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“This is a story of people in love with God and living out that love with their hearts, hands and voices. It’s a story of the church alive in the world. The conference connects us in ways that create wonderful opportunities for shared ministries,” said Sandra Ferguson, the BWC’s director of connectional ministries.

In a service that recognized the call to missionary service, Bishop Marcus Matthews commissioned Williams, who worked on the staff of Bel Air UMC, to be a missionary, serving as a professor at Africa University in Zimbabwe. He will be supported by BWC churches that choose to enter into a covenant relationship with him. As part of the service, conference members promised, “We call and support you. You are our gift to the world.”

Churches that wish to support Williams or enter into a covenant relationship with him, can contact the Board of Global Ministries (http://www.umcmission.org) and reference his missionary support code #3021955.

During the report, ministry highlights were noted. The Rev. Cecil Mudede, chair of the conference Board of Global Ministries, reported that the BWC recently received an award for contributing the highest amount of funding for missionary support in the Northeastern Jurisdiction of The United Methodist Church. Together, our churches gave $220,196.

Andy Thornton, director of camping and retreat ministries, told how, in 2013, the BWC provided camping experiences to 1,099 campers and sacred space for 12,000 people from 344 groups to meet for retreats.

Last year, Bishop Matthews called on the churches to form partnerships with local schools in their communities. During the ministries report, members watched a video lifting up the specific ministries of several congregations.

Olivia Schwartz, of the Committee on Native American Ministries, shared about the culture of Native Americans in history and how the Methodist Church robbed Native Americans of their land under the principle of Manifest Destiny. She called on those present to repent for this past oppression and to more fully welcome Native Americans today into the life of the church.

And the Rev. Wanda Duckett of Mt. Zion UMC in Baltimore used spoken word poetry to challenge those present into deeper ministry with their communities. (See the sidebar for a copy of her poem.)

Prior to the ministry presentation, members heard from the Rev. Susan Henry-Crowe, the new general secretary of the General Board of Church and Society, headquartered in Washington.

Henry-Crowe encouraged those present to reject fear, which plays into our deepest anxieties, and to begin creatively living out the 61 principles outlined in the United Methodist Social Principles. “We are charged with addressing the root causes of a broken world,” she said.

Citing such ills as mass incarceration, human trafficking, violence and mental illness, Henry-Crowe said, “the world needs us to be the very best we can be. These issues are painful, but the work is joyful.”

We Are the Ones
By Rev. Wanda Duckett

We are the ones.

Sometimes too deep in the verse to rehearse what it means

Steeped in meditation of the text as it streams through our memory

Let’s see, “What comes next?”

Oh yes, “Love your neighbor.”

That’ll preach….

But it still doesn’t reach the wounds or the bruises

Until each one chooses to put neighbor back in the hood.

These words.

We say them…we pray them,

We even use them to slay them…on Sundays

But still the world is waiting and we are the ones.

On both sides of the tracks the enemy attacks

and the world hungers and bleeds

So many with needs that call us outside

Our blood stained glass as we ask

Who is our neighbor?

But we are the ones!

On our way to the New Jerusalem, we are the ones

Who must draw lines in the sand spelling out love

Loud and clear for all the world to hear.

We are the ones who build bridges that place us everywhere God needs us.

Let us be Scripture as the world reads us

Not a blueprint of the law that only orders our steps to commit the

verse to memory.

But committed and fitted for a mission commissioned by Calvary.

The world is waiting and we are the ones.

We are those neighbors whose doors are open wide

As we decide whether to live or to die,

to succeed or just try,

Caged birds are singing, while we are clinging to memory

Never doubt the power within us to make a difference.

We are the ones. What are we waiting for?

We are the ones…open wide every door!

We are the ones….We can’t hear them from our shrines

Can’t see them through closed blinds

Can’t love them with closed minds.

Eternal life? Let’s get this right.

The world is waiting and we are the ones.