ANNUAL CONFERENCE 2011 - PRESIDENT’S ADDRESS

Dear sisters and brothers representing the Methodist and ecumenical family in Sri Lanka, a warm welcome to the inaugural session of the Annual Conference 2011. Many of you come having spent several hours in travelling, because you have given importance to God’s calling in your life. For many this Conference is an annual custom but for those who have come for the first time this Conference is going to give you an overview of the ministry of the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka – her strengths, weaknesses, achievements and failures. I hope that this Conference will help you to leave this place with the feeling of fulfilment.

Discipleship

Everybody loves a winner. When the Sri Lankan cricket team wins matches against other teams, people everywhere sing its praises and want to be identified with it. Well, for some, it isn’t the cricket team they are crazy about; they just want to feel proud about the achievement of Sri Lanka. For others it isn’t the team they were crazy about, but their own merchandise, such as T-shirts or caps. The more games the team wins, the more money the players make by appearing in commercial advertisements. There are people with commercial interests who have no love at all for the team, but who want to be part of the winning side. If the cricket team loses next year, the advertisers will find someone from the winning team to model for their new advertisement, and will forget that they identified with the Sri Lankan team last year.

But Jesus had the problem of being truthful and painfully honest with people. When they came to him, he wanted to sit down with them and discuss difficult topics such as the cost of discipleship. It was as though he wanted people to follow him, but he did not want them to be surprised at the kinds of demands that he would make upon their lives.
Dear friends, we are gathered at this church not to show our solidarity with the winners. We are not here to listen to sizzling stories that can make our hearts and minds feel happy, so that we go home saying that the Methodist Church is a wonderful Church. We are here because our Lord has called each one of us to be his disciples. Discipleship is costly. There are many different things that attract us to Jesus Christ. Some are good, some are not so good. Jesus does not call out, "Hey, everybody, come over here. It’s me. I’ve got the secret to joy and happiness, as well as to health and wealth." No, sometimes Jesus says things he shouldn’t have said if he wanted people to come and hear him. One thing that Jesus appeared not to know was how to keep people coming to hear him preach.

Just when he had a large crowd following him, Jesus went and said something that the people didn’t like. They told him, "This is a hard teaching. Who can accept it?" (Jn. 6:60). A few verses later, the Bible says, "From this time, many of His disciples turned back and no longer followed him" (Jn. 6:66). Jesus still had not got the message right, so he made matters even worse by looking at the Twelve he had left and asking them, "Are you also going to leave?" (Jn. 6:67)
Peter normally comes forward and tries to answer questions. He could have been bold enough to say, "Jesus, you need to tone down these messages you’re preaching on discipleship. Give the people time to think, or there won’t be anybody left for you to preach to and all your work will be over.” But Peter didn’t say the wrong thing this time; when Jesus asked the disciples if they wanted to leave, Peter said, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life.”

Peter’s statement is critical. Either Jesus is the Son of God, the Way, the Truth, and the Life, as Jesus himself claimed to be, or we’re living in a dream world by putting our faith in him. If Jesus is who he claimed to be, then we may be in danger for taking the cause of Jesus Christ too lightly. Yet if Jesus is not who he claimed to be, why bother with the cause of Christ at all? The cost of discipleship depends on whether Jesus is who he claimed to be. God can do more with 12 people who are willing to do anything for Christ, than He can with 10,000 who are sitting on the fence.
We have come to the Annual Methodist Conference 2011 because of the hard work and sacrifices that have been made by you; because of you we are able to do the things that are published in our Conference Agenda. It’s not the size of the crowd Jesus is after; it’s the heart of the individual where Jesus is seeking to do the change.

The Church

The Methodist Church in Sri Lanka has worked hard to become rooted in the Sri Lankan soil. The vision and mission of the Church is gradually evolving to meet this need. One sure step towards a truly Sri Lankan Church comes from self-sufficiency. At this juncture I am going to make a political statement about our Church. The mission and ministry of the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka belong to the Methodists in Sri Lanka. Therefore, I call all the Circuits, Societies and individual Methodists to support and sustain the Church. There is no easy solution to achieve this goal. A political leader in Sri Lanka once said, “If we find popular decisions jeopardize future generations, we have to take unpopular decisions too.” The whole Church will have to be geared to be self-sufficient. Otherwise others will make decisions for us. Others will show us the direction in which we need to move. Others will determine for us the important ministries we need to focus on in Sri Lanka. Why did we close down our Homes for boys and girls? Do we know what will happen to the children when they go back to their villages? Why are we waiting to repair our buildings? Why are we not providing needed funds for the new congregations with places of worship?

Change in this situation requires that each of us understands that everyone is waiting for someone else to act. Someone needs to start the process. It might as well be us. Making this change requires that each of us understands that sometimes we are the best qualified person, or that sometimes the situation is an emergency that can't wait for a more responsible person to appear. Someone needs to act. It might as well be us. Someone needs to risk appearing the fool. It might as well be us. The Annual Methodist Conference, which is the supreme decision-making body of the Church, cannot achieve its vision of the Sri Lankan Methodist Church without a self-sufficient Church.

The Ministries

The Methodist Church has restructured the ministries under three broad categories. The people who are called for full time ordained ministry are known as itinerant ministers. Their call is tested and then they are sent for theological education before they are received into full connexion. The itinerant ministry has existed as one ministry in the Methodist Church for a long time. The ordained ministers handled the evangelism and social responsibility work as well. In 2009 and 2010 extensive discussions took place to identify people with special skills to work in specific areas. We are now in a position to set apart ministers for issues related to social responsibility, and to identify ministers and lay members who can concentrate on evangelism. 
Identifying and releasing people for specialised ministries will allow Circuit ministers to concentrate more on the pastoral work without using their time for other work. Releasing the ministers will also give them a special emphasis to concentrate on special areas without utilising their talents on several issues at one time. The future ministry of the Methodist Church will have ministers and evangelists for pastoral work, ministers and evangelists for evangelism work, and ministers and lay people for diaconal work. The Church is open for lay members of our Church to join the ministry as auxiliary ministers, evangelists, or in diaconal work.

Evangelism

Some of the geographical areas under the Department of Evangelism have now become fully fledged Circuits in the Church, and the Church is able to station ministers to these new Circuits. For the first time we were able to station a minister in the Minneriya Circuit. There are four Societies in this Circuit which has one church and a mission house. Our support is needed to complete the church in Habarana and a mission house in Dulankadawela. For the first time we stationed a minister in the Hiniduma Circuit which have five Societies and one church with a mission house. Recently we baptised ninety-five people, both adults and children. This Circuit needs your support as it requires more teaching to develop lay leadership. The Methodist members at the Wanni Mission which is spread across the Kilinochchi and Mullaitivu districts were badly affected during the war. All worship places were brought to ground level. When people started moving from the refugee camps back to their traditionally inhabited places the need for places of worship became urgent.  We dedicated four new churches on 16th July at Mukkomban, Akkarayan, Kannakipuram and Mallavi. The fifth church in Paranthan will be dedicated on the 21st September. We hope that the Wanni Mission will be accepted as a Circuit at the next Annual Conference.  The mission areas in Puttur, Tangalle and Mandur are developing steadily.
There is a proposal that the Evangelism Training Colleges in Kal Eliya and Kalkudah be amalgamated for Sinhala and Tamil speaking evangelists to be trained together in order to foster relationships, seek affiliation, and provide the evangelists with a recognised certificate. A comprehensive report on evangelism will be presented by the Department.

Social Responsibility

The Methodist Relief and Rehabilitation? Development? Services of the Department of Social Responsibility is the social arm of the Methodist Church and reaches out to the most needy and poorest people in our country. The Centre for Women in Distress at Tampola and the Children’s Centre in Vakarai are both managed by the MRDS at Headquarters. The cinnamon plantation project in the Galle Circuit, the farming project at Rathugala in the Ampara Circuit, the pottery project at Polwatte, NWP North Circuit, the Vocational Training Centre in the Wanni Mission, and the Computer and English Training Centre at Egodauyana, Rawattawatte Circuit, and water and sanitation project for displaced families in Vavunia Circuit, are all Circuit projects supported by the MRDS. The MRDS also played an important role when many of our areas were affected by floods in the months of January and February this year.

Care of Children

I invite the Conference this year to look at the residential homes and day care centres managed by the Children’s Desk of the Church. We are aware that the KNH (Kindernothilfe of Germany) has decided not to support our Homes in the future. Under the phasing out programme of the KNH, funding was stopped for the Homes at Thirukkovil, Koddaimunai, Hatton, Chenkalady and Valaichchenai. Funding for the other Homes will stop by next year. A subcommittee appointed to look at this issue decided to seek for alternative funding from other individuals, Churches and organisations. We feel that the time has not come for Sri Lanka to close down the residential care for children.

Peace and Justice

The prophetic role that the Church needs to play in the country in which we live could be presented in the form of a prayer adopted from a prayer written by Rev. Mark Wakelin for Britain: “Forgive us for our brokenness and heal the hurts of communities damaged in the war for the past several decades. Help us to restore the harm to neighbourhoods, buildings and relationships and to rekindle hope where fires of anger and disappointment raged. Give to the Church in areas of trouble the courage and creativity to be there for others, and to be part of Your gracious work of restoration and recovery. We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, who is our peace and who keeps breaking down the barriers that divide us from each other. Amen.”

The first moral duty of all Methodists is to work together to resolve by peaceful means every dispute. Following the Fifth WCC Assembly (Nairobi 1975), the advisory committee on a "just, participatory and sustainable society" said that a common aim among all Christian people should be "justice on earth..., manifested in peaceful community..., in which every human being finds true fulfillment of life". Without the input of religious figures, peace and justice would be quite a different phenomenon. Therefore the Peace and Justice work within the Church needs to go beyond the Church boundaries. While the conceptualization of any changes in the legal system were essentially political processes driven by pragmatic political concerns, the lobbying activities of Churches and other organizations may bring about some key adaptations. The Church needs to take the people-centred approach or victim-centred approach. The question is what is a people-centred approach? That is why we have brought religious leaders into every approach. Religious people bring spirituality and compassion and understanding. The participation of religious leaders brings a dialogue which is interreligious. We could also say that a more legal approach could result in more criminal investigations, and that could create confrontation.

The problem of reconciliation is incredibly complex. There are many levels of social division that need to be overcome. The Church needs a strong principled commitment, a clear understanding of the dimensions of the problem, a clear understanding of the dynamics of reconciliation (rather than simply the ideal), and a clear organizational strategy. We sometimes think that the Church is doing nothing, but there are many church people involved in many ventures - but they are isolated. We need to link them up so that they can strengthen one another, to feel that they are not alone, and share not only their failures but also their successes. And give hope to one another.

Ecumenism

The member Churches attached to the National Christian Council adopted a new Comity statement. In order to foster the ecumenical work together and further honour the Confederation agreement we are called to abide by the comity statement, which is available for circulation. I appeal to all the Circuits and churches to strictly abide by the accepted statement.Our partnership with the UEM (United Evangelical Mission) in Germany grows from strength to strength. A youth participant who attended the Asia General Assembly was elected to represent Asia at the UEM General Assembly.During this year we have signed a partnership agreement with the Weigel House youth ministry in Germany. We look forward to a more meaningful active partnership to strengthen the youth work in both countries.We have also agreed to enter into partnership with the Uniting Church in Australia, formed in 1977 by the joining together of the Methodist, Presbyterian and Congregational Union Churches.

Before I conclude this address let me highlight that the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka will celebrate 200 years of Methodism in the year 2014. Once again, I propose that we start the preparation from the year 2012 and prepare ourselves with prayer and planning to celebrate this event. Dr Tony Evans a pastor once said, “The effectiveness of your church cannot be measured by how well you do on Sunday morning … The test of the church is what it does in the marketplace. What we need today is churches that are representative of Jesus Christ not only when gathered but when dispersed.”