wfn.org | Men's Congress Given Rousing Start

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"UNITED METHODIST DAILY NEWS 97" by SUSAN PEEK on April 15, 1997 at 14:24
Eastern, about DAILY NEWS RELEASES FROM UNITED METHODIST NEWS SERVICE (215
notes).

Note 212 by SUSAN PEEK on July 14, 1997 at 16:50 Eastern (4959 characters).

CONTACT:	Ralph E. Baker                    400(10-71BP){212}
		Nashville, Tenn.  (615)742-5470      July 14, 1997

Forbes challenges men's congress
'to get on the path to revival'

	LAFAYETTE, Ind, (UMNS) - The seventh International Congress of United
Methodist Men got off to a rousing start at Purdue University here June 11
when the Rev. James Forbes told about 3,500 participants to "get on the path
of active service to the Lord."
	Forbes, pastor of Riverside Church, New York City, said he has been expecting
"a mighty revitalizing moment" to occur around the beginning of the 20th
century.  "As you walk about [this congress] join me in the prayer, 'Lord, let
it be now.'"
	Building on the biblical story of the Apostle Peter's vision on the housetop
in Capernaum, he said, "my job here tonight is to get you off the housetop and
on the way to revival.  God's got a mission, and you and I are going to be
part of it," he declared
	As there were social, economic and political consequences for Peter when he
followed up on his vision, so it will be here, Forbes said.  "True revival
brings about change in the nation where it takes place."
	Speaking on discerning God's will, the Rev. Danny Morris, an executive with
the Upper Room in Nashville, Tenn., said, "Our church's highest value is to
know and do God's will."
	If United Methodists are taught "to pray: 'God's will, nothing more, nothing
less, nothing else,' we will have a new kind of church," he added.
	"Any time you pray 'Is this your will?' you give the invitation to the gift
[of discernment]," Morris explained.
	"If the church is about a lesser business, to the exclusion of knowing and
doing God's will, it is a counterfeit church," he said in a later session.
	The Rev. John Ed Matheson, pastor of Fraser Memorial United Methodist Church,
Montgomery, Ala., said he would like to see the United Methodist Church become
"an all full church."  
	When people become filled with awe at God's signs and wonders that will
happen, he said.  "When signs and wonders take place, you create an atmosphere
in which evangelism occurs."
	Pointing out that today's world is far different from the one most of us were
born into, the Rev. Leonard Sweet, dean of the Theological School, Drew
University, said he is tired of the phrase "to make a difference in the
world."  
	God sent Jesus to die on a cross, he explained, "to make a different world." 
United Methodist Men make this a different world by "presenting it the way,
the truth and the life [of Jesus]," he said.
	Speaking on "prevenient grace," the Rev. Maurice Boyd, pastor of City Church,
New York City, said that the word "prevention," in the days of the King James
Bible, meant to go before as in "the God of Mercy shall go before."  
	He noted that "the beginning of Christian faith is not our finding God, it is
God finding us." For humans to search for God is "like the mouse searching for
the cat," he said.  
	"When you don't even know you are lost, God comes to find you," he declared,
"and that is prevenient grace."
	Millard Fuller, president and founder of Habitat for Humanity International,
in Lafayette for the dedication of a new Habitat house, said Christians are
called to be "people of light and good will."  
	It is in the "the little things of faith," said Fuller, that the "big things
of faith" get acted out.  It is in the cup of water, the visit to the prisoner
or building her own room for a child -- as in Habitat for Humanity -- that
faith is made real.
	Recently, according to Fuller, 3,000 Habitat volunteers built 52 new houses
in five days in Appalachia. Among those volunteers were former President and
Mrs. Jimmy Carter, Congressman Newt Gingrich, and the governor and first lady
of Kentucky all working together.
	At the congress, United Methodist Men of Albion (Ill., population 2,000) were
awarded a new van as the winners of the national United Methodist Men's
Bowl-a-Thon.  The vehicle will be fitted with a wheelchair lift and donated to
the Albion Senior Citizens Center.  The men raised $16,000 for the United
Methodist Men Foundation, the largest amount of any group in the nation. 
	On Saturday afternoon about 400 United Methodist men from the congress took
part in a visitation of several Lafayette neighborhoods. Other congress
activities included a ministries fair, workshops, a celebration of the newly
established churchwide Commission on United Methodist Men (see accompanying
story), a 5-kilometer race Sunday morning and a one-mile walk.
	Led for the second time by Jake Thorp of Greenville, Texas, the body sang
gospel choruses, hymns and gospel songs during each of the seven plenary
sessions. 
	Although it was late at night, the Queen's Chapel Maryland Male Chorus, an
African-American jazz gospel group, was called back for an encore, and earlier
the Oklahoma Indian Mission Conference Men's Choir was given a standing
ovation.
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