Last week urban pastors and workers from Massachusetts to Portland gathered to celebrate urban ministry. Bishop David Kendall set the tone with a stirring call from the bishops stating the primacy of urban ministry in our denomination.
During the closing address, Tasha Hodgens Pryor mentioned that while sitting observing the sign for the conference which mentioned the Free Methodist Urban Fellowship, God told her that for too long we had let the free in our name be an adjective, and it was time for it to be a verb.
This simple principle can help us return to the soul of our denomination. We are not about being Methodists that are free. We are to free others from bondage. We are not to continue to only celebrate the freedoms of the past, from rented pews to slavery, but to continue to free people from materialism and sin, in the power of the Holy Spirit.
Whether we serve in city, town or country, we can ask God who needs to be free in our midst. Who is bound that needs to be released? How can we live out the principles of Isaiah 61 in our ministry, whether clergy or lay, and see that the poor hear the good news, the captives are set free? May we all hear God's call to change our passive adjective affirmation of our past victories for a new, live, up to date, active voice of change and freedom.
Kathy Callahan-Howell
i like this. thanks for the reminder.
i work with many inner-city teens. it's easy sometimes to forget how "bound" they are by certain things, and that our calling is to assist God in his freeing work.
"on earth, as it is in Heaven..."
Posted by: WICK | May 02, 2008 at 11:42 AM
This is a "good word" that we need to speak again and again until we are all stirred to action. Kathy, thanks for getting that word out to the rest of us.
Posted by: Mindi | September 29, 2008 at 11:20 PM