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BY LINDA WORTHINGTON
UMCONNECTION STAFF

When nearly 300 women and men gathered for this year's Cooperative School of Christian Mission there was something different. It wasn't only the locale, which had changed from a hotel in Hagerstown to one in Bethesda, or the participation of a few men from United Methodist Men, though that was evidence of the new relationship between UMM and UMW; it was the number of youth attending. Sixteen in all came for the classes and to fellowship with each other.

Each year the School of Christian Mission, a cooperative effort between the United Methodist Women and the Board of Global Ministries, meets in the summer in most conferences of The United Methodist Church to study a common missional theme. This year's theme was "That All May Have Life," from John 10:10.

The time together "has been ordained by God to enrich and embolden us to serve missionally near and far," said the Rev. Tony Love, dean of this year's school.

The mission studies were offered around three areas: a spiritual growth study, a general issue study, and a geographic study. Participants chose between "Poverty" and "Haiti," and all attendees participated in the spiritual growth plenary on "Immigration and the Bible."

Though the youth ate their meals with the larger group, attended the plenaries and some of the mission classes, they had a concurrent program much of the time. Part of that was music – making it, writing it, singing it and occasionally performing it. They formed a youth choir, which met for practices from time to time. And they did a hands-on mission to the Greentree Shelter in Bethesda, where they distributed school supplies.

The leader of the youth school was Pastor Michael Parker, who serves as youth pastor of John Wesley UMC in Baltimore. Assisting him was Elizabeth Stemley, as youth school director.

The Rev. Cynthia Belt, pastor of Centennial Caroline UMC in Baltimore, led the geographic study group on Haiti, the second year it has been offered.

There were four separate groups on the general issue study on poverty, which is new this year, and will be offered again next year. The poverty study was led by husband and wife, the Rev. Mark W. Johnson who serves Mt. Olive UMC in Randallstown and the Rev. Sandi E. Johnson, conference director of Deaf Ministries; the Rev. Ronald Triplett, associate pastor of the St. Paul-Corkran Memorial Cooperative Parish; and Caroleann Myers, a lay person and activist on behalf of the poor and marginalized.

Karmalita Contee-Borders, a member of Westphalia UMC, led the spiritual growth topic in three plenary sessions on Immigration and the Bible. She helped the audience to get "on the same page" by listing and explaining the several groups of sisters and brothers uprooted from their homelands by choice or by chance.

"There are 12,000,000 undocumented immigrants living in the United States," Contee-Borders said.

Part of the study on poverty included a look at John Wesley's views. Methodism began as a movement among the poor, but contemporary United Methodism is predominantly a middle-class denomination, according to Bishop Kenneth L. Carder in the text "Poverty." "Material prosperity threatened that which Wesley considered constitutive to Christian discipleship; – friendship with, aid to, and advocacy on behalf of the poor."

At the closing worship Sunday morning, the youth shared a litany they created based on Psalm 151.