I Kid You Not... Some of the Best Preaching Ever

With this update I'll catch you up on the last 2 morning worship services... and then tomorrow I'll post more on the legislative committee experience. Also coming up will be a "bit" on other New Mexicans who are involved in General Conference.

And I had lunch the other day with Bishop Schnase. Had to get that one in....

Yesterday Bishop Joao Somane Machado of Mozambique preached in Portuguese, using a translator. It was, in a word, powerful.
Add to that one more word: convicting.
His text was from Galatians, and the thrust of his sermon was: "You (U.S. United Methodists) were running so well. What happened? Who made you stop? What made you stop?"
He shared with us some of the missionary and evangelism work of the Methodists in Africa and elsewhere, and then called us to face what apparently stopped sometime in the 1970s.
Using the "Three Simple Rules" of John Wesley as re-formatted in a book by Bishop Rueben Job that has been repeatedly referred to at this General Conference:
Do No Harm, Do Good, Stay in Love with God (the 3rd is the reformatted one),
Bishop Machado laid out the challenge that we have, quite simply, stopped doing good.
We have stopped doing. We have stopped acting.
He told the story of a new pastor who got in trouble for preaching the same sermon his first three weeks in a row. When confronted, the pastor responded:
"Until you show me that you can put into action the words I am preaching, I'm not going to change my sermon."
Truly I tell you, I heard a great sermon from Bishop Machado.
But hearing a great sermon just isn't enough.

This morning Bishop Bill Hutchinson preached.
It made my list of one of the ten BEST live sermons I have ever heard.
Intensely funny, and intensely pointed, too, Bishop Hutchinson preached on "water and the spirit" from John 3. He challenged us, in short, to restore our willingness to experience the baptism of the spirit.
We need to stop making life in the spirit an exercise in propriety, and exchange the "my, my, my" of baptism for the "yes, indeed" of baptism. He told the story of 200 Cuban Methodists awaiting baptism outside where the world could see, with anticipation so tangible they couldn't keep still.
He then told stories of his family tree in the Nazarene/Holiness tradition, and how the desire for "sophistication" and the cessation of "embarrassment" had led them to become Methodists.
How did we become the kind of Christian you become if you want to avoid embarrassing outpourings of the spirit?
What we need is waterand the Spirit.

I could say a lot more about either one of those powerful sermons... but for right now, it's time to end today's blog update.

Blessings to you all,
Jon Moore