| Real church is where the isms fall down BY CALVIN WILLIAMS  I love to sing. To me, music is so soothing. Music is so many things to so many people. For some, it is the words that tell a story of faith, thankfulness, praise and hope. For others, and I am one of these, we like the songs that speak as a prayer to the Almighty.
Such a hymn is Open My Eyes, number 454 in the United Methodist Hymnal. It has been said many times by many people, and Im one of them, that if I had to lose one of my senses, I would hope it would not be my eyesight. I believe I could manage to handle the loss of hearing, taste, smell or feeling, as long as I had my ability to see. Here I am speaking of seeing strictly in the physical sense. Most of us reach a certain age and must use all kinds of methods to enhance our ability to see: eyeglasses, contacts, surgical procedures and even magnifying lenses. The list is long because we need to see. I am asking God through Jesus Christ to please open our spiritual eyes so that we might see the evidence of Gods love and greatness. The annual conference theme of Repair the Breach: Restore Gods Community causes me to ask: Do we have a gap between us and God? Is our relationship with God missing a link because of personal ego, power struggles, money, politics, form and fashion? Our eyes are shut tight spiritually to the point that we have forgotten who causes the sun to shine, who illuminated the sky with moon and stars, who put the birds in the air and the fish in the sea. It was somebody bigger than you and me. Open our eyes, Lord, open our eyes. I am concerned, as conference lay leader, that some of our churches are allowed to continue in spiritual blindness, simply stumbling along in darkness, and we shut our eyes to the images of racism, sexism and materialism. Where is the light that shines in our lives? Why do we stand by and witness glaring and notorious racism? Sexism continues in our churches. It makes you wonder if God is in the picture or even in the neighborhood. Open your eyes. Real TV is all the talk now. Wouldnt it be great if we Christians would be just as excited about having real church? Real church, as found in Matthew 25:35, is this: I was hungry and you fed me, thirsty and you gave me drink. I was a stranger and you took me in your home, naked and you clothed me. I was sick and you took care of me, in prison and you visited me. Real church is where we walk by faith and not by sight, where love has lifted us, where everybody is welcome regardless of appearances. Real church is where the ism walls come falling down, where our hope is built on nothing less than Jesus blood and righteousness. How many times have we heard the statement that we are an old church and we are dying? Between our young adults and the so-called old church, I believe that if we want to save the young adults and have them be a part of The United Methodist Church, we need to find ways to include them in every phase of ministry. As I enter into my last year as your conference lay leader, my hope is that we repair the breach. I truly believe that in order to repair the breach in our communities, the best place to start is in the church, with the people we know best. Calvin Williams is the lay leader of the Baltimore-Washington Conference. This commentary is excerpted from his report to the 2003 annual conference. | 
Login/Register to leave comment