In case you didn’t know or hadn’t seen our theme at Annual Conference, we are to be practicing hope this year!  Where can we find this hope and use it to encourage others?  For starters, we should practice hope because, in times like these, you need an anchor that grips the solid rock, and Jesus Christ is that solid rock.   

There is so much going on around us in our homes, churches, communities, and the world. The new vision statement from the Council of Bishops, “love boldly, serve joyfully, and lead courageously,” should not be merely a phrase thrown out there without a sincere effort to lean into and pour into it so that it becomes a reality. The Methodist Church has been filled with good intentions since the 18th century.  And we have only partially put legs and feet to the reality of what our time-tested Social Principles and Social Creed call for us to be and do.   

Our Social Creed says, in part, that “we commit ourselves to the rights of men, women, children, youth, young adults, the aging, and people with disabilities; to improvement of the quality of life; and to the rights and dignity of all persons.” 

Giving up power and extending equity is really hard to do; especially when are afraid or hesitant to lead courageously.  So, my hope is that we can move the needle a little further and a little faster than we have over the past many years. We settle at times, just to move parts of our overall agenda forward.  A few highlights can expose a gaping hole between what we say we stand for and reality.   

Despite the best efforts of many, we have not consummated the words of our Social Creed. Take, for example, the decades of fighting over slavery and fully accepting blacks and others as equal partners and the creation of a Central Conference that segregated black Methodists from others. We had to be forced by the United Evangelical Brethren to drop the Central Conference before we could unite as a new denomination in 1968. We had settled for only a piece of the pie—and thus lost many believers.  In fact, we lost libraries of knowledge in elders when Blacks and others left to form the African Methodist Episcopal, African Methodist Episcopal Church Zion, and Christian Methodist Episcopal branches of Methodism.   

Nevertheless, we still became the first United Methodist Annual Conference to join the Reconciling Ministries Network, 40 years ago.  Fast forward to all of the issues currently surrounding us; disaffiliation, regionalization, immigration, treatment of and advocacy for our Latino/Latinx with Operation Midway Blitz in Broadview and other communities. Hawaiians, Asians, Pacific Islanders, Native Americans, and others were also impacted.   

Yes, we’re moving forward, but at a snail’s pace, rather than the speed of light.   

And while we as a denomination still have a long way to go, I truly appreciate the efforts and good intentions as we continue to move the needle forward to break the yoke of white colonialism in our country, the world, and in the United Methodist Church.  And not simply by giving lip service, but sincerely and with intentionality, to open our ears to hear what thus saith the lord.  This is why we need to practice hope and lead courageously.   

I’m asking us continue and even redouble our efforts because we can’t take our foot off the gas.  We can’t be complacent, relaxed, comfortable, or stuck in self-pity. By practicing hope, we can continue to do better today than yesterday and better still tomorrow than today.  Won’t God do it?  We need to practice hope because we are truly dealing with evil forces and principalities.  What we are experiencing is not hidden or unseen; it is in plain view and being boldly spelled out for us!   

Friends, in spite of it all, we can’t break our United Methodist connection and our connection to the greater world.  We can’t squander our blessings and our heritage. We must practice hope, even if it means we sometimes fight the same battles again and again, just to overcome and reclaim ground that we had already won. This is why I believe we need to practice hope.  Because maybe God is trying to tell us something, trying to get our attention.  So, let’s practice hope so we can continue to grow as a healthy connection. 

In the end, we are merely farmers planting seeds that we might never see grow, because the increase is not ours, but belongs to the Lord. I’m especially calling on laity to lead the charge in practicing hope by being intentional about breaking any barrier that prevents us from loving boldly, serving joyfully, and leading courageously. Because when we practice hope, we will see God’s hand of mercy. Go with God and be well. 

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This is an abbreviated version of Mr. Williams's laity address that he delivered to Annual Conference this year. Watch his entire address here.