Preparing for the Right Question

CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith from a place of winter For the Years of Winter…

Methodist ministers are appointed to a charge, which is one congregation or a circuit of several congregations, by a bishop, for one year at a time. We do not have membership in any one local church or congregation. We belong to a conference, a collection of churches in a geographical area, usually a state, presided over by a bishop. The ministers and laity from each church get together once a year, usually in -June, the annual conference, for inspiration, to transact business, and to receive officially an appointment for the coming church year, which starts July 1.

That means we are a connectional church. I was doing graduate work in Boston one year during the New England Annual Conference. The reporter who covered the conference misunderstood and wrote that Methodism is “a correctional church.” Or maybe it was not a misunderstanding.

The annual conference of the Illinois Great Rivers Conference [1] is meeting this week. Geographically it is 500 miles away from where I now live. Emotionally, it’s right here.

Most clergy feel the connection to others of our ilk very strongly, but unless we live in geographical proximity, we get to see one another only once a year, at Annual Conference. Our far-flung colleagues loved coming to annual conference for the fellowship, but they dreaded seeing me, for I always had a new question each year, especially for my younger friends, something like “What is the most important thing you learned in the past year?” or “What is the most important book you read this year?” They tried to avoid me, but I was like a sore tooth you can’t stop pestering with your tongue. Sooner or later they would sidle up to be interrogated. One year I asked my question of Rod VanScoy, who said, “Darn. I prepared for the wrong question.”

We won’t be able to get away with that when we attend that Great Annual Conference in the Sky [2]. We all know which question to prepare for. Since love is the only thing death does not conquer, the only question there will be, “Did you love?”

JRMcF

1] The lower two-thirds of IL.

2] No, I’ve never heard it called that before, either, but it would make a fun Gospel song.]

The “place of winter” mentioned in the title line is Iron Mountain, in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, where life is defined by winter even in the summer!

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