Bishops urged to pray God’s future into being

Key points: 

• The Council of Bishops is joining together online this week for its first meeting since the conclusion of the Leadership Gathering.
• In his first presidential address to the bishops, Council of Bishops President Rubén Saenz Jr. encouraged those gathered to bring about God’s future for the church by praying each day the words that Jesus taught us.
• The Lord’s Prayer, he said, reminds the faithful that the future isn’t just something that happens but something God is bringing.

In seeking God’s future for their beloved United Methodist Church, Council of Bishops President Rubén Saenz Jr. encouraged his fellow church leaders to turn each day to the prayer shared by all Christians.

“Let us pray the Lord’s Prayer as if it were true — because it is,” Saenz said. “Let’s not pray it in a hurry, or out of habit, or with our fears louder than our faith. Let’s pray it slowly. Let’s pray it with hope.”

Saenz, who also leads the Horizon Texas Conference, was speaking Nov. 2 to fellow bishops and others assembled online for the first Council of Bishops meeting since the landmark Leadership Gathering two weeks earlier at Knox United Church in Calgary, Alberta. 

The gathering brought together nearly 280 United Methodist lay and clergy from four continents to discern where the Holy Spirit might be leading The United Methodist Church after a season of internal strife and disaffiliations. Remarkably for a denominational meeting, more than a third of the participants at the event were under 35. 

Over five days, the bishops met with their chosen lay and clergy participants in small groups that focused on supporting innovative forms of discipleship, empowering younger generations and amplifying global voices. The gathering concluded with each of the small groups, including one that met online, offering 16 recommendations for a revitalized global denomination. 

The Rev. Derek Kubilus, senior pastor of Ashland First United Methodist Church in eastern Ohio, was among the participants who told UM News he found the gathering inspiring. He was especially impressed by the diversity of voices he heard in his small group.

“We have to believe that it’s going to have an impact,” he said while still in Calgary. “At the end, there’s no vote; there’s no legislation; there’s nothing we can point to and say, ‘Yes, that happened.’ All we can say is we had some really good conversations, and we talked about the right things, and we hope that that will filter its way into the spirit of the church.”

Saenz, who recorded his presidential address in Calgary shortly after the Leadership Gathering concluded, said he sees the Lord’s Prayer as crucial to carrying out the gathering’s big, Holy Spirit-activated dreams for the church.

“At the center of that prayer are these words: ‘Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,’” Saenz pointed out. 

“Listen to which way the prayer moves. It doesn’t ask God to take us out of this world. It asks God to bring heaven down here, on earth.”

In short, he said, the words Jesus taught offer a reminder that the future isn’t just something that happens. “It’s something God is bringing,” he said. 

Saenz said what he heard from the Leadership Gathering participants — especially the young adults — was a shared vision.

“A Christ-centered church where people belong, gifts are released, and faith becomes mercy and justice,” he said. “That is ‘Your kingdom come,’ spoken in the voices of a new generation.”

In his address, Saenz testified to two examples from the bishops’ own lifetimes when prayer changed the course of world history.

The first example came from communist Leipzig, East Germany. There, the ecumenical St. Nicholas Church began holding a simple prayer for peace every Monday evening in 1982. Seven years later, the weekly prayers had given rise to a movement. On Oct. 9, 1989, some 70,000 people filled the streets for the prayer service, while soldiers looked on. Many feared bloodshed. But those gathered were carrying candles. They cried for there to be no violence and no tanks.

A month later — in large part Saenz said because of those peaceful prayers for “Your kingdom come” — the Berlin Wall fell.

The bishop recalled that a government official said afterward, “We had planned everything. We were prepared for everything. But not for candles and prayers.”

As his second example, he pointed to the role prayer played in ending Liberia’s brutal civil war. 

In 2002, after the civil war had grinded on for more than decade, a young mother and trauma counselor named Leymah Gbowee gathered women from her church to pray for peace. Soon, Muslim women joined them.

When the peace talks in Ghana stalled, about 200 of those women linked arms outside the negotiating hall. The interfaith group of women refused to let the men leave until they made peace. Within weeks, their prayers and direct action led to the signing of a peace agreement. Two years later, the Liberian women helped elect Ellen Johnson Sirleaf as president. In 2011, Gbowee and Sirleaf shared the Noble Peace Prize.

Sirleaf, the first woman ever elected head of state in Africa and a member of First United Methodist Church in Monrovia, led her nation out of the ashes of civil war, through an Ebola epidemic and toward a peaceful transition of power. Earlier this year, Saenz met her when she spoke at the African United Methodist bishops’ annual meeting. 

Saenz said he will never forget Sirleaf’s description of The United Methodist Church’s impact.

“The United Methodist Church has a continuing role in Africa’s development and transformation through the church’s contributions to education, healthcare, agriculture, community development and the spiritual formation of Africans,” she told the bishops.

She later said that the church has “a unique moral voice” that can reach people at the grassroots. “The United Methodist Church’s ministry helps bridge divisions, promote reconciliation, strengthen families, empower women and young people, and encourage responsible citizenship,” she said.

With prayer, Saenz said, he sees The United Methodist Church not only continuing to have a positive influence on the African continent but wherever United Methodists gather. 

“So, come, let us pray the future into being,” he said. “When we pray ‘Your will be done,’ may each of us ask, ‘Whom must we make room for?’”

He added that the conclusion of the Lord’s prayer also offers an important reminder that the future does not rely on human cleverness but on God.

“God’s reign is not only coming. It’s already breaking in, like yeast in the dough, like a seed in the ground, like light through a crack in the door of a dark room," he said. "The kingdom, the power, and the glory belong to God, and so do we."

Hahn is assistant news editor for UM News. Contact her at (615) 742-5470 or [email protected]. To read more United Methodist news, subscribe to the free UM News Digest.