wfn.org | Bishop calls on Christians to volunteer in Baltimore

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

April 24, 2002 News media contact: Linda Green7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn. 10-71BP{180)

NOTE: A photograph of Bishop Felton Edwin May is available at
http://umns.umc.org/photos/headshots.html online.

By Dean Snyder*

COLUMBIA, Md. (UMNS) - In response to President Bush's national call for
volunteerism, a United Methodist bishop is inviting Christians and people of
good will to serve in Baltimore this summer. 

The president is challenging Americans to commit 4,000 hours to volunteer
service.

Bishop Felton Edwin May of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference
applauded the president's challenge, describing it as a secular version of
Christ's call to discipleship. 

"I am pleased that the president is mobilizing the country to do good," May
said. "Many of us who call ourselves Christians have not done enough to
serve our neighbors, even though this is what Jesus clearly tells us to do.

"President Bush is calling us to be Good Samaritans," he added. "Too often
we have hurried by on the other side of human need on our way to church
meetings and choir rehearsals." 

The bishop is inviting Christians to volunteer in Baltimore this summer as
part of an effort to transform the lives of a generation of lost children
and offer an alternative to substance abuse to the one in 10 residents of
the city who are addicted to drugs.

In an appeal made in the State of the Union address and featured in the
April 20 issue of Parade Magazine, President Bush called upon Americans to
"overcome evil with the gathering momentum of millions of acts of kindness
and good."

"During the past seven months, we have been reminded that we are citizens
with obligations to each other, to our country and to history," he said. "We
have begun to think less of the goods we can accumulate and more about the
good we can do."

Baltimore United Methodists have spent three summers conducting tent
ministries, called Saving Stations, and now they are turning to fellow
Christians throughout the nation for help.

"I am going to ask America to come to Baltimore and help us," May told a
gathering of United Methodist pastors April 17 at Lovely Lane United
Methodist Church in Baltimore.

"Baltimore has been dubbed the heroin capital of America. Some families have
now been addicted for three generations," May said. "People are living a
hell that should shame us, we who claim to believe in a loving God.  We are
going to love the hell out of Baltimore." 

Saving Station ministries are an effort to meet human need wherever it
exists through community and economic development, he said. 

Last summer, Saving Stations helped 130 people emerge from drug addiction,
according to the Rev. Timothy Warner, director of Holy Boldness ministries
for the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference. The ministry brought healing
to families and neighborhoods as well as addicted individuals, he said.
Hundreds of others made commitments to Christ and became involved in local
churches, he said.

Saving Stations, set up in vacant lots or parks near United Methodist
churches, include social services and educational programs under the tent
during the day and revival services during the evenings. "Hesed" ministers
work with those seeking deliverance from addiction by helping them get
access to detox and recovery programs and by offering support when they
re-enter the community. "Hesed" is a Hebrew word that means "God's
steadfast, clinging, tenacious love." 

Programs for children include vacation Bible schools under the tent and a
Jesus Circus, including clowns and marching bands parading through the
neighborhood. 

May said there is a need for physicians and nurses, social workers, lawyers,
technicians, teachers and "people with strong backs and warm hearts" to
volunteer in the Saving Stations this summer. He hopes that Volunteers In
Mission, a denominational program of short-term missionary service, will
mobilize workers for Baltimore ministries. "Everyone who senses any inner
nudge from God to volunteer can make a difference," he added. 

Volunteer opportunities include medical screening, counseling, drug
ministries, evangelism, music, clowning and teaching. Volunteers are asked
to contribute a week or more between June 16 and Sept. 5.  For more
information, contact Warner at (800) 492-2525, Ext. 433, or
twarner@bwcumc.org, or visit www.bwconf.org.
# # #
*Snyder is director of communications for the Baltimore-Washington Annual
Conference and editor of its UM Connection newspaper.

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United Methodist News Service
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http://umns.umc.org