The Connexion
John Wesley never could have imagined a world where you could cross the Atlantic Ocean in minutes rather than months, or where you could actually talk to someone in another town, let alone on another continent. He never could of envisioned a world where in the 24 hours it took him to make his way to London you could literally be in any community on the planet. He never would have guessed that anyone or anything could travel faster than a horse. And still he could envision "the whole world as my parish" and he could envision the church as one great "connexion". That was Wesley's term for the network of class meetings, small groups and congregations of people called Methodist. Specifically he used the term to refer to the itinerant traveling preachers who traveled the connexion preaching the Gospel.
Talk about a connexion...this morning I am sitting in a dorm room at Garrett Evangelical Seminary in Evanston, Ill following the blog of Pastor Brian and our mission team in Haiti while you are sipping your morning coffee in Birmingham, or Britan, or Boston--or wherever this email will travel in the next 10 seconds. I worshiped yesterday at First Church Evanston and I prayed for our team worshiping in Haiti and for the congregation I love worshiping in Birmingham. In a moment my mind flashed around the world, praying for the seminary students in Estonia, the children's home in Costa Rica, and our former associate Matt Hook in Kenya. I thought about Scott Chrostek's new congregation in Kansas City and my brother's church in Florida and frankly, I missed about a third of the sermon. But I knew we were all connected, and I gave thanks for Mr. Wesley's connexion.
I'll be teaching here at Garrett for two weeks and I hope I will be learning as much as I teach. Wherever we are, we are all connected. Thanks be to God.
If you would like to follow our Haiti mission team you can go to their blog haitijeremie.blogspot.com, or check it out on the church website www.fumcbirmingham.org.
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