For all the saints, who from their labors rest, who thee by faith before the world confessed, thy name, O Jesus, be forever blest. Alleluia, Alleluia!
Every year at Annual Conference, we sing “For all the saints.” It’s the customary opening hymn for the Memorial Service, which is somewhat like a catch-all funeral for all the clergy in our Conference who died since the last Annual Conference. We are bound together in the same covenant of itinerant ministry and seldom have time to attend the actual funerals. So we hold a Memorial Service and remember the saints who are now at rest from their labors.
To be at Annual Conference and be reunit-ed with the living is usually sheer pleasure. There’s a lot of backslapping (“How’re you doing?” “Congratulations on your next ap-pointment!” “How are your kids?”) You sit beside an old friend who does ministry very similar to your ministry but 150 miles away. You whisper back and forth while somebody makes a report from the main podium. Yes, it’s somewhat rude, but we want to catch up… and we keep our voices down.
I cherish the United Methodists, lay as well as clergy, who are part of the Annual Con-ference. Without the ties which bind us together (Christ, the UMC and the State of South Carolina) I would not know several hundred South Carolinians of various ages. They are wealthy and not-so-wealthy. They are black, white, Hispanic and Native American. They are liberal, conservative and middle-of-the-road. They are young, and they are old. Some I have known since my first Annual Conference (age 17, Town-ship Auditorium, Columbia). Others I just met last year.
Yes, there is posturing. Behind the smiles are some people who are not what they present themselves to be. Yes, there are some of my fellow ministers who I really don’t want to see. But we are still brothers and sisters in Christ and in the Methodist “connexion.” Who am I to turn the other way? Who am I pretend they don’t exist?
By the time you read this, I will have fin-ished the 2012 Annual Conference and returned to Cheraw. I will have wor-shipped with, debated with, hugged with and made decisions with hundreds of Unit-ed Methodist lay people and clergy. They are family to me. We don’t live in complete harmony, but what family does?
I cherish Annual Conference. I find God and God’s people there. It’s a big part of my life, though we gather only once a year. There’s another tradition at Annual Con-ference. The first hymn of the entire event is always (I mean every year…always!) Charles Wesley’s “And Are We Yet Alive.” I do rejoice to see the faces of my brothers and sisters.
And are we yet alive, and see each other’s face? Glory and thanks to Jesus give for his almighty grace.
See you next Sunday!
Paul Wood