Key Points:
- Bishop L. Jonathan Holston of the South Carolina Conference, who was selected by the Council of Bishops to deliver the address on their behalf, encouraged delegates to keep their focus on what is important and tune out the noise.
- He opened the address with a prayer calling on God to create a clean heart and renew a right spirit as United Methodists strive to put love first.
- The bishop lifted up examples of God’s people being God’s church around the world.
Bringing a word on staying who “God needs us to be” in spite of the ever-changing noise of this world, Bishop L. Jonathan Holston of the South Carolina Conference delivered the Council of Bishops’ Episcopal Address to kick off Day 2 of The United Methodist Church’s 2020 General Conference.
“When things are happening all around us, God uses the church to make a difference,” Holston proclaimed before the crowd of delegates, observers and volunteers gathered at the Charlotte Convention Center April 24. “The church was never built for our pleasure. The church is built for God’s purpose.”
Holston was selected by the Council of Bishops to deliver the address on their behalf. The council comprises 59 bishops presiding over conferences and episcopal areas across the globe, as well as retired bishops.
Holston opened the address with a prayer calling on God to create a clean heart and renew a right spirit within United Methodists as they strive to put love first.
“When the world shouts hate, help us to love,” Holston prayed. “When the past won’t let go, help us to love. When we feel broken, betrayed or rejected, help us to love. Even when it seems impossible or doesn’t make sense, help us to love.”
He shared how so much has happened since an episcopal address was last delivered at General Conference 2016, eight years ago.
Citing wisdom from former United States ambassador and pastor Andrew Young, Holston noted the paradox of humanity can be described in this way: “We live in the tension of who we are, who we say we are and who we want to be.”
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As a lengthy montage displayed examples onscreen, Holston reviewed the changes that have occurred in the church and the world since General Conference last met — the highs and lows, the opportunities and challenges, the tensions as people of faith pivot between the best and the worst of human nature.
“Since 2016, TikTok launched, Saudi Arabia legalized women driving, the northern white rhino became extinct, Notre Dame burned, ChatGPT was created, elephants are being studied to treat cancer,” Holston said.
The list goes on: Elections. Natural disasters. Terrorist attacks. Good things and bad.
Yet amid what Holston called this “noisy backdrop of world events,” God’s people still did what they could across the world to be God’s church.
He lifted up numerous examples of this, from baptisms and new churches rising up to powerful mission work done in the name of the Lord to fight trafficking, provide economic opportunity and deliver desperately needed medical care in remote areas.
“We fall short,” Holston said. “Yet even in our shortcomings as imperfect humans, we strive for who we want to be — holding before us the vision of God’s kingdom built, the hope of Christ fulfilled, as we move toward that vision with courage. All of this because we know that God prevails — the victory has already been won in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
He urged delegates and other United Methodists to keep their focus on what is important as they tune out the noise.
“Friends, this is who God needs for us to be,” Holston said, urging all gathered to continue God’s work in the midst of divisive, joyful and sometimes terrible situations.
Striving to be who God needs us to be should be the only priority, he said.
Glancing backward is fine, but the focus must be the future, he said. “There’s a reason that rearview mirror is so much smaller than the windshield itself. We are only meant to glance backward. We are meant to fix our gaze ahead, following where Christ leads.”
Where Christ leads is God’s kingdom, Holston said, and it’s being built now. And even though church members may be uncertain about exactly what this looks like, they must press on, surrendering to God’s will in the busy circumstances surrounding them.
“We sometimes fall into thinking that if we have God’s peace, then there will be no tension, no conflict, no issues to face,” Holston said.
But this world will always have tension and conflict. And just as pilots must train to fly the plane in spite of what they face in the sky, “They have to fly the plane, set their bearings and don’t lose sight … There is no room for fear or doubt when the plane is in the air.”
General Conference photos
As he brought his address to a close, Holston reminded the body that the church must keep one thing clear: “It is about this and only this: How do we become who God needs us to be?”
He encouraged those gathered to love the Lord and their neighbor, to embrace disciple-making, peace-making and anti-racism, and to build up and not tear down.
“We embrace the radical, world-transforming love given so freely by our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ,” Holston said.
“Are you ready to be the people that God needs for us to be? Let’s go!” Holston proclaimed. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”
Holston’s address commenced a full morning of General Conference business, including an overview of the first full-scale revision of the Social Principles since 1972, the Young People’s Address and a report on the financial state of the church.
Just prior to Holston’s address, Michigan Area Bishop David A. Bard led the morning’s worship service and delegates heard a liturgy penned by Eric Park as Williamson's Chapel UMC & Friends welcomed all to Day 2 of General Conference, lifting up the day’s theme, “In the hoping … know that I am God.”
All of the daily themes tie into the conference’s overall theme, “Know that I am God,” from Psalm 46:10.
The Scripture for the morning worship came from Romans 5:1-5, emphasizing the peace Christians experience through Jesus and how all they bear — affliction, and endurance through that affliction — lead to genuine hope.
Brodie is the editor of the South Carolina United Methodist Advocate.
News media contact: Julie Dwyer, news editor, newsdesk@umcom.org or 615-742-5469. To read more United Methodist News, subscribe to the free daily or weekly Digests.
