wfn.org | 'Recorder' Publishes Soper Message

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS" by SUSAN PEEK on Aug. 11, 1991 at 13:58 Eastern,
about FULL TEXT RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (3051 notes).

Note 3051 by UMNS on July 9, 1996 at 16:39 Eastern (2406 characters).

SEARCH: Soper, British Methodist Conference, open-air, preaching,
evangelism, way of the cross

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                   http://www.umc.org/umns.html

EDITORS NOTE: This story may be used as a sidebar to UMNS Release
#335 {3049}.
Produced by United Methodist News Service, official news agency of
the United Methodist Church, with offices in Nashville, Tenn., New
York, and Washington.

CONTACT:  Ralph E. Baker                          337(10-71){3051}
          Nashville, Tenn (615) 742-5470              July 8, 1996

'Methodist Recorder' publishes message
Lord Soper would have preached to conference

                 by United Methodist News Service

     For the first time in more than 60 years Lord Soper did not
attend the British Methodist Conference. 
     "Increasing disability from arthritis" sidelined the 93-year-
old minister whose open-air preaching at Monday noon of the
British conference session has become a tradition. The Methodist
Recorder, official publication of the denomination, gave Soper the
opportunity to publish the message he would have taken to the
conference.
     "I would resist the temptation to try to be a pundit, but
rather to tell the conference where I stand or kneel when I
remember my ordination vows," he wrote.
     Referring to his regular open air preaching in London's Hyde
Park and Tower Hill, he urged Methodists not to be discouraged by
declining membership figures but to return to effective preaching. 
"I remain convinced that ... we have to remain faithful to the way
of the Cross with all its pain and suffering -- nothing else
matters compared with this," he said.
     Rather than the banalities that pass for evangelism in our
time, Soper said, "the real hope of evangelism [is] ... in the
function of remembrance at the Lord's table with the need for
repentance."  The church needs the focus "which historically
Christians have proclaimed as the way of the Cross."
     Reflecting on his ordination more than half a century ago,
Soper said, "The way of the Cross is the ultimate renunciation of
a life of sin and it 'demands my soul, my life, my all,'" he
declared, quoting from an 18th century hymn by Isaac Watts.  
     "To be a pilgrim along that road is our hope and our
salvation," he said.
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