wfn.org | Bishops call United Methodists to join them in prayer, fasting

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

March 2, 2000 News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.  10-21-71B{114}

By United Methodist News Service

United Methodist bishops are asking church members to join them in a time of
prayer and fasting beginning March 15, 40 days before the church's General
Conference opens in Cleveland May 2.

The united effort is to continue throughout the 10-day legislative
gathering, where nearly 1,000 delegates from around the world will be facing
difficult issues and tension is expected to be high over such issues as
homosexuality.

The bishops are calling on members to "ask God to work through the General
Conference and to guide the church in becoming more effective in its mission
of making disciples of Jesus Christ."

Members are being encouraged to follow a pattern of fasting used by
Methodism's founder John Wesley in the 1700s, beginning after dinner each
Thursday evening and continuing until mid-afternoon on Friday. 

The specific details of how people choose to pray or fast are not important,
but participating as a whole has value, according to Bishop Janice Huie of
the church's Little Rock Area, one of the bishops leading the effort.   

"The discipline of fasting undergirds us by helping us remember that our
true hunger and thirst are for the presence of God," she said. "We also
become one with people who are physically hungry and thirsty because of
poverty and oppression and injustice." 

The General Conference meets every four years to revise the church's Book of
Discipline and Book of Resolutions. Delegates - half lay and half clergy -
will review and adopt the Social Principles of the church and adopt
resolutions on various moral, social, public policy and economic issues.
They will also approve plans and budgets for churchwide programs for the
2001-2004 period. The General Conference is the only body that can speak
officially for the whole denomination.

As the Cleveland conference nears, tensions are increasing across the
church, particularly over issues related to homosexuality. Delegates will
have petitions before them calling for retention of current language in the
Book of Discipline and petitions asking that language be deleted,
particularly a statement declaring the practice of homosexuality to be
"incompatible with Christian teaching" and a sentence added by the 1996
General Conference prohibiting same-sex unions.  

Last year, a Nebraska clergyman had his ministerial credentials removed and
an Illinois pastor was suspended for a year after performing same-sex union
ceremonies. Last month, charges were dropped against 67 clergy members of
the California-Nevada Annual (regional) Conference who had presided in a
ceremony for two Sacramento women on Jan. 16, 1999. The decision has
delighted some and infuriated others across the denomination.  

Three "resources for reflection" are available from the United Methodist
Publishing House to support the bishops' call to prayer and fasting:

Grace Upon Grace: The Mission Statement of The United Methodist Church, a
five-session study that uses Scripture and tradition to "set forth the
gospel of grace as it impels church members to evangelize and serve the
world, which God in Christ so loved."

The Conversation Matters: Why United Methodists Should Talk With One
Another, by Henry H. Knight III and Don Saliers, proposes the recovery of
the lost art of Christian conference - theological debate whereby truth is
spoken in love.

A Wesleyan Spiritual Reader, by Bishop Rueben P. Job, provides a 26-week
devotional experience for individuals seeking to grow in faith and knowledge
of God.

The books may be purchased by calling Cokesbury at (800) 672-1789 or
visiting Cokesbury's World Wide Web site at www.cokesbury.org.  Quantity
discounts are available. 

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United Methodist News Service
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