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BY MELISSA LAUBER

On May 24, 270 years ago, John Wesley's heart was strangely warmed by the Holy Spirit. In that moment, he began a spiritual journey that spanned the centuries and reached into the lives of all those who gathered at the 224^th session of the Baltimore-Washington Conference of The United Methodist Church.

On this anniversary of Aldersgate Day, Bishop Jane Middleton stood on stage at the Gaylord Hotel in the National Harbor and asked 1,340 heirs of Wesley to follow his rules to "do no harm, go good, and stay in love with God."

"Sometimes, simply by doing and being the church, we violate these three simple rules," she said.

However, said Bishop John Schol, there are other times, when the people called United Methodists become like Christ as they sense the spirit of God in their midst.

It is during these moments of sacred growth and possibility that "the Holy Spirit demonstrates what God wants to do in our midst," Bishop Schol said.

It is in these moments, Bishop Middleton echoed, that we are living "God-fashioned lives."

But how does one do that? For Middleton, it's a matter of continually asking, "What is God's yearning for us?"

Bishop Minerva Carcaño of the Desert Southwest Area addressed annual conference two days earlier at the opening worship service and answered the same question with a challenge of her own.

"Do we dare to have the mind of Christ? I pray so," she said.

For Bishop Carcaño, a warmed heart is tied inextricably to discipleship.

"John Wesley was touched by the Holy Spirit. He took on the mind of Christ as never before and traveled out beyond the walls of the church and into the world," she said. United Methodists should do no less.

The bishop shared a story of Wesley preaching to the poor whose faces were stained with black soot from the mines and smokestacks. He refused to be bound by the walls of a church, but went out among the marginalized and told them that God cared for them. That God loved them and was present for them.

"Wesley saw the blackened faces come clean," as the miners shed tears at their encounter with the living Christ, said Bishop Carcaño.

"Can you begin to imagine what God can do for you if you allow him to work through you?" Carcaño asked.

She told the worshippers, "You live in the capitol of the world, you are a people of resources, you have a mountain of opportunity to reach out to others," she said. "Pour yourself out in the service of the world so that you can be filled with joy."

In his State of the Church address Bishop Schol affirmed Bishop Carcaño's message by telling the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego who, in the Book of Daniel, were thrown by the king into a fiery furnace because of their faith.

When the king opened the furnace door he counted four figures instead of three.

"God was present," Bishop Schol said. "We have a God willing to stand with us in the midst of the fiery furnace; a God willing to stand with us in the fiery furnace of mission Let us go into the depths of the fire and be present to our brothers and sisters who are crying out for help."

The three bishops encouraged all those present to take the temperature of their own hearts.

Wesley used to ask the spiritual leaders of his day, "Have you fire, have you faith, have you fruit," said Bishop Schol. "Spiritual leaders with faith have conviction, character and understanding. Spiritual leaders with fire have calling, passion and vision. Spiritual leaders with fruitfulness have gifts that are being expressed through the body of Christ.

Have you fire? Have you faith? Have you fruit? It's a question for Aldersgate Day and beyond.