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By Jeanette Pinkston
General Board of Discipleship

Focusing on Healthy Connections: Spirit, Body, and Mind was the theme of a recent Convocation for Pastors of African American Churches, which drew more than 500 church leaders, including more than 20 from the Baltimore-Washington Conference.

The event, sponsored by the United Methodist Church General Board of Discipleship at the Hilton Anatole Hotel in Dallas Jan 3-6, included a keynote address by the Rev. Joseph Daniels of Emory UMC in Washington, D.C.

Participants at the convocation were greeted by the Rev. Vance Ross, a Baltimore-Washington Conference pastor who now works at the Board of Discipleship.

'We don?t need anymore casualties of this war,' Ross said. 'If the pastor is not healthy, there is no need to expect the congregations to be so. You are set apart and you must be healthy. We need to make some healthy connections.'

On Jan. 6, Daniels led a plenary session on community connection and social justice.

'Too many of us are not whole,' he told the gathering. We are unhealthy and we need to make healthy connections.'

Citing a laundry list of ailments - HIV/AIDS, prostate cancer, diabetes, black on black crime, regentrification - Daniels used texts from Ezekiel 37, Nehemiah and John 5 to identify the circumstance, describe the situation and provide a resolution.

'Economically, many have prospered while the masses are suffering. People are living in wealthy suburbs and are spiritually poor and spiritually bankrupt, broken and burnt. We are in trouble. We are present physically but mentally and emotionally in exile.

'For 38 years, the churches have been on the decline,' he said. But pastors must be a catalyst for change.

Daniels urged those present to be sensitive to their calling. 'Be specific about what God is calling us to do and not to do. Be healthy and balanced as we fulfill God?s purpose for our lives,' he said. 'Give up tending to stuff that tears us down. Be clear it is you God is sending there. If not, everybody will be miserable. Run to the right call.'

Daniels also urged the pastors to focus on their intention. 'A lot of you are making career moves, not call decisions. Some of you are on the bishop track. Some of you are on the big-church track. Appoint-ments are being made without considering the anointing necessary,' he said.

Practicing spiritual discipline is an essential part of fulfilling the ministry God intends for us, said Daniels, who encouraged pastors to embrace fasting, Sabbath rest, exercise, therapy, family time, study and prayer alone and with a partner.

Healthy pastors will be able to devote themselves to the community, Daniel said, 'Pastors must be ready to devote themselves to community development. We must be devoted to our community?s development. God has your back. Speak truth to power as he does.

See the community as your congregation,' he concluded. 'The community is your parish and like John Wesley you will go any and every where to worship.'