Opening Worship takes BWC on a journey down 'The Road to Love'
“Oh, the wonder of it all,” said Marcia McFee as she called the people of the Baltimore-Washington Conference to worship. “It’s safe to say we’re experiencing a mixed bag of emotions — joyful, sorrowful, ambivalent, hopeful,” she said. “Here we are.”
In a darkened ballroom, with galaxies illuminating the ceiling, McFee marveled at the conference’s theme “We are One,” in a church that lately feels divided.
She reminded the congregation that all things are created by God, with the essence of love at their center.
“Art, religion, science, all agree we are one. We are made of the same stuff of the universe … We believe that God is the maker, the potter, the artisan, the architect, the Holy One and Creator of All. … This is the reality, whether we perceive it or not,” she said.
Together, the worship took people on a symbolic journey on the road to love, past three basins of water (a basin of tears, the baptismal basin, the servant’s basin) and Communion — from wonder to praise to lament to strength to joy.
Bishop LaTrelle Easterling preached to the congregation, singing. “Earth has no sorrow, heaven cannot cure,” was her refrain. She spoke to all the United Methodists, in pain over the continuing repercussions of the 2019 special General Conference, and others feeling hurt or damaged and encouraged them to recognize that one of the most precious of human freedoms is the ability to choose one’s attitudes in each moment.
“The question becomes what will we do with our pain,” she said. “Will we allow it to paralyze us into a state of victimhood” or will we offer it to Jesus?
“Love is an act of will,” the bishop stressed. “We can’t choose to banish the dark, but we can choose to kindle the light.”
As part of the worship, Janay Parker shared with the congregation how the BWC’s West River Camp became a place of refuge and hope for her when she struggled with a mother who was addicted to drugs and died in 2016 from an overdose. Camp, she said, “is a place where I found myself again.”
The offering raised $9,858 for camperships.