Wrap-up: Delegates renew baptism, celebrate rural churches


The Strangely Warmed Players perform a satirical skit during morning worship at the 2008 United Methodist General Conference. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.

By J. Richard Peck*
April 26, 2008 | FORT WORTH, Texas (UMNS)

Delegates to the United Methodist General Conference renewed their baptism, celebrated rural churches, and spent most of April 26 in committees perfecting legislation to be considered by the entire 992-member assembly.


Supporters of Reconciling Ministries Network march in downtown Fort Worth. A UMNS photo by Maile Bradfield.
The Texas sky was clear when delegates to the top legislative body of the denomination entered the Fort Worth Convention Center. However, they would soon be sprinkled with water as young confirmands moved throughout the meeting hall, wetting branches and shaking them over worshippers.

Those present made signs of acceptance and renewed their baptismal commitment as musicians sang, “Rain down, rain down, rain down your love on your people.”

Hutchinson sermon

In the morning sermon, Louisiana Area Bishop William W. Hutchinson recalled the biblical story of Nicodemus, a man of stature and wealth, who asked Jesus for counsel for his soul.

“Unless one is born of water and the spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God,” Jesus responded. “That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.”

“In other words,” said the bishop, “Jesus is saying we have to be born from above – out of this world – so to speak. We have to be inhabited by that spirit of the living God, bringing life to our otherwise plodding souls, and lifting us from the ashes of life around us into the splendor of life in the living God.”


A rural life advocate drives a human-powered vehicle onto the conference floor during a celebration of rural ministries. A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey.
Hutchinson asked the crowd, “Have we been baptized into form, but not yet into power? Have we been born from above as well as from below? Have we been baptized with water and the Spirit? To use two phrases spoken frequently by one of our district superintendents in Louisiana, have we moved from the ‘my my my’ state of baptism to the ‘yes indeed’ state?”

Planting seeds

Later in the morning, some 100 representatives of 25,000 rural United Methodist churches processed down the assembly hall aisles with colorful banners covered with 25,000 paper butterflies. Senior citizens in the Redbird Missionary Conference spent three months cutting out the butterflies.

Members of the procession also passed out packets of “Seeds of Hope” to grow zinnias, long-stemmed flowers that come in several colors.

Bishop Kenneth L. Carder described rural congregations as one of “our greatest assets for evangelical and missional renewal.” However, he warned that “forces within and outside the church are choking the life from the fragile plants.”

The bishop said negative forces within the rural church include a loss of identity as a center of evangelism and mission. “Rather than seeing the church as a mission station and themselves as missionaries and evangelists, they see the church as a family chapel and themselves as merely mutual comforters or perhaps hospice volunteers for a dying institution,” Carder said.

The bishop said negative forces outside the rural church include demoralizing rhetoric that devalues small-member congregations, pastoral attitudes that consider rural and small-member congregations as career stepping stones, and marginalizing small-member congregations by omitting their voice from denominational structures.

Other events


Bishop John Innis of Liberia reports on the Central Conference Pension Initiative. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose.