My grandmother was a strong and courageous woman. The mother of eight children, she helped my grandfather put food on their family table in hard economic times through her gardening, baking and stretching meals. She taught me to persevere using the phrase "shoulders back and chin up." It was her bent knees and bowed head, however, from which I learned the true source of her strength and courage.
Reflecting on our journey to the 14th General Conference, there were countless times when I watched our Wesleyan family persevere through sheer determination sourced by faith and supplication. Specifically, through the season which will in our lifetimes always be associated with the COVID pandemic.
Evident throughout The Wesleyan Church is our passionate desire to honor God as we serve. We strove for the past six years to celebrate, to transform while being transformed, to Unleash all the hope and love God makes available. We continued to multiply churches and make disciples reaching into new communities and cultures Everywhere to Everywhere.
We continue to pursue our mission, able to persevere with our shoulders back and chin up because we bend our knees and bow our heads.
During General Conference, on May 24, at 4:28 p.m. CDT, we recommitted our individual and corporate understanding of whose we are and what we believe. That moment — when the assembly affirmed “A Statement of The General Board” — has become for me an Ebenezer stone, a commemoration of how God helped us persevere through intense storms and battles to gather victorious, worshiping our Lord and God.
It is with that reminder of what God has done that we begin the next quadrennium. We know whose we are. We know what we believe. We know who we’re here to serve. We know where we’ve been. And we know where we’re going.
We continue to pursue our mission, able to persevere with our shoulders back and chin up because we bend our knees and bow our heads.
It is with great expectation and confidence that we journey together, a people known for being strong and very courageous. God is with us and we can trust God to use us.