Members need to do offering Christ work, lay leader says

By Claudia M. Williams
Staff Writer
The Southwest Texas Conference vision statement—“Offering Christ to All”—isn’t worth much if we expect someone else to do the offering.
Furthermore, the offer won’t be very appealing if the people to whom we are offering Christ don’t see our joy in doing so.
Lay Leader Jay Brim delivered that message June 3 in Corpus Christi during his first Lay Leader’s Report to the Southwest Texas Annual Conference session.
“All of us in the conference leadership have spent the past year thinking about the vision statement and talking about it in the context of this whole organization, the entire connection,” said Brim, who succeeded Carol Loeb as lay leader last year.
In that process, he said he was struck by the realization that the vision statement is missing one word to make it operative—a second “All.” Then it would read, “All Offering Christ to All.”
Every member of the annual conference must understand that the vision is a call for active involvement, said Brim, a member of Westlake UMC, Austin.
“We must each prepare ourselves to offer Christ to all, and having prepared ourselves, we must do it with joy,” he said.
Truly offering Christ means going beyond the comfort of the pew, Brim said. Such outreach is what John Wesley, founder of the worldwide Methodist movement, expected from his lay assistants.
“In fact,” Brim said, “that’s why we are here today—because laypeople in the American colonies in 1784 yearned for a full life in Christ.”
A full life in Christ is a life of joy, Brim said, and Christians must “seek our bliss, dwell in it, and share it.”
That joy will help expand the kingdom of God today, he said.
Brim asked the 678 lay members of the annual conference session to do three things to prepare for offering Christ:
> Write down their recollections of when they felt the joy of life in Christ.
> Commit to having their local churches certified as welcoming congregations by the start of the school year.
> Decide how their congregations could be part of an effort to start new churches.
Brim recounted his story of surviving an early-morning house fire only because he heard a voice say to him, “Jay, it’s time to get up.”
“I believe that voice was a manifestation of the Holy Spirit,” he said, “and that I and my wife and daughter were richly blessed by direct intervention in our lives. The realization of that blessing and the memory of that voice are great joys in my life.”
Brim asked that the church leaders make the stories of their joy part of their annual conference reports to their congregations.
“I promise you that sharing your joy will be the most moving part of your report, and that those listening to you will be changed by your sharing and by the example you set,” he said.
Brim reported that lay leaders of 72 local churches had committed to becoming welcoming congregations following the June 1 laity session. He said his goal was 200.
“Laity,” he said, “this is our job! People may come to hear the preacher, but they stay because they like sitting next to us in the pews.”
He said that “a heartfelt smile and a warm word of welcome are the best inducers to keep someone there to receive the message.” Those are easy to offer if you feel the joy of Christ.
Brim reminded conference leaders that “each of our churches was only a hope at some point in the past—until others who felt the joy of their lives in Christ acted to bring our congregations into existence.”