This conference, our worship services will take us through themes pulled from Brenda Salter McNeil’s Roadmap to Reconciliation where we will be asked: Are you coming or not? Read below for more on each service’s guiding question, scripture, narrative synopsis and preacher. Read more about our preachers here!
Monday Opening Worship: Invitation
Are You Coming or Not?
Scripture: Esther 4:14
Preacher: Rev. Elder Troy D. Perry
Synopsis: The invitation is to re-engage and re-imagine what it means to be MCC and how to live into our prophetic call. Coming from all 4 corners of the earth, we gather to celebrate this movement that began 50 years ago in a living room, a movement that now encircles the world sharing bread and wine. We anticipate what will happen this week as we reconnect as family, select our new Moderator and discern our prophetic call. We come to explore if we are the answer to the question that the world has not yet asked.
Following the courageous story of Esther, we come together in celebration of who we are and what we are becoming as we kick off General Conference 2019.
Tuesday Morning Worship: Call
Do We Sense Our Call?
Scripture: 1 Samuel 3:10-11
Preachers: Rev. Trent Thornley and Rev. Mel Pace
Synopsis: Synopsis: This service asks us are we cognizant of God’s call to/on us to companion with each other within MCC and beyond our body. The service moves us into a period of reflection and contemplation about what we have accomplished as well as what we have yet to even be aware of in our calling.
Amidst the noise of distraction and hindrance of superficial relationship, are we listening to the call of God?
As we reflect on the fibers that create our community, we reject half truths and easy answers in order to decipher the voice of that which calls us into the work of peace, justice, and charity. We encourage one another to let fear fall away as we step into the unknown, faithful that God is ever present.
Tuesday Evening Worship: Sanctify
Do We Know Whose We Are?
Scripture: 1 Peter 2:9-10
Preacher: Bishop Dr. Yvette A. Flunder
Synopsis: We are all called and all equipped, to be a royal priesthood. As we welcome our new Moderator, we remember that this ministry and movement requires all of us. We are asked to remember that no matter what happens, in life, in elections, in the world, we are still the priesthood of all believers called to continue the ministry and movement of Jesus / the Way.
Wednesday Morning: Pilgrimage
Will We Journey With Those Still on The Margins?
Scripture: Acts 8:26-40
Preachers: Rev. Beulah Durrheim & Rev. Wanda Floyd
Synopsis: The way is the journey – we will meet many people unlike ourselves along the way – how do we companion and create community? Those on the margins need more than allies. How do we become accomplices for justice?
Wednesday Evening: Crossroads
Are You Willing to face the consequences of embodying the gospel of liberation theology
Scripture: Deuteronomy 34
Preacher:Alexya Lucas Evangelista Salvador
Synopsis: This service calls us to embrace a truth: transformation implores us to let go in order to receive. To move into the future, we take with us the stories that are important to our founding, while opening ourselves to the continuing unfolding story of God and God’s work in the world. We expect to see God’s reign on earth as it is in heaven as we work toward a world where everyone has enough, wars cease, and all creation lives in harmony.
The question we must face at the crossroads is whether we are playing church or going to be church in a very incarnational and embodied way?
Thursday Morning: Embodiment
Will We Offer All of Ourselves?
Scripture: Luke 1:46-55
Preacher: Rev. DeWayne Davis
Synopsis: Coming to an awareness / surety that I am / we are God’s body / embodiment in this world. There is much yet to do. Seeking what God is giving birth to / bringing forth through me / us?
Affirming God’s charge to all of humanity to care for the land, sea, and air, we must actively resist systems and structures which are destroying God’s creation. With all of creation we worship You—every tribe, every language, every people, every nation. We are a people on a journey, learning to live into our spirituality, while affirming our bodies, our genders, our sexualities.
Thursday Evening: Covenant
Will My People be Your People? And, Will Your People be My People?
Scripture: Isaiah 55: 1-2 or 5
Preacher: Rev. Alex Pittaway
Synopsis:This service reminds us of the prophetic call, from Troy to Nancy to Rachelle to now. The need for the unending Open Table is as great if not greater now. We must be willing to risk our best and deepest selves to heal the world. Recommit ourselves, our ministry, our movement to our prophetic call as we covenant to the sacrificial journey.
Our chapter began when God said to us: “Come, taste, and see.” Jesus Christ, You invite all people to Your open table. You make us Your people, a beloved community.
Friday Closing Worship: YES!
Are We Going?
Scripture: Nehemiah 8:10
Preacher: Newly Elected Moderator
Synopsis:In this service we celebrate because it is our “coming out” party. We are the Coming Out Church – Being the body of Christ in an embodied way. Coming out clear on who we are called to be for the next 50 years as MCC.
We are a people on a journey,. We don’t have to believe exactly the same things, yet in the midst of our diversity, we will build community, grounded in God’s radically inclusive love for all people.
Today we return to our prophetic call to be the church as we struggle for justice for all of God’s creation and answer the question, “Are you coming or not?” with a resounding Yes!