was received as a full member and elder at Sunday ordination service.
Guest preacher Vance Ross commented that the children choir, led by Emily Urso of Tanoma UMC, created one of Conference's special moments. As the children sang, We are the Church Together,Mary Urso, 2, held the microphone and sang the chorus solo. [See image.]
Bishop Thomas J. Bickerton noted he baptized Mary as an infant two years ago at Annual Conference and she now knows enough about the faith to sing, ?I am the church! You are the church! We are the church together!? People need to know how to respond and hold the microphone,he declared.
The conference choir sang Wake up, Church, Wake up!? It was a piece commissioned by the Order of Deacon in loving memory of Dolores Price Griffith on the 10th anniversary of the ordination of deacons. Griffith was one of the first five deacons to be ordained in Western PA.
The ministry of lay persons was lifted up and those moving through the process of becoming certified lay ministers were recognized.
Throughout Annual Conference, Ross helped those present to center on the leading of God's Spirit. On Ministry Night he spoke of being drawn from the Water,pointing to Moses and the genocidal move to kill Hebrew boy babies in Egypt during his infancy.
Ross called the river from which Moses was delivered a baptismal font, a place of deliverance for this child of God, through the efforts of a princess and his sister, Miriam.
This sister saw the possibility of life, not death. Do you see the possibility in a child taking the mike to sing I am the Church!? We used to be called the shouting Methodists, the singing Methodists. There been a misappropriation of tradition that only connotes dispassion, not intelligence,?Ross said.
Ross said he started out as a cast off, an illegitimate black baby from Bluefield, WV. Growing up before and during the civil rights era, Ross lived, like Moses, in what he called genocidal context.?
However, he also lived with a grandmother who told me I was special. In my home, in John Stewart Methodist Church, I was special.?
Ross began his ministry in the church as an acolyte. I looked at the pastor and thought, I can do that,?but every Methodist pastor I knew was sedate, boring.?
A blue-haired lady set a quarter in his hand every Sunday and said, You going to be a preacher!? Church and family together delivered Ross from the river of despair.
Too few people are being drawn out of the river, and find themselves in a drowning place,he said. excited because I've been drawn out of the water and believe others can be, too.? He called the Western PA Conference Believe Again! Plan for Ministry a way to play a part in rescuing others.
Ross said one of his daughters was excited to tell him about another student, rattling off a lot of things including that the teen was gay. At that point, Ross said he didn't hear another thing his daughter said. When he asked her if it disturbed her, she responded, saddy, what's that got to do with me? That'sstupid.?
The said a whole lot in that one phrase,?Ross said. he can get stuck on theological debates and forget the main thing ?the love of God, the call of our witness. She was asking me, are you willing to draw him out of the water??Do we trust God in Jesus to do what God can do-to lift up and clean up if there cleaning up to do??
A reception honoring retirees and incoming clergy followed the service.
