South Georgia Methodists United in Prayer
March 10, 2023
On Saturday, March 4th the Glennville Methodist Church hosted Dr. Brian Russell and Rev. Dr. Ted Goshorn for a Deeper in Prayer Conference. Methodist church members and pastors from over South Georgia gathered for this one day conference.
The conference focused on contemplative prayer and spiritual rhythms.
Brian and Ted are known speakers in their fields. Brian Russell is biblical studies professor at Asbury Theological Seminary. Ted Goshorn is the Sr. Pastor at Mulberry Street United Methodist Church. The presenters provided many different ways for us to engage in prayer. There were workshops in the morning and the afternoon with a catered lunch in between. We started and ended the day with worship by the talented Mary Anne Cabbage.
Highlights from the conference included practicing centering prayer multiple times, a Q & A time with the speakers, and a short hymn sing after the lunch break.
Here is a personal reflection from Glennville Methodist Church member Mary Catherine Banks that was featured in the church newsletter.
What an opportunity to learn a way to form a good habit that could change a life! Even though the word “habit” usually has a negative connotation, we were told about a positive one in which to enter into the presence of God through Centering Prayer every day. This new term means “setting aside a chosen period of time each day of total silence for a routine of going to God in prayer”. We were encouraged to intentionally and faithfully make this a real habit of the same time span each day in meditation and surrender to Him. By choosing a “prayer word” such as “Jesus”, we can say it to remind us to return to God when our random thoughts inevitably come into our minds to interfere with our focus on Him!
The purpose of this centered prayer is for us to become an instrument of love in our noisy world by letting go of what disrupts us from His spirit. We are meant to love God and ourselves so that love and forgiveness of others overflows. This paraphrased quote meant a lot to me. “Daily life is like a glass of stirred up muddy water! But when we sit in silence with God, that troubled mixture becomes settled and clear. We can then see to go about our day in the spirit of love”.
Mary Catherine Banks
From the feedback received, this conference seemed to add deep spiritual value to those who attended.
For the past several months I have had the opportunity to share with individuals and groups about the Global Methodist Church. This is the talk I give formatted for my blog.
#1 To Stay Connected to our True Wesleyan/Methodist Heritage
“Since its inception, God’s Spirit has enlivened the Methodist movement. In the 1720s John and Charles Wesley and friends at Oxford University met together to deepen their Christian faith through daily, practical spiritual disciplines. Derided by others as a ‘new sect of Methodists’ for their ‘methodical’ ways of practicing the faith and holding one another accountable to it, the small group embraced the insult and persevered in their fellowship. And so they and the millions who followed after them have ever since been known as ‘the people called Methodists.’”1
The term Methodist still has deep meaning to me personally. I believe Wesleyan theology is a gift to the entire Body of Christ with its emphasis on God’s Grace, freed will, and His call on His people to make a difference in this world.
#2 To Provide Structure for Our Local Church to Better Serve the Community
The Global Methodist Church (GMC) will have a light touch on how you structure your church. Our Transitional Book of Doctrine and Discipline says “The basic organizational plan for the local church may be designed by each congregation in such a manner that it provides for a comprehensive program of nurture, outreach and witness to all.”2
If you like, you can still have the same structure you used in the prior denomination. However, we offer flexibility as long as you have a governing board. There is the familiar charge conference and nominations to help you approve your leadership, budget, and pastor compensation.
#3 To Have Our Preacher Held Accountable and Encouraged
The pastor is “responsible for ensuring that members are cared for by implementing a discipleship process focused on helping members to ‘go on to perfection’ by loving God with all of their heart, mind, soul, and strength, and by loving their neighbor as themselves. [You] are charged with equipping all the members of a congregation to be in ministry by meeting people at their point of need and offering them Jesus.”3
Pastor’s will have the support of their fellow clergy as well as a board of ordained ministry.
#4 You Keep Control of Your Church Property
“God owns all of creation (Psalm 50:9-10); we are but stewards of it for a period of time. Property (real, personal, tangible, and intangible) deeded or titled in the name of the Global Methodist Church and its entities (including its local churches) is to be used for the glory of God and to carry out the mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ and to spread scriptural holiness across the land
There is no trust clause for property held by local churches, annual conferences, regional conferences, connectional commissions, the Transitional Leadership Council, or any of their entities.”4
#5 High Standards and High Openness to Input
“A leader’s job—whether at the top of an organization or somewhere in the middle—is to create a safe space for people to speak up, make mistakes, and bring their full selves to work.” – Amy Edmondson, Harvard Business School
My hope, and for many in the GMC, is for us to have a grassroots led church. The days of believing God’s Spirit only blows from the top down are over.
Evidence of this is there is no required connectional giving for the first two years. Connectional giving will be capped at 6.5% (1.5% for wider church, 5.0% at the annual conference).
#6 The Future of the Church is Global
The past years in the United States have made many weary of globalism. We have seen how supply chain issues during the pandemic have pointed out the fragility of our global infrastructure. We have seen jobs shipped overseas and the detrimental effect it has had on industries like steel production as tens of thousands of workers are displaced.
Yet, our legitimate worries about globalism should not make us weary of the global nature and mission of the church.
In Genesis 22:18 (CEB) God tells Abraham, “All the nations of the earth will be blessed because of your descendants, because you obeyed me.”David F. Watson says, “There is great need for both theological education and academic theological discourse in places outside of the Global West, and we need to be involved…We would do well intentionally to collaborate with people from the majority world.”5
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1 The Transitional Book of Doctrine and Discipline preface page 3
2 The Transitional Book of Doctrine and Discipline paragraph 337 page 33
3 The Transitional Book of Doctrine and Discipline paragraph 322 p. 29 (Ephesians 4:11-13).
4 The Transitional Book of Doctrine and Discipline Selections from paragraphs 901 and 902 p. 100
5 https://daviddonnan.com/2022/06/10/the-global-nature-of-the-future-methodism/
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More From David
Christmas Message 2022
December 24, 2022
Here is video of the sermon from Christmas Eve on Sunday, December 24th, 2022 at Glennville Methodist Church. Full Manuscript text is below the video.
Here is the text of my sermon manuscript for Christmas Eve worship services on Saturday, December 24th, 2022 at Glennville Methodist Church. Early children had read the Christmas story from Luke 2:1-20.
What would you do if you accidentally became Santa Claus? If you have to deliver all the presents around the world? That is the scenario that was in the Tim Allen family comedy The Santa Claus. It is fascinating because he becomes Santa Claus because he accidentally startles the current Santa on the roof calling him to fall to Santa’s demise and now according to the rules Tim Allen’s character must now become the new Santa Claus. And in the journey Tim Allen’s character learns a little about being a better dad and we all learn a little about Christmas.
The Santa Claus cinematic universe set up an interesting scenario. If you are beside Santa Claus when he meets his end you have to become the next Santa Claus. What if the next person was someone who does not celebrate Christmas. What if it’s a child? What if it’s someone who just escaped prison and they were serving a life time sentence? These are all scenarios that are possible in this universe. It is such a bizarre scenario that this year Disney plus released a limited series with some of the original cast and they tried to retcon, change the original story, to make it sound like just anyone can not become a Santa Claus by accident.
Friends, here is the good news for Christmas. There are no mistakes with God. You are not some accident that magically falls into earth. No, God has made you for this very moment. He has made you with purpose.
One of the interesting stories I read early on in my tenure here in Glennville was about how we had appealed our census data here. During the disruption of the pandemic it seemed hundreds of residents in the Smith prison were not accounted for which would affect our federal funding and more in our community.
Everyone counts to God. Christmas is the reminder of this. No one is created on accident and everyone counts to God.
Now this is pretty important especially on a day like today. I know this has been a pretty challenging year for some in our community. For my family we were blessed to celebrate Brand’y mom’s 60th birthday only to have her die suddenly a few short weeks later.
Grief is a hard thing to deal with. It is also a strange thing to deal with. There are moments when we feel like Sandra may walk right in. There are moments like at Lydia’s Christmas dance recital where we are used to seeing Sandra go and stand down front elbowing others out of the way, standing in the aisle to get the video on her phone, even though we knew she heard the announcement not to do that.
In the same way we have had grief in our family this past year we also know the world continues to grieve. Thousands of Russians were conscripted to go fight the so-called “special military operation” or war in Ukraine. Ukrainians have limited power, water, and resources to stay warm in the dead of winter and we know American families who have had loved ones deployed as part of a surge of troops to serve as deterrence for Russian advancing further.
It is in the midst of our broken world, in the midst of our own lives, that we need to hear the Christmas message this year. We need to hear that we are not here by accident and that we matter to God and the life of Jesus proves this.
Consider the broken world that Jesus was born into. We would expect for a king or the son of a king to be born in a palace in a safe and secure area. Yet, Jesus is born into a barn. We’ve talked about Herod the past few Sundays. He was the ruler over the area Jesus is born into. He had a palace, the Herodium, where he would be able to look over the town of Bethlehem. So we have this juxtaposition of earthly power, political skills, military might with Jesus, humble, lowly surroundings, no leaders coming out celebrate his birth but stinky shepherds… and not even the day shift, the B-team, the night crew.
Jesus came into the broken world for you and for me. We are not an accident and Jesus came for each one of us.
He came so that we can learn from Christ’s teachings but ultimately he came to save us. We matter to God because Jesus comes to help us with the one thing we can never do and that is to save ourselves. DA Carson has this quote about Jesus. He says:
If God had perceived that our greatest need was economic, he would have sent an economist. If he had perceived that our greatest need was entertainment, he would have sent us a comedian or an artist. If God had perceived that our greatest need was political stability, he would have sent us a politician. If he had perceived that our greatest need was health, he would have sent us a doctor. But he perceived that our greatest need involved our sin, our alienation from him, our profound rebellion, our death; and he sent us a Savior.
This means tonight you can accept the greatest gift off all, salvation from Jesus. It means you do not have to try harder this upcoming year but instead be more open to God’s leading. And it starts by asking to receive Jesus’ gift of forgiveness and making Christ the Lord over your entire life.
It also means we do not have to worry about accidentally becoming Santa Claus. We do not have to worry if we are accidents. That we can live lives with purpose. Even if we have had an incredibly tough year.
There was a New York state trooper who was dispatched for a 911 call during a storm. A motorist was in a car that went into a ditch and the snow plow came by and completely buried the car. The man had poor reception and called 911 several times but kept getting disconnected.
They were able to track him down to a several mile area but the trooper just had to keep looking through piles of snow to try to find the car.
After 10 hours the motorist was rescued by the trooper and it was just in the nick of time. You see the motorist car shut off from being buried in snow. The man was not able to get out and got so cold that his body quit shivering.
This is very dangerous because it means your body is starting to shut down. Thankfully the trooper got him in the police car and warmed him up until they could connect to EMS.
Friends, I know this has been a tough year. But do not give up. You may feel like you are an accident, struggling with grief, doubt, loneliness or buried in snow. But do not give up. We have good news.
As Christians, even if we do not feel it in our hearts at times, we can say it with integrity, “the hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight.”
Merry Christmas!
David Donnan 