Ordination Service recognizes 25 new clergy members
By Linda Worthington
UMConnection Staff
Bishop Marcus Matthews presided at the Ordination Service at the close of the 229th Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference May 31. For many people, this service is the highlight of annual conference.
Preaching at the service was Bishop Sandra Steiner Ball, who leads the West Virginia Conference.
The two bishops were joined by two retired bishops for the liturgy of the Ordination Service. Bishop Joseph Yeakel, who had served the Baltimore-Washington Conference for 12 years, and Bishop Violet Fisher who has retired from the New York West Area, participated in the spiritual ceremony of laying on of hands on each of the 25 candidates being ordained or commissioned.
Seven women and one man were ordained Elders in Full Connection, and 17 candidates were commissioned as Provisional Elders. There were no Deacons either commissioned or ordained.
Bishop Ball, preaching on “Seed Versus Soil,” carried through the conference theme of “Sowing the Seed … Be Light,” as she addressed the candidates. “Our job is to sow the seed,” she said, then cautioned that, like the parable, you won’t know what kind of soil it falls on. “You can’t know in advance where the seed will grow.”
To produce a good crop, the sower in the parable had “to scatter seed extravagantly,” she said. “We spend much time figuring out where to sow,” but in real life there’s no guarantee of always having a fruitful harvest.
“The best way to reach new people is to sow the seed in every place possible in every way and in ways you’ve not done before,” she instructed. God, the sower, “isn’t concerned about the soil, scattering seed on productive and unproductive soil alike.”
The parable teaches patience. “We may never produce what we hope for, but others will,” she said.
Bishop Ball reminded the ordinands that “it’s not about us,” several times. “The final word in ministry belongs to God, not us,” she said. “If God can do it for us, God can do it for anyone.”
The 2013 class of Provisional Elders is very diverse, covering a wide scope of age and appearances. It includes nine men and eight women, two of Korean ancestry, people in their early 20s and a couple in middle age, a Hispanic and two African-Americans, a diversity reflective of church membership in this area.
Not so for the small 2013 class of Elders: one man is in the eight ordained, who is also the only black. Two of the eight are middle-aged.
The offering taken at this year’s Ordination Service will go toward providing scholarships for students at Africa University. It totaled $7,803.
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