Dear Ones in Christ:
In a few short weeks we will be in Peoria for Annual Conference. This is the 14th session of the Illinois Great Rivers Annual Conference. Wow we really sound young don’t we? But if count figure our age from the oldest antecedent conferences this is session 188.
Could it be that we are really old, by some calculations? Or is the angle of view that we are new and fresh in ministry but we have a deep heritage? Not a bad position to be in. So from that bi-focal viewpoint we might sing with gusto A Charge to Keep We Have with a keen awareness that we are called “To Serve the Present Age”.
In order to remember the charge and to serve the now we will gather around the theme of Passionate Worship as a Christian practice. In this and previous issues of The Current you have had a peep at the ways in which we will be resourced to both think about the practice of Passionate Christian Worship. I am excited about the opportunity to learn and reflect with you on this.
Most of all I rejoice that we will become a worshipping community and actually offer ourselves to God through worship. It is my expectation that worship will frame, bracket, undergird and otherwise set the tone for all else that we will do and at that, we will all be able to bear witness to participating in worshipful work.
So then it won’t be that we have “worship” and then “do business”. Rather we will by God’s grace embrace the truth that worship is our business and our business is worshipful work. See you in Peoria.
Your servant in Christ,
Bishop Gregory V. Palmer