A glimmer of hope

It's annual conference time, and the hills (of Shreveport) are alive with sounds of Methodists crawling up and down them.

It's the time of the year we meet and we meet and we talk about how things are so rotten and how the church isn't going to exist in 15 years and last night, listening to our Bishop talk about the things we always talk about, there was, I thought, a glimmer, just a glimmer of what one might reasonably call hope.

What if we're not on hospice care?
What if we can envision something different?

The question is, and it's the Million Dollar question, can we really not be our grandfather's church? Can we do everything in our power, in the power of the Holy Spirit, to preach the Gospel with boldness and in that same power and yet do it all in a different way that will be attractive to the ones coming behind us?

By that I don't mean with new screens and greater music and more drama and etc., etc., etc. By that I mean telling a moral story in a loving way outside of our wonderful buildings? Can we be inventive enough to make a difference even when we don't really know what the next step will be? Can we make a difference in someone's life who isn't even of confirmation age today?

That will be the long range hope, I would think.

And how does all this creativity come from?

Why, where it has always come from. The Lord God Almighty.

The prophet Habakkuk says, "The Sovereign Lord is my strength; he makes my feet like the feet of a deer, he enables me to read on the heights."

And the power,
and the glory,
forever and ever
Amen.