(This text was submitted prior to Annual Conference)


Annual Conference 1999            Friday evening, July 02, 1999
Milwakee, Wisconsin

Tonight's message is being delivered by Linetta Alley and Cindy
Laprade, co-winners of the 1998 National Youth Conference Speech
Contest.

Living in Community by Linetta Alley, student at Bridgewater College

The event took place in a room very similar to this one.  The walls
and floors were made out of concrete, and rows and rows of chairs
made rings around the room.  Most of those chairs were filled with
people, almost 1500 more than this evening.  Instead of all of the
gold chairs there in the middle, 1000 or so youth were sitting on
the pillows they had made themselves.  Oh, and yes, here I was,
standing at the microphone behind the podium!

That morning last summer at NYC (National Youth Conference), when
Cindy and I had the opportunity to share some of our thoughts with
the over 4000 youth gathered there, is a special memory for me.
Even more so, however, is that entire conference, and even more
than that is the way being at that conference felt.  It was so
amazing to come together with all of those people who had gathered
to praise and worship, learn and serve, and yes, HAVE FUN!  It was
amazing to feel as though all of those people were my brothers and
sisters, even when I didn't know close to 1/4 of them.  It was
amazing to feel a part of a community of faith so far away from my
home and church.

I guess I really shouldn't have been surprised.  Especially after
all of the years that I had attended Annual Conference as part of
our family vacation each summer.  We were even here nine years ago,
and if we're remembering correctly, I spoke to you at that
Conference as well, as the narrator for the Saturday evening
children's program. I've always loved Annual Conference, and I
still do!  I love the singing!  I love the worship services!  I
love the exhibit hall!  I loved the childcare and children's
activities!  I loved the Jr. high and Sr. high programs!  And so
far this year I've loved the Young Adult activities!  Now I've
never sat through too many of the business sessions, but the
General Board Live Report is always great, and I can't imagine that
the meetings are TOO bad!  But the thing that I really love about
conference isn't the programs, it's the people.  More that anything
else I love meeting back up with the friends that I made in the
sandboxes of childcare, at workcamps, at district and national
activities, and at church camp.  Conference was, and is, the time
that I am able to see the church and feel surrounded by this
community of believers.

One of my closest friends is someone that a don't ever really
remember meeting.  She was just always there at Annual Conference,
just like me each summer.  We'd hang out together all week, bid our
tearful good-byes, and pick everything back up where we left off
the next summer.  In Jr. high and Sr. high we made it a point to
try to attend the same workcamps during the summer and at one of
those we talked about how being with that group of 20-30 people
just felt "right" and we wanted to stay there forever.

But is community, and more importantly Christian community, only a
feeling of acceptance, a sense of being with other like-minded
people, a hug at the door and a happy hello? I've come to believe
that true community is more than that.

Besides attending Annual Conference, each summer also usually
included a week or two at church camp, mainly Brethren Woods in VA.
It was being a part of those family groups that really was the
basis of my education in community.  I learned that it's hard to
get along with everybody and remember that they are just as
important as you.  And it's not easy trying to make everyone work
together when a job needs to get done.  Now that I have changed
roles and become a counselor at Brethren Woods I'm beginning to
realize that the community building process wasn't a coincidence.
 It was a process that took time and energy from both the staff
leaders and the campers before the tight knit communities became a
reality. True community is an intentional process of transformation
which must be shaped and formed by leaders, us.

As members of society we are surrounded by communities.  Each of us
lives in a housing community, is involved in a church community,
and for those of us who are students or teachers, we participate in
an educational community.  But what is Christian community, and
what sets it apart from those other communities we are a part of?
Communities are people who are united by a common vision or focus,
something that pulls them together and centers their togetherness.
For Christians that focus is not just the figure of Christ himself,
but it's the love that Christ has shown to us through his sacrifice
for us.  Christian community provides a place for us to honor and
glorify God by serving one another and sharing God's love with
others through the use of our God-given gifts.

Paul talks extensively in Romans, 1 Corinthians, and Ephesians
about the Body of Christ and how it is made up of many members.  In
tonight's scripture, he reminds us that "If a man's gift is
prophesying, let him use it in proportion to his faith.  If it is
serving, let him serve; if it is teaching, let him teach; if it is
encouraging, let him encourage; if it is contributing to the needs
of others, let him give generously; if it is leadership, let him do
it diligently; if it is showing mercy, let him do it cheerfully."
Here Paul outlines some of the many tasks which need to be a part
of Christian community, tasks which involve different skills, and
although he chooses to use the masculine, jobs which both men and
women can work at accomplishing.

In the more familiar passage in 1 Corinthians, Paul discusses the
danger of one body part fishing that they were another and finding
their place unimportant in relation to some of the others.  It
seemed to me for many years that Paul was saying that without all
of the body members the body would be unable to function and fall
apart.  However, do we not see people everyday who are unable to
use one of their senses or a body part?  These people are able to
compensate for their non-functioning body part by using other parts
of the body for the same task.  Those who are blind use their sense
of feeling and hearing to "see", hearing impaired persons depend
more heavily on their eyes and the use of sign language to
communicate, and those who are unable to walk use their hands to
push themselves in wheelchairs.  Even with their apparent handicaps
or disabilities, they are able to live meaningful lives.

But in the Body of Christ it doesn't always work out so well.  If
several members of the body stop contributing or even leave the
body it's not that the whole body stops functioning.  Instead,
other parts of the body, as in the illustration, have to pick up
their jobs too, working harder for the body to continue at its
usual capacity.  However, with added responsibilities taking up
their time and energy, they can no longer perform their original
role to the fullest.  For example, if the pastor is also required
to teach Sunday School, direct the choir, and plan youth group
activities, he or she will probably not be able to prepare as well
for worship, nor have as much time for visitation and other
pastoral responsibilities.  If a Sunday School teacher also had to
plan fellowship meals, class activities, and take care of the class
treasury, he may not be able to plan as well for using his gift of
teaching on Sunday morning.  The reason that Paul highlights the
importance of each part of the body is not solely because each job
needs to get done, but because by each part doing their job to the
fullest, it allows those other parts of the body to accomplish
their roles.  By all of us effectively performing our role, we
allow others to be able to focus on their job, thus allowing the
body, the community, to function in the best possible way.

Most of us have been familiar with Paul's illustration of the
church as a body since we were young, and we understand the
importance of living as a Body of Christ, yet we continue to see
members of our home church communities who stop participating, or
even attending, eventually dropping their membership.  Each time
that happens the God-given gifts that those persons have to
contribute are lost.  Are we as a church willing for that to
happen?  Are we willing to lose someone's gift of music because
they prefer a different style than the church is used to?  Are we
willing to lose someone's gift of service because we don't support
the need they see?  Are we willing to deny someone's message from
God because it's not what we want to hear?  The church needs to
decide, here and now, whether it can withstand losing the gifts of
thousands of children, youth, young adults, middle-aged adults, and
older adults because their gifts don't fit our program.  It is
essential that we as a Christian community appreciate and support
the gifts of the members and allow them to be used so that God's
work may be accomplished here on earth.  And it is the
responsibility of the individual members to respond willingly when
God calls us to action through the church.

So what is a leader's role, our role, in the Body of Christ?  A
leader needs to acknowledge that he or she is a member of the
community, not the focus of it.  Leaders need to work at their role
of leading, directing and focusing the group,  and allow the other
community members to step up to work at their roles.  Unlike the
common assumption that leaders need to do everything, true
leadership is a matter of acknowledging that one person can not,
and should not, do it all. God has distributed gifts throughout the
church so that many can share in his work. Above all, the
overbearing, bossy, superior attitudes of many world and church
leaders is not the way of those who truly follow Christ.  As Luke
22:25-26 reads: "Jesus said to them (the disciples), 'The kings of
the Gentiles lord it over them; and those who exercise authority
over them call themselves Benefactors.  But you are not to be like
that.  Instead, the greatest among you should be like the youngest,
and the one who rules like the one who serves.'" Jesus calls us to
servant leadership in which all the members of the community are
servants to each other, where we use our gifts to build up the body
and aid the others around us.  True Christian community is
accomplished when we understand that we are here to serve God by
serving each other.  And the leader's role is to model this by
attempting to understand how the various gifts and parts of the
body work together, by calling out the gifts of the members, and by
creating an environment where those gifts can be used.

Brothers and sisters, Christian community does not come easily.  It
takes time and energy to develop a vision and a focus, and to spend
time in shared experiences.  However, the rewards of our work in
the formation of a place where we can use our gifts and talents
within the body of Christ, where we can call out and support the
gifts of others, and where we can continue to serve God by serving
those around us, are well worth the cost.

So let's keep the conferences and camps going, let's keep on
passing out hugs and hellos, and let's continue to build community
using the gifts and talents that Christ has given, remembering that
each community we are a part of is really only one piece of a much
wider community that is being shaped and molded by Christ himself.