Sing a song full of the faith that the dark past has taught us, Sing a song full of the hope that the present has brought us

The title for this blog comes from one of my favorite hymns, "Lift Every Voice"
It's such a great song with a great melody and message.

This past week I went to the South Carolina United Methodist Annual Conference. I was asked to acolyte (fancy word for lighting the candles to signify Christ's presence in the service) for the ordination service they hold on Sunday night to ordain, license, and commission the deacons and elders for ministry. It was an honor to be asked. They usually choose certified candidates for Diaconal, and Elder minsitries who are still in Seminary to participate, and they asked me.

It was the first time I had ever acolyted and it didn't go too badly, except for trying to extinguish the flame as we left...the flames wouldn't go out...I had to beat them (on all 3 candles that were there) with the little extinguisher as the choir, bishop, superintendents, and pastors and representatives from UM churches all over watched....yea...that was fun.

The rest of the week was really cool. It was the first time I had really gone and witnessed what goes on at conference. At Annual Conference they ordain people, retire people, vote on some of the ammendments and other things that come up.

I was recognized along with the other Conference Interns in front of everyone, that was cool too! I got to hear about some cool ministries coming up in the UMC. Overall it was a cool experience

I think the neatest thing was to see how the pastors interact with other pastors, many who knew eachother, went to school with eachother and were ordained with them. It was an opportunity for them to go worship for themselves, and take part of official UMC business. It was real neat.

But the highlight for me was being able to witness ministers entering new chapters of their ministry. As a perk of acolyting I got to sit up on stage (behind the bishop!) As the ministers came up to the stage to kneel at the altar and receive their ordination, Bible, and Stoll I got to see the range of emotions on the faces of these people. They have come so far and were so filled with the Spirit and ready to enter the ministry. I was honored to be able to witness this special moment in their ministry.

The next day there was a worship service to honor those who were retiring from ministry. The minster at my church was being honored at this service and I was able to witness these ministers end a chapter of their ministries. Many of them have shared what were the biggest moments and blessings of their ministries. It was quite touching.

This was a great opportunity for me to see how special these moments are for ordained ministers, and how exciting I'll be when I grow up and follow in their footsteps :) yay!