By Michigan Area Bishop Jonathan D. Keaton
Kudos to everybody involved in the Detroit and West Michigan sessions of Annual Conference. Both of them were full of spiritual vitality, food, fun and fellowship, inspiring testimonies and hard work.
New this year, both sessions were live streamed. People in South America, Africa and Europe picked up our proceedings.
Friday morning worship, May 21, 2010, a number of people in the Detroit Conference celebrated their baptisms with pithy testimonies and symbolic water. (For video of that service click HERE) One of the baptized recalled his baptism by immersion in cold lake water at the top of the morning.
Most were baptized in church although another witness noted that she was baptized in the pastor’s office.
Tinged with emotion, another person recalled being baptized, the death of his mother six years later and the church supporting the family as a result.
Ordination in West Michigan Annual Conference provided an unexpected joy and blessing also.
Severe illness prevented Jennifer Jue’s elderly mother from attending her ordination as an elder June 6, 2010. She would have like to fly in to Grand Rapids from California, but instead, Jennifer’s mother watched via live feed.
She recognized her daughter among others, heard her name called, and witnessed the laying on of hands seated thousands of miles away.
The live streaming blessed and thrilled the mother, the daughter and countless others. Both conferences did an excellent job of “equipping…local churches for ministry…by providing a connection for ministry beyond the local church.” (Paragraph 601, 2008 United Methodist Book of Discipline))
Kudos to everybody involved in the Detroit and West Michigan sessions of Annual Conference. Both of them were full of spiritual vitality, food, fun and fellowship, inspiring testimonies and hard work.
Friday morning worship, May 21, 2010, a number of people in the Detroit Conference celebrated their baptisms with pithy testimonies and symbolic water. (For video of that service click HERE) One of the baptized recalled his baptism by immersion in cold lake water at the top of the morning.
Most were baptized in church although another witness noted that she was baptized in the pastor’s office.
Tinged with emotion, another person recalled being baptized, the death of his mother six years later and the church supporting the family as a result.
Ordination in West Michigan Annual Conference provided an unexpected joy and blessing also.
Severe illness prevented Jennifer Jue’s elderly mother from attending her ordination as an elder June 6, 2010. She would have like to fly in to Grand Rapids from California, but instead, Jennifer’s mother watched via live feed.
She recognized her daughter among others, heard her name called, and witnessed the laying on of hands seated thousands of miles away.
The live streaming blessed and thrilled the mother, the daughter and countless others. Both conferences did an excellent job of “equipping…local churches for ministry…by providing a connection for ministry beyond the local church.” (Paragraph 601, 2008 United Methodist Book of Discipline))
