Laity and clergy from the East Ohio and West Ohio Conferences gathered November 15 in Roscoe UMC in Coshocton, where the Tuscarawas and Walhonding Rivers converge to form the Muskingum River.
“These rivers teach us the deep wisdom of coming together as one,” Bishop Hee-Soo Jung said in his afternoon worship service message. “Today, the East and West Ohio Conferences are learning to walk as one. Different histories, different rhythms – yet one Spirit, one hope, one Lord.”
Bishop Lanette L. Plambeck, Morning Guest Speaker
Bishop Lanette L. Plambeck, resident bishop of the Dakotas-Minnesota Episcopal Area, centered her messages on ecotones, the transition zones between two different ecosystems – i.e.: where field and forest meet.
“We are at our best when we live at the edges – meeting people where life is actually happening. Ecotone is our birthright,” Bishop Plambeck said. “During worship we saw incarnation as God’s first ecotone and communion as God’s ongoing ecotone. Now we turn to the Church, not the building, but the people – as the ecotone Christ establishes in the world.”
She shared that East and West Ohio are individual conferences with unique cultures and ministries, while also inhabiting the same ecosystem.
“You are urban and rural, and industrial and agricultural. You are lake and Appalachian foothills, and historic Methodist heartland and new mission fields. You are two conferences, but you still embody one ecotone. You are tradition and innovation. You are legacy congregations and emerging ministries. And Christ is standing in our midst not asking us to erase what makes us different from one another but asking to bless us in the meeting places,” she said.
Rev. Dr. Beth Stoud, Afternoon Guest Speaker
Rev. Dr. Beth Stroud, assistant professor of History at Methodist Theological School in Ohio, examined how history has shaped The United Methodist Church today. She benchmarked four years on a timeline that was distributed to participants for small group discussions: 1787 (ministry of Richard Allen), 1844 (Methodist stance against slavery), 1939 (creation of the Central Jurisdiction of Black Methodist annual conferences), and 1968 (Methodist Church and the Evangelical United Brethren Church merging to form The United Methodist Church).
“To speak like an author of Bible genealogies: from the slow-motion breakup of recent years to the 1968 merger, one generation. From 1968 to the beginning of the Central Jurisdiction, one generation. Even 1844 isn’t that long ago, maybe three or four generations. And from there, Richard Allen is only about one more generation back,” Stroud shared.
She concluded her message stating that decisions we make today will influence the future.
“We shape the map, and then the map shapes us,” Stroud said. “We’re in the midst of drawing new maps and I just hope we draw good ones, and just ones.”
The New United Methodist Church — A Call to the Field
Bishop Jung told the laity and clergy of Ohio, “dear friends, the work before us is not merely reorganization, it is holy re-creation. So, we call upon God, ‘make us new!’ This is the time to lift our eyes from a survival mentality to vision-making, from fear to faith, and from decline to resurrection.”
The bishop asked those gathered to imagine they were each holding a plow.
“Our plows are “made of prayer, sharpened by love, and guided by the hand of the Spirit,” he said. “Through this plowing, we prepare the soil of Ohio for new discipleship, new communities, and new hope. The next generation will sow seeds in this ground, and they will reap a harvest of grace.”
The bishop concluded his message saying, “Christ holds all the parts together. He holds East and West. He holds our differences and our dreams. He holds the whole body in His redeeming embrace.”
To view pictures of this event, visit our Flickr album: https://flic.kr/s/aHBqjCB2x6