| Annual conference to feature wide array of speakers By Melissa Lauber
UMConnection Staff Several nationally celebrated speakers will appear at the 218th session of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference, when it meets June 69 at the Renaissance Hotel in Washington, D.C. The theme of the conference is Get in Gear: Make the Connection. When the worship committee began planning for the 2002 session, they were struck by images from Romans 1 and built upon the theme, uncovering the concept of multiply the power, said the Rev. Vivian McCarthy, associate council director. That concept will be an important one throughout annual conference. Energy, power, movement, action it will be about what we can accomplish through the source that generates power the Holy Spirit, McCarthy said. The speakers will be tying into that theme as they address mission, ministr y, multiculturalism, and reconciliation, McCarthy said. Bishop Milton Alexander Williams Sr., the presiding prelate of the Mid-Atlantic II Episcopal District of the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church, will preach on the opening night of annual conference, June 6. Bishop Williams episcopal leadership extends across the Virginia, Philadelphia, Baltimore, East Tennessee-Virginia; London-Birmingham; Manchester-Midland, India and Angola conferences. By inviting Bishop Williams, the conference is laying the groundwork for a service of repentance to be held at the 2003 annual conference session that will address the sins of racism and lead to healing among the African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Zion, Christian Methodist Episcopal and United Methodist churches. Bruce W. Robbins, who serves as the General Secretary of the United Methodist Commission on Christian Unity and Interreligious Concerns, is a leader in the pan-Methodist movement. Through recognizing racism, fighting it and living into a new reality, I will also live more fully into a life God has planned for me, Robbins wrote in the resource Steps Toward Wholeness: Learning and Repentance, which will be used as a study gbwc_superusere by conference leaders in preparation for the ritual of repentance. Copies of this resource will be made available to members of annual conference in the packets handed out at registration. Robbins will preach June 9 at the 11 a.m. Service of Life and Light, memorializing conference members and those who died on Sept. 11, 2001. On June 8, he will deliver an an overview of pan-Methodism at the Seeds of Faith Dinner at Mt. Vernon Place UMC, across from the Renaissance Hotel. On June 7 and 8, Mary Love, administrative secretary of the Commission on Pan-Methodist Cooperation, will lead a morning Bible study. Love is the editor of church school literature for the African Methodist Episcopal Zion Church and an adjunct professor of Christian education at Hood Theological Seminary in Salisbury, N.C. The Rev. William H. Willimon, dean of the chapel at Duke University in North Carolina, will preach at the ordination service at 7:30 p.m. June 7 at the National Cathedral in Georgetown. Willimon has served at Duke, at the chapel and as a professor of Christian ministry, since 1984. He is the author of 50 books, which together have sold more than a million copies. In 1996, an international survey conducted by Baylor University named him one of the 12 most effective preachers in the English-speaking world. Th e Rev. Eric Law, an Episcopal priest and expert on multiculturalism, will lead the conference in table talks on the morning of June 8. These talks will be broadcast, via satellite, to a variety of local churches where United Methodists will join in the interactive discussion. He will speak at the Methodist Federation for Social Action dinner June 6. Throughout the conference, members will also have the opportunity to give to three special offerings. They include a collection at the ordination service for Moscow Seminary in Russia; an offering at the mission fair for the people of Zimbabwe, many of whom are suffering from hunger; and a collection at the Service of Life and Light for Gibbons-Resurrection UMC in Brandywine. All the rooms at the hotel have been reserved. More than 2,000 people are expected to attend the annual conference session. | 
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