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Dear Saint Mark Family,
I pray you are doing well, and you are abounding in all good works to the glory of God.
This past week I was on a well needed vacation. I had the opportunity to go back home to Jamaica to officiate my niece’s wedding, but also to slow down and take a break. It was a time well spent, getting to see family and friends and sightseeing a few of the beautiful places of my home country. I am thankful to the staff and Administrative Board members, who kept things in check while I was away.
This weekend, Rev. Jess and Lauren will be getting married. I ask you to pray for them as they enter the holy covenant of marriage and begin a new chapter of their lives together. This past Sunday you celebrated with them, but I ask you to let not your celebration for them ends there. Put them on your prayer list. Lift their names to God as often as you remember them. Marriage is beautiful, and it takes work, so pray for them without ceasing in the months and years to come.
This is Memorial Day weekend. Monday, the 29th will be Memorial Day, and across the country the lives of those who died on the front lines for our country will be remembered and honored. Probably most of us, if not all, know someone or of someone who died serving this country. We acknowledge their lives and their sacrifice. We look towards and pray for the day when no one else will have to die in a war or clandestine operations. As the church of God, we will continue to pray for the day “nations will not lift up the sword against other nations, nor will they learn war anymore.” We pray for that day when the weapons of war will no longer be, and every resource that would have been used for artillery will be used instead for life. Let us continue to pray for that time, Saint Mark.
I want to share with you that next week Wednesday through Saturday, our Lay Leader, Jon Woody and I will be away at Annual Conference in Athens, GA. Annual Conference is the yearly gathering of all clergy and lay leaders of the North Georgia Conference of the United Methodist Church, under the leadership of the Bishop, to discuss and vote on important matters of the churches in the conference. Some of the matters we will vote on can have larger implications for the entire denomination. One of the matters that will be discussed and voted on is churches that seek to disaffiliate from the denomination. Saint Mark, we earnestly seek your prayers for this time. The more I serve in the church, the more I realize how hardened we can be as a people called Christians. My heart breaks for the unrelenting and unyielding spirits I see and witness in the ways we treat each other and respond to each other, especially when we disagree. I have seen it especially in this season, where the lack of humility and the failure to love – on every side - have created and unleashed a divisive spirit that has cut a divide so deep in our conference and denomination that only the healing mercies and grace of God can mend.
Please pray for us and the entire gathering. What should be a holy conference can be undermined by division. Please pray for us and for God’s will to be revealed and done as we gather. Thank you in advance.
Please remember that since it is Memorial Day Weekend, we will have only one service this Sunday, May 28, at 10:00am. Sunday will also be Pentecost Sunday, a time when we remember the coming and pouring out of the Holy Spirit on the Apostles and early believers in the Upper Room, and the birth of the Christian Church. I invite you to come out and let us celebrate this day. If you are out of town and are not able to join us in-person, you can join us live online and be a part of the worship experience. I look forward to seeing you on Sunday.
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