wfn.org | Clintons lead worship, express thanks to D.C. church

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Jan. 8, 2001 News media contact: Tim Tanton·(615)742-5470·Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-71BP{002}

NOTE:  Photographs are available with this report.

By Dean Snyder*

WASHINGTON (UMNS) -- On their last Sunday in church as America's first
family, the Clintons read Scripture and delivered the sermon, but also said
they would remain involved in the congregation where they have worshipped
for the past eight years.

All three Clintons participated in leading worship Jan. 7 at Foundry United
Methodist Church. Chelsea Clinton, who attended the church's youth group
before she left for college, read an Old Testament lesson from Isaiah. Sen.
Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Methodist since birth, read a New Testament lesson
from 1 Thessalonians. President Bill Clinton, one of the more openly devout
men to have held the nation's highest office but also the president whose
personal morality has been subjected to perhaps the greatest public scrutiny
and scorn, preached a sermon entitled "Reflections and Anticipations."

In his sermon, Clinton thanked the Foundry congregation for being a "church
home" for his family during his presidency. He highlighted Chelsea's
participation in the Appalachian Service Project, a summer mission trip
sponsored by the church's youth ministry. "She learned so much," he said.

He also expressed appreciation for the congregation's personal support
"during the storms and sunshine of these last eight years."

"I will always have wonderful memories," he said, "of every occasion where
we passed the peace, for all the people young and old who came up to me and
said a kind word of welcome, reminding me that no matter what was going on
in Washington D.C. at the moment, there was a bigger world out there with
real people and real hearts and minds."

He reflected on the significance of his presidency. "I have spent a lot of
time, as you might have noticed, in a reasonably combative arena," he said.
"I am not without my competitive instincts -- a lot of days I thought just
showing up was an act of competition -- but I do believe in the end, when
all is said and done, what matters most is what we did that was common to
our humanity."

He pledged to work, after he leaves the White House, to "lift the fortunes
and hopes" of the disadvantaged and to be a peacemaker. "I will try every
day to remember ... that Christ admonished us that our lives will be judged
by how we do unto the least of our neighbors."

Finally, in the last sentence of his mostly upbeat sermon, Clinton seemed to
address the crisis of personal morality that marred a presidency otherwise
characterized by consistently high public approval ratings. "Let me thank
you," he said, "for your constant reminders large and small that, though we
have all fallen short of glory, we are all redeemed by faith and the love of
God."

The Rev. J. Philip Wogaman, Foundry's pastor and one of three clergymen who
have counseled Clinton weekly since 1998, called the sermon "a beautiful
moment for us as a church." 

"It was a wonderfully warm and thoughtful review of their relationship with
the church, which has been very important to us and obviously to them,"
Wogaman said. "I thought his sense of the importance of a world that becomes
community and his grasp that the church has to model what we want the world
to be was a wonderful statement."

Washington Area United Methodist Bishop Felton Edwin May, who concluded the
service with a benediction, said Foundry obviously provided Clinton with "a
Christian fellowship where he could live out his days as president of the
United States and his servanthood as a follower of Jesus Christ."

"The sermon reflected his humanity as well as his journey toward being a
saint in the truest sense of the word," May said. 

The Scripture readings by Sen. Clinton and Chelsea Clinton were high points
of the service for the Rev. Nancy Webb, Foundry's minister of education.
"I've consistently been impressed by Hillary as a real person of faith,"
Webb said. "I just found it very moving to have her reading Scripture and
demonstrating the faith that she holds deeply and that will inform her
decisions in the Senate."

As a teen-ager, the first lady was greatly influenced by her participation
in a Methodist youth group in Illinois. "She wanted the same possibility for
her daughter," Webb said.

Although the Jan. 7 service was the last time they will attend Foundry as
the first family, the Clintons expect to remain active in the congregation.
"Thanks to the good people of New York," the president said in his sermon,
"this is not really a goodbye but the beginning of a new chapter of our
lives with Foundry." 

Clinton plans on continuing his regular meetings with Wogaman and two other
spiritual advisers after he leaves the presidency, according to Wogaman. The
three clergymen have been meeting with Clinton since the Monica Lewinsky
scandal.

During an earlier service before the Clintons' arrival, Wogaman said
Foundry's ministry of hospitality includes the homeless of its downtown
neighborhood as well as presidents. 

"In fact," he said, "we could not have been a home to people with power and
prestige if we were not also a home to people without power and with no
prestige."

Clinton, a Southern Baptist, will be succeeded in office by a United
Methodist. Bishop May has sent President-elect George W. Bush and wife
Laura, a lifelong United Methodist, a letter welcoming them to Washington.

"I fully expect the president and his family to find a United Methodist
church home in one of our many congregations in the Washington area," May
said in a prepared statement. "The United Methodist Church includes wide
political and theological diversity. There is room for all who seek to
follow Jesus Christ. I am confident the president will be able to find a
church that nurtures his faith and supports his family's spiritual life."

# # #

*Snyder is director of communications for the Baltimore-Washington Annual
Conference of the United Methodist Church.

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United Methodist News Service
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