On Mission at Methodists Ablaze

The idea of a “Methodists Ablaze” conference was mooted by Rev. Ralph Afghan and some other ministers, who attended an “Anglicans Ablaze” function.

The conference consisted of invitational speakers doing plenary sessions on aspects of Church Aliveness, with breakaway sessions on specific issues led by leaders of various capacity. It was a Clergy-led occasion, with a strong emphasis on the enlivening and up-skilling of general church members. All the sessions were practically orientated, although to my mind they did not incorporate enough group interaction to tease out the local implications of the principles presented. Interaction was limited to brief question/comment times after each session, and there was no conscious attempt to help people concretely and imaginatively apply their insights to their diverse contexts. For the most part presentations were academic in flavour, although one breakaway session was a noticeably “shout-at-the-people” affair. There were some excellent case studies of potential ways of taking hold of the mission challenge in local contexts.

The worship was very competent, with an honest attempt at cultural fusion. Culturally the gathering was largely white and coloured, with a little Nguni input. Not too bad at all – and much more inclusive than the Xhosa domination of the Mission Consultation (although that had been a pleasure to me).

I had been asked to prepare a “TED-talk-like” motivational presentation, but alas, although I had prepared as carefully as I had for the Mission Consultation earlier this year, I did not get to speak about my area of concern – evangelism and a truly public liturgy. It seems that I shall have to put in quite a lot of hard unrequited preparation before I get many opportunities to speak for the cause closest my heart!

I did contribute extensively to the conference, nonetheless. I was asked to paint my impressions of the proceedings, in a “live-paint” way, that grew up as the conference progressed. I was also asked to give a segment of my synod talk – illustrated with hammer and anvil; and on the strength of that I was asked to improvise another “hammer-and-anvil” segment on the next day. 

I was very happy to contribute to the conference in these ways, but felt that I was the victim of my own public persona! The question arises: if I had been more dull at Synod, might I have been given a fuller opportunity to present my own appeal? My contributions did not amount to an effective platform for me to position my seminars and appeal for people to invite me to run my seminar on evangelism in local contexts. Up until now I have only been able to run one seminar – the one at CMC. I appreciate that it is going to be a battle to ever run any of the seminars anywhere. The question is how much I must rest on God being able to do things without me, and how much I must put my head down and fight for a hearing!

Is it appropriate to pester people who have promised interest but not followed up with me yet? Or should I just let the tide of indifference to evangelism run its usual course? Or is that just ungodly impatience? Or perhaps a divine stirring of the Spirit to speak the word God has given me? I am struggling to know. I do know that I felt I had something to contribute to most of the speakers…but I was rather pre-occupied with the rather demanding task of representational painting to give the limited question/debate time my best attention.

Bottom line is that I now have a couple of well-honed promotional presentations waiting for use somewhere; and I am still waiting for opportunities to break into the Methodist Churches and burgle a bit of attention for the alternatively faithed people with whom they do not usually connect 😊