I spoke to Pastor Linda Bibb this evening. She’s the outgoing pastor at Salem Church where I have been appointed effective July 1. Salem is just a couple of blocks from the Cedar River in downtown Cedar Rapids. She told me they were evacuated from the church building at 4:00 pm yesterday. The wonderful people of this congregation worked together sandbagging and moving as much as they could to the second and third floors. But the river was too much. Linda said the water is at least 8-10 feet deep at the church building. There is a car port over one of the entrances and the water is above that car port. So the water could be to the second floor now. This picture from the Cedar Rapids Gazette shows how high the water was earlier today at the Dairy Queen which is right across the street from Salem United Methodist Church. Unfortunately, the river hasn’t even crested yet so the flooding will probably get worse. We will attempt to get to Cedar Rapids tomorrow. In the midst of all this we ar...
General Conference, our global family reunion that speaks officially for The United Methodist Church, just concluded last night. This was a specially called session of 864 delegates (half lay, half clergy) from all over the world to discuss and act on the report of the Commission on a Way Forward over the issue of human sexuality. Two of the plans presented had the most support: the Traditional Plan as well as the One Church Plan, which was endorsed by the Council of Bishops. The One Church Plan would have given each local congregation and pastor the authority to make their own choices regarding same-sex weddings based on their cultural context. In an emotional, contested, rancorous, yet majority decision, the General Conference chose the Traditional Plan. The vote was 438 to 384 (this doesn’t equal 864 as some of the international delegates did not make it to St. Louis because they didn’t get visas). The chosen Traditional Plan basically keeps the current language in our ...
So go into the streets and invite anyone you see; invite everyone you meet. Matthew 22:9 (Voice) Jesus liked parties, getting people together and celebrating something in the community. Jesus even told a story, saying the kingdom of God is like a party, a wedding party a king gave for his son. The guests were invited, but when the servants went out to get the guests, they chose not to come. So the king sent his servants out once again saying, “So go into the streets and invite anyone you see; invite everyone you meet.” Everyone gets invited to the kingdom of God party. We’re throwing a big kingdom of God party at Salem on Easter Sunday, April 5. We’ve built a new facility. It’s ready. But this hasn’t only been about a building. In order to live out our mission, we’ve created ministry teams to help us with prayer, discipleship, and outreach (the mission team was already in place). We have more ministry teams to implement along the way, but we’re ready to go. Now our Grand Openin...
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