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This Tuesday, November 4, we will gather in the sanctuary at 7 p.m. for our annual Charge Conference meeting. Our District Superintendent, the Rev. Steve Brown, will preside. This is the time when we reflect on the past year’s ministry and set things in place for the coming year.

The members of the Church Council make up the voting members of the Conference, but all members of the church are invited to attend. While there will be a number of reports given and several items requiring action, we do so in the context of worship. That is why we gather in the sanctuary. That is why we begin the session with a time of devotion and prayer. Everything we do is an act of worship, an offering of ourselves and our best efforts to God.

Every meeting of every committee here at the church begins and ends with prayer. That is more than a mere formality. When we begin with prayer, we ask God to be part of all that we say and do. When we end with prayer, we offer our work into God’s hands so that it might do some good for the Kingdom.

As Christians, this is the pattern for how we live. We begin our day with a prayer of gratitude for another day and ask God to go with us. My favorite prayer is found in the hymnal in the Order for Morning Prayer and Praise: “New every morning is your love, great God of Light, and all day long you are working for good in the world. Stir up in us desire to serve you, to live peacefully with our neighbors, and to devote each day to your Son, our Savior, Jesus Christ the Lord. Amen.”

And the Order for Evening Prayer and Praise offers a word of gratitude: “You made the day for the works of light and the night for the refreshment of our minds and bodies. Keep us now in Christ; grant us a peaceful evening, a night free from sin; and bring us at last to eternal life. Through Christ and in the Holy Spirit, we off you all glory, honor, and worship. Amen.”

Prayer is much more than bookends for our meetings or our days. It is the context in which we live. I invite you to be in prayer for our Charge Conference, for our church leadership, and for all that God is doing in us and through us as we seek to be faithful disciples of Jesus Christ in the world.

Blessings for the journey+
Pastor Mary Teasley