Exciting Speakers, pt. 2

I first heard of Tony Campolo when chaperoning a youth group to Youth '99, the national UMC youth convention held every four years in Knoxville, TN. He gave the final speech there and was one of two speakers (the other being Grace Imathiu) who struck me as being particularly good.

The next time I bumped into him was in 2003 in South Africa. I was a PR volunteer for the South African Christian Leadership Assembly II, an historic gathering of Christian leaders committed to beating the giants that seem to be destroying South Africa: AIDS, poverty, domestic violence, and others. I got to interview him and sorta be his "body man." South Africans, Zimbabweans, Lesotho-ians, and Namibians were raving about his workshop conducted in the Youth Tent and an incredibly candid Q and A that covered everything from personal sexual behavior to US foreign policy and the War in Iraq.

I told him that I'd first heard him in Knoxville in 1999 and he responded: "Now you're here. I must have said something right."

He has a speaking style that often convicts you, then gives you hope that you ARE ABLE to serve God more radically and authentically then you've allowed yourself to.

I would recommend listening to some of the sermons on his website, but he recycles a lot of stories so maybe you should wait until after his appearance here at Wesley on December 6th. He will deliver the sermon at Tuesday chapel and participate in a Q and A over lunch.

Exciting Speakers

Man, how I wish somebody would have been organizing stuff like this during my first year. I just want to share how excited I am about a couple upcoming chapel and Dean's Forum speakers in November-December.

Wednesday, November 30 brings a Dean's Forum and the Student Council Worship Service at 5:00 and 6:30, respectively. For both we've got Rev. Donald Messer, former President of Iliff School of Theology, Director of the Center for the Church and Global AIDS, author of Breaking the Conspiracy of Silence, a book on the same subject, and co-author with the eminent Midwestern Senators Bob Dole (R-KS) and George McGovern (D-SD) of Ending Hunger Now, a congregational resource that works as a book or as a six-week small group discussion on world hunger. As near as I can figure, Messer is a class act. (And he thinks Wesley is an excellent school.)

Oh, yeah, he also used to be the Director of the UMC's General Board of Global Ministries, whose "Global Justice Volunteer" program remains the best value in service-abroad programs I have ever heard of, and which happily sent me to a summer (winter) in Stellenbosch, South Africa. Can I stress that I think he's a good guy?

More on the other speaker later.

How can we serve you?

Most folks at our 40-60% United Methodist seminary are already aware of these rulings. An ordained reverend in a lesbian relationship was defrocked by something similar to the UMC Supreme Court. Another Pastor, who had refused membership in his church to a homosexual man, was affirmed in his decision.

Some see the rulings as a victory for Christian tradition. Some see it as a failure of fallen humans to embrace the full Gospel of Christ in all his glory.

At lunch I was very taken by a conversation about how the fight over issues relating to people who are homosexual might be won by the side to which the Spirit and the Word have moved me. Then I paused in the refectory and realized that in our community, where most of us daily come into contact with people whom these rulings directly affect, my first concern ought not to be strategy or tactics or firing back. Ministry in the name of Jesus Christ is incarnational. Christ came amongst the suffering and marginalized in the Middle East.

I still have hope that God might allow the UMC to be shaped according to the Gospel, but I realize that when I am in relationship with those who are suffering the first call on any Christian is to mirror Christ’s love to the sufferers. My anger, however strong, is nothing in comparison to somebody who knows the call of God on their hearts and feels only hurt and rejection from an institution through which they received that call.

So before we strategize or celebrate, I think the top priority for any heterosexual person on the Wesley campus is to ask of our wounded Christian sisters and brothers “how can we be like Christ to you?” To those in this community to which Christ has brought us, to those in relationship with whom Christ has placed us, to those whose fears and tears move the Spirit within us, we each must sing…

The Servant Song

Brother, sister, let me serve you, Let me be as Christ to you / Pray that I might have the grace To let you be my servant too.

We are pilgrims on a journey We are travelers on the road / We are here to help each other Walk the mile and bear the load.

I will hold the Christ-light for you In the nighttime of your fear / I will hold my hand out to you Speak the peace you long to hear.

I will weep when you are weeping When you laugh I'll laugh with you / I will share your joy and sorrow Till we've seen this journey through.

When we sing to God in heaven We shall find such harmony / Born of all we've known together Of Christ's love and agony.

Brother, sister, let me serve you, Let me be as Christ to you / Pray that I might have the grace To let you be my servant too.