Worship and Bible Study at Annual Conference
Dover, DE, June 16, 2010—Worship and Bible study at the 2010 Peninsula-Delaware Annual Conference developed this year’s theme, “We Reach Out to Serve.”
The conference opened on June 10 with a service of Holy Communion. On the closing day, June 12, a Service of Remembrance for those who have died was a central focus. A “celebration of ministry” one evening was put in the context of worship, and the second night was devoted to the Service of Commissioning and Ordination of clergy.
The Apostle Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi provided the text for an hour of early morning Bible study each day. Dr. Laurence H. Stookey, a retired seminary professor, and his daughter, Sarah Stookey Kelly, led the study. Philippians is a short letter, only four chapters long, that considers the responsibilities of “servants” of God.
Professor Stookey went through each passage of Philippians, discussing the situations of the writer, Paul, and the recipients, and implications for Christians and their churches today. One purpose of the letter, he noted, was to encourage believers in faith and commend Christian virtues. Dr. Stookey for many years taught preaching and worship at Wesley Theological Seminary, Washington, DC.
A broad range of music enriched the worship experiences and the Stookeys’ used hymns to illustrate points made in the Bible study. Choirs and praise groups from around the conference provided music leadership in worship and business sessions.
Bishop Peggy A. Johnson, leader of the Peninsula-Delaware and Eastern Pennsylvania Annual Conference, presided at the opening service of Holy Communion. The preacher was Ray Buckley, interim director of the Center for Native American Spirituality and Christian Study, who is from Alaska.
The bishop preached at the service of commissioning and ordination. Eleven new full elders were ordained and five provisional elders commissioned. The sermon text was from Matthew 5:14-16, verses from the Sermon on the Mount, dealing with the light of faith in the world. Bishop Johnson challenged the new clergy to be “reflectors of God’s love all your lives.”
Seventeen clergy persons, spouses, or surviving spouses of deceased clergy, who have died over the past year, were honored at the Service of Remembrance. Two bishops were also recalled.
The Rev. Dr. Fred Allen, director of Strengthening the Black Church of the 21st Century, was the preacher. He developed the images of the “lamp of hope” that leads into the future and the “lamp of memory” that recalls the happy scenes of yesterday.
A pre-sermon anthem, “Uncloudy Day,” by the choir of the Sharptown-Zion Charge, brought the congregation, figuratively to its knees, and literally, to its feet. So powerful was the rendition, that Dr. Allen asked the choir to “do it one more time.”
The memorial service ended with the vigorous singing of the Isaac Watts hymn, “We’re Marching to Zion,”
The clergy and spouses remembered were: Clifford Arnett Armour, Jr, David William Baker, Edward Browning Blevins, Lois Frances Givens, Clarence Hale Hays, Reba Hemphill, Joseph Alvin Henry, William Edward Johnson, Rebecca Jones, Paul Ewing McCoy, Vicki Jo Owens, James Chong Park, Minnie Stanley,
Harvey Taylor Sturgis, Lois Beverly Swager, Lehman Robert Tomlin, Jr, and Robert O’Kelley Wallace.
Retired United Methodist Bishops Eugene Frank and Abel T. Muzorewa were also remembered.