Where Your Treasure Is: Reflections of Annual Conference

www.umstewardship.org/

By Rev. Phyllis Bowers, 
Executive Director United Methodist Stewardship Foundation

Mathematicians say the beauty in music comes from the patterns and repetition. Random notes won’t do. As we look back on the music made from the patterns and repetitions of our interactions at Annual Conference, what was beautiful to you? For me, it was meeting some first-time visitors at this Conference. One was from another denomination. Another from a different conference. They took part in our annual migration and added to the harmonies of our voices. Beauty was meeting these kindred spirits and new colleagues.

There was even the recognition of the possibility of fellow Inklings, those people who might stir us to be more together than we are on our own, like C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien did for each other. Beauty was in our hopes and prayers for synergy in our faith journey.

It was also a reunion of family and friends, all of us watching the stirrings of the Holy Spirit among us. There was beauty in being entrusted with confidences to pray for and in ministries to pursue. There was beauty in people seeing and appreciating our presence. There was beauty in worship. Praise God that he called us to such a place and time as this. There was beauty to treasure always. There was such beauty this year! What did you see?

Now a month later, Hebrews 10:24-25 calls out, “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.”

What promises from Annual Conference have you left to keep? Consider how you can repeat the joy you felt from engaging your peers. Take the time and encourage one other through meeting again. Do more to reach out. The music we make from our patterns of love and repetition of good works is worth recreating. Tune in to the Holy Spirit, because managing our faith and relationships remain just as important in stewardship as sharing our resources. Let’s respond to beauty by giving more.