Here is the report from Caroline Close, one of your lay delegates to the 154th Annual Conference that took place June 12-16, 2002. This was first published in the July 3, 2002 Outlook.
Walking with Jesus, Living in Faith was the theme of the 154th Session of the California-Nevada Annual Conference in Sacramento this year. A sub-theme might very well have been ``All of God's Children Walk Together.'' We are a polyglot of colors, costumes and customs, and languages. We are exciting to look at!
Remember the new shoes Wesley sent to the conference? Added to all the new shoes donated by churches from all over the conference, they formed a mountain of shoes–God's children will walk with Jesus in those shoes! Volunteers sorted and bundled them to be sent out to Bosnia, to an Indian reservation school, and to homeless shelters/programs in the Bay Area. And so, some who were shoeless will walk in those shoes. May their walk lead them to faith, to a moving and dynamic experience.
For me, this conference was a journey, Rev. Gayle Pickrell reminded us that
as followers of Jesus, our discipleship involves walking with him along a
way that is at times a rocky, bumpy way. Our walk is not a static, passive,
theoretical stroll, but a moving, engaging and, at times, a troubling experience.
For me, one of the troubling events of the conference was the Repentance of
Racism Service on Friday, June 14. (This was my third daughter's birthday,
so I could have been prepared for a conscience-arousing experience. That has
been my experience with Caroline, Jr. all her life!) Smugly, I entered into
this service certain of my own non-complicity in racism. It's a shattering,
humbling experience to be made aware of how much racism is in your life and
surroundings and how deeply racism is in your life and surroundings and how
deeply racism has wounded people around me. A part of the service read: There
is not time to tell all the ways racism has wounded the people who are the
Body of Christ. But in this moment, some will witness to the pain
racism has caused them. Let us listen and open our hearts---. Then four people,
fellow Methodists, spoke of the racism they had experienced not in some foreign
place but here in our own United States. After each person spoke, we sang
``Lord have mercy upon us.'' It was a blessing that I remembered the words
for I could not have read them through my tears. This service ended with the
hymn ``Help Us Accept Each Other'':
Lord, for today's encounters with all who are in need,
Who hunger for acceptance, for righteousness and bread,
We need new eyes for seeing, new hands for holding on;
Renew us with your Spirit, Lord, free us, make us one!
Have you met or heard our Bishop Beverly J. Shamana? Now, there is one sharp, dynamic lady! Her presence permeated, colored this conference. She has humor and presence as demonstrated when, during one of her presentations, someone's cell phone rang. Without missing a beat, she quipped, ``Please answer that and tell him I'm busy!'' She has strength. She loves our children and is gentle with and about them. And, that lady can preach! She can move stones to respond ``Amen!'' For me, her presence and her personality flavored this conference. We Methodists of the California-Nevada Conference need her! I thank God for sending her to us.
These are some of my thoughts or impressions from the conference. Thank you for allowing me to be one of your representatives.
--Caroline Close
Report put on website on July 15, 2002