This Life

In worship on Sunday we sang a song called Build Your Church.  It proclaims that the church is the hope of the world.  One the way to church that morning, I got a snippet on the radio that there is proof that hope exists.  It is our very breath.  As long as we are breathing, this person contend there is hope.  We are here for a purpose, and if we are still breathing, that means we are alive and we have not completed our purpose.  God is still present in our lives and calling us to be or do something with this life we have been given

I am in Tampa today.  Hundreds of people are streaming by me as I sit here writing this.  They have come from all over the world because they believe in God’s church, and specifically because they believe in what God is doing in and through the United Methodist Church.  Some say that the day of the mainline church is over, and church is increasingly irrelevant and perhaps even unnecessary in our spiritual but not religious culture.  Who needs the church to be in relationship with Jesus or to do good in the world?

But I would suggest there is still breath in this thing called the United Methodist Church, and as long as we have breath, I suspect that God is not done with us and we have a purpose.    We will be praying about that, arguing about that, debating and conferencing about that this week…but my deepest prayer is like the song says, is we will be a people who continually ask: Lord, we pray for the eyes to see all who long for your church to be.  We believe it is the hope of the world.