There is so much to say about the 2008 General Conference of the United Methodist Church; there are so many stories to tell, that I find it difficult to tell “the story” of the church at this moment in time. Stories are best told from memory. And memory takes time to form. It is necessary to filter out the insignificant in order to focus on the significant. It is difficult to say which event or decision which was made this year will truly tell the story of our future. Perhaps it will be the decision to begin to reform organizational structure in order to reflect the global nature of the church. Perhaps it will be the decision to focus clearly on seven vision pathways and four key focus areas for mission. Perhaps it will be the adoption of a new denominational mission statement, “The mission of the church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” Perhaps Fort Worth 2008, the 40^th anniversary of the creation of the United Methodist Church, will be remembered as the year when the next generation of United Methodist leaders emerged onto the stage and began to lead us away from institution building and maintenance and into mission and ministry.

Things happen. Events unfold. At every level of experience from the personal to the institutional, things happen. Stories are formed from experience and the remembrance of it. Words and images and interpretation come together to shape the story.

The words we receive from the book of Acts today are a distillation of the experiences of the men and women with whom Jesus shared his life, death and resurrection. They told it and told it and told it until it took on the form in which it was finally written down. In every generation since, this story has had the power to transform the lives of people and to shape the world through human response to the story.

What is God doing with these people, these witnesses who have told their story – and what can we learn from it that can help us interpret and tell our own story?

This section of the Book of the Acts of the Apostles occurs in “in between time.” Jesus has ascended into heaven, in essence, after the resurrection reunion, Jesus has left again – and this time for good. They have already experienced a radical reorientation of their understanding. If they had any hope of a messianic, Davidic style monarchy restoring their security and giving them hope in the world, that stereotypical expectation has been completely overturned. What they haveseen is the power of love crucified as love resurrected.

Now they are waiting for the next part of God’s plan to unfold. The spirit is coming, is promised. But it is not yet Pentecost. Based on their experience of resurrection, they have reason to hope that this coming Spirit will be something extraordinary and powerful for their lives and their world.

In this in between time, the focus of the story shifts here. From telling what has happened to Jesus, the narrator moves to focus on what is happening to the disciples. The promise of a marvelous display of power and love promised by God in Christ is about to happen to the disciples; to the church. Something extraordinarily different and new is about to happen!

Their response? They stand and gaze up into the sky.

And in essence they are told, “what are you looking at? Don’t just stand there. Get moving.”

Something different is about to happen. It is more extraordinary than the ordinary waters of baptism; is this baptism by the Spirit. It is more able to change the world than even a just and benevolent political reign. It is power to change death to life. It is power for you – and you – you are just standing there gazing into the sky.

The power did come to those early disciples. I sometimes wondered, in Fort Worth as we plodded through amendments to amendments and motions to suspend the rules and speeches for and against, if the power of the spirit had not forever fled the United Methodist Church. I sometimes gaze at our budget and our financial reports and our conflicting calendars and our plans and our busyness as a church here at North Broadway, and I am weary from the effort of trying to make it all fit together and I wonder if the power of the spirit has not forever fled from us. I gaze off into the distance. I sometimes go through the motions of worship and prayer and wonder if God’s promise of peace has not left me forever. I sometimes ache with disappointment and wonder why God would let the world be as it is.

Sometimes water is just water. Juice and bread are just food, scarcely handed out in meager portion. Sometimes church is just work, or duty, or habit.

But there is this story. Ours is the story of God who so loved the world and the people in it such that God decided to use them and their stories to deliver the whole creation from slavery to sin and death.

This story, like the very Spirit of God, lurks around us, waiting to empower us.

How is it that this power from above comes to these disciples? What is the channel through which it flows? Does it just fall from the sky like rain? Does it fill them up as they eat bread together?

This text seems to suggest that the channel for the inflow of the Spirit is through witnessing. Be my witnesses.

We know what witnesses do. We watch “Law and Order.” We know that they tell what happened.

What did you see? How did it look? Who was there? What did they do?”

To whom are the disciples to tell the story? Well – first in Jerusalem, and then in Judea, and then in all the world.

Friends – there is a pattern here about how we are to tell the story of what God is doing in our lives and in the world. We are to tell it first – in Jerusalem. First to those closest to us in the place where we are right now. We must begin right here, with each other. We must look around and learn to talk to each other about what God is doing in our lives.

Then in Judea – in a little broader context – in our immediate community. We can look at our identity statement and begin to know what we can say about North Broadway to the people outside the church. We are welcoming and inclusive – anybody is welcome here. We are committed to reason and experience as well as tradition – you don’t have to check your brain at the door to come here. We welcome questions. We love questions. We are committed to mission in our community. Every month we fill a grocery cart and more with tuna fish, or peanut butter, or macaroni and cheese so the food pantry in our neighborhood can give away food to the hungry, and in that way we fulfill Jesus commandment.

First in Jerusalem. And then in Judea. And then in the world.

No General Conference is the beginning or the end of our story. No General Conference is the whole of our story. The beginning of our story is here…in the stories of God’s relationship with the world that our ancestors in the faith have told and preserved and interpreted and given to us as living memory and active participants in our stories. The whole of our story is the story of every man, woman and child who has come to know the transforming love of God in Jesus Christ for themselves. The whole of the story is told in African villages and American cities and towns and rural communities, and in the Philippines and Korea.

Here is what I realized by the end of General Conference, as I grew eager to be back here, among you all. There is no United Methodist story at the global level if there are not stories of how the power of the Spirit came into the lives of people in local congregations.

This is always where it begins. In our telling our story. The spirit is waiting, lurking around us, ready to transform all that we do into magnificent opportunities for the outpouring of God’s love.

The world is going to tell a story one day about how malaria was practically eradicated on the African continent when every person there received an insecticide treated mosquito net under which to sleep. That is a global story. A miracle of global health saving the lives of millions of men, women and children. That will be a big story.

But in local congregations and communities all over the world, people will tell stories of how they helped save the world from malaria. In Nebraska somewhere, the children give their birthday offering – a penny for every year of their age- to Nothing but Nets. A little girl named Katharine draped netting over all her dolls and stuffed animals in her bedroom to remind her of the children dying from malaria and then began to raise tens of thousands of dollars. Standing on stage at General Conference, one of the Bishops asked her what her fundraising goal was. Listen, church to her answer. “My goal is for everyone who needs one to get a net.” She didn’t answer in dollars – she answered in human terms.

On the African continent in the 21^st Century, Ellen Johnson Sirleif has been elected President. She is the first woman to be a democratically elected head of state on the African continent. She credits the United Methodist Church, because as a girl in Africa, she received her primary education at a United Methodist School. She is Harvard educated, a brilliant macro-economist – but she began her education because our church put schools in Africa and educated girls. I watched as she spoke at General Conference, and the camera showed the Africa Children’s choir in the front row. I couldn’t help but think that those little girls were looking at her saying, “Someday, maybe I’ll be president.”

The witness to the world begins when people in local congregations get up and get moving and begin to tell the story in word and action.

Don’t just sit there.

The spirit doesn’t really have much to do with people who are gazing off into space.

What has God saved you from?
Tell somebody.

What are you helping God do in the world?
Tell somebody.

What does the opportunity to eat this bread and drink from this cup in here with this beloved community mean to you?

Tell somebody.

The Spirit is lurking…ready to empower…don’t just sit there!

Amen.