wfn.org | Exploration event helps young people hear God's call

[NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG]

Nov. 13, 2000 News media contact: Linda Green·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-71BP{512}

NOTE:  Photographs will be available. This report is accompanied by a
sidebar, UMNS story #513.

By John A. Lovelace*

DALLAS (UMNS)--Thirteen hundred young United Methodists spent three days at
the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport wrestling with one of the toughest questions
of their own life journeys.

Like Isaiah, they faced these words of old: "Who will go for us?" That was
the core and theme of Exploration 2000, a biennial gathering of young United
Methodists held Nov. 10-12. The church's United Methodist Board of Higher
Education and Ministry budgets more than  $200,000 for this
all-expenses-paid effort to help women and men, ranging from high school
juniors to 24-year-olds, discern what God is calling them to do. 

A 300-word Covenant Agreement of mutual responsibilities, signed by all
registrants, helped bind the multi-part program into a whole. The first of
nine points captured the spirit of Exploration 2000: "Each of us comes with
an open mind, a loving heart, and a willing spirit, and each of us comes
needing these things from others."

Participants were swept back and forth among the quiet revelations of
small-group discussions, the challenging rhetoric of principal addresses and
the swirling, colorful, high-energy experience of worship.

Primary speakers throughout the event were the Rev. Tex Sample, retired
social ethicist from Saint Paul School of Theology in Kansas City, Mo.; the
Rev. Minerva Carcano, director of the Mexican American Program at Southern
Methodist University's Perkins School of Theology in Dallas; and Arkansas
Area Bishop Janice Riggle Huie.

Sample advocated "The Practice of Hope," insisting that "hope is not an
attitude, it's something you practice."

The importance of practicing hope, he added, is "you get the feeling, the
knowing, the conviction that there's a power at work in the world that you
really can trust." And as a means of testing for hope, he encouraged the
hundreds of potential United Methodist ministers in the hotel ballroom to
"place yourself in a place you would not be if you did not believe in the
future."

Carcano presided over the Saturday evening service of reaffirmation of the
baptismal covenant. As her text, she chose Mark 6:6b-13, the story of Jesus
sending out the disciples two by two after giving them authority over
unclean spirits.

The emphasis on cleansing continued as each participant "came to the water"
to reaffirm his or her baptismal vows and to receive a small light to
symbolize the answering of God's call to be light for the world.

Twelve hours later, the theme of light for the world burst forth again in
the spirited worship service and congregational singing of "This little
light of mine, I'm gonna let it shine." 

Huie shifted the emphasis from light to fragrance with her sermon on the
woman who poured expensive ointment on Jesus' head (Mark 14:3-9). 

"Joy and sacrifice mingled up all the way to the sky in the fragrance of her
ministry," Huie said. The clue to the true value of her gift, she added, is
in what Jesus said to her critics: "She has done all she could."

"Brothers and sisters," the bishop said, "do you hear God's call on your
life? Are you ready to walk through the door and go where Jesus goes?
Remember that the water of baptism will refresh you and the bread of life
will feed you."

Assisted by dozens of participants selected in advance, Huie led the closing
communion service. 

The service had begun with costumed dancers swooping in, carrying folding
ladders that became draped pulpits and lectern; plywood that became a
sumptuously draped altar table; and candles, water jugs, bowls and a Bible.
When worship ended, the tearing down and taking away of the chancel props
evolved into a processional leading participants out to their destinations.

Other Exploration speakers were the Rev. N. Lynne Westfield of Drew
Theological Seminary in Madison, N.J., and the Rev. Steve Long of
Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Ill. 

Exploration also included four "witnesses" who spoke of their faith
journeys, nearly 60 workshop leaders and a 12-person team that designed the
entire event. Multiple languages and music forms represented the church's
diversity from start to finish.

A two-hour mission fair allowed the 13 United Methodist seminaries, the
churchwide Board of Global Ministries and several nondenominational mission
agencies to answer questions from interested participants. Several seminary
representatives reported excellent turnouts at their booths.

Exploration 2000 is the latest in a chain of semi-annual ministerial
recruitment and guidance events sponsored by the Board of Higher Education
and Ministry. The series began in five regions in 1984 and was consolidated
into a single national event in 1986.

# # #

*Lovelace is editor emeritus of the Dallas-based United Methodist Reporter
and a 1998 inductee in the United Methodist Association of Communicators
Hall of Fame.  

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United Methodist News Service
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