Yesterday

“What is that?” Adam asks. Even though I know he is yelling, I can barely hear him over the downpour as I wait in the car. He’s frozen in his tracks on our back porch and no longer moving towards the back door where he was headed to collect a last few items before we head to the first night of revival worship at Mt. Vinson where I serve as pastor. He asks a second time, and because he still hasn’t started moving I jump out of the car fearing my good luck of never having to deal with a snake at my beautiful country parsonage has just run out. Rounding the corner I see it, sitting there right in front of our back door, blocking the entrance into our home.

Whew! Not a snake. Just a cat. I scold Adam for scaring me to death, and we walk together to shoo the cat away. Its insistent mewing tells us it is not moving anywhere anytime soon. Fair enough. I wouldn’t want to walk home in the rain either. So, we open the garage door to offer a little refuge, leaving it cracked open, trusting that when the storm lets up our little feline visitor will find its way home. We head off to revival, and I don’t really give it a second thought.

A two-hour worship service and Ruby Tuesday dinner later, we pull back into the garage, turn off the car, open the door, and “Meow!” I think, “You have got to be kidding me!” The cat darts around our feet, follows us to the door, and—even though I know you don’t feed a stray cat unless you want to have a new pet—I tell Adam to go get some water. Maybe the kitty is just scared from the storm. Rain is still falling. It’s dark now. A little water is the least we can offer. Adam comes back with water and milk. We place the bowls in the garage, keep the door cracked. I pray that a snake won’t make its home on the warm cement floor and trust our cat crasher to return our kindness by playing garage guardian overnight.

As I fall asleep Sunday night, I think fleetingly back to my sermon that morning, and I just have to laugh. Since I first started preaching in 2011, God has never let me preach or teach about the Good Samaritan without an accompanying opportunity to show mercy sometime in the next few days. Seriously…not once! And I haven’t always passed the test.

Biblical scholar AJ Levine, who I was lucky enough to have as my New Testament professor at Vandy, teaches about the parable in this challenging way:

“We should think of ourselves as the person in the ditch and then ask, ‘Is there anyone, from any group, about whom we’d rather die than acknowledge, “She offered help” or “He showed compassion”?’ More, is there any group whose members might rather die than help us? If so, then we know how to find the modern equivalent for the Samaritan.” (Amy-Jill Levine, The Misunderstood Jew (San Francisco: Harper Collins, 2006), 148-149).

My Samaritan is a cat. That sounds flippant, and…really…it is. But it’s also not not the truth. I’ve only loved one cat in my entire life, and I didn’t have a choice. She was part of my family before I was. And while I loved Boo, she definitely got a pass. At a birthday sleepover in 1^st grade, I’m pretty sure I almost got sent home because I was following the family’s cat around on all fours barking at it like a dog rather than spending time with the other partygoers. And sometime between 3^rd grade (when Boo died) and 8^th grade (when at another sleepover at a friend’s house I finally realized my itchy eyes, runny nose, and scratchy throat were all her cat’s fault), I developed a cat allergy, and that sealed the deal. #dogpersonforlife

Monday morning dawns, and I walk into the garage. Look around. No cat in sight. “Thank you, Jesus,” I pray, “I hope it found its way home.” Just as I reach down to pick up the bowls of water and milk and begin to break into a praise dance…“Meow.” From behind some boxes under the built-in shelves, two little green eyes peer out at me. Hmph! Dear kitty, you are overstaying your welcome. Returning with fresh water, I decide…if this cat is still here this afternoon when there have been hours of clear skies for it to finds its way home, that’s when we can find it a cat-loving foster home or a safe place at a shelter. I share my plans with Adam, and we both head off to work.

On my drive home, Adam calls, “Cat’s gone.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“Just double check. Look behind the boxes on the…”

“MEOW!”

Adam hangs up and coaxes the cat from its hiding space. As he starts to take pictures to send to some friends whose hearts need a kitty, he sees it. Gaping wounds on the cat’s side. At least, that’s what he tells me. To be honest, I don’t believe him. Adam, the love of my life, can catastrophize situations. It comes from the love we share. Loyal till the day he dies, Adam just wants to protect the ones he loves. He imagines all the worst-case scenarios, building defenses to keep us safe…just in case. So, when he says “gaping wounds,” I hear “a couple of scratches.”

When I get home, I see for myself. He wasn’t catastrophizing this time. If anything, he undersold it. I see poor kitty’s insides through the wounds some other predator ripped in its side. But it’s late, and I don’t know anywhere open to take it. So, Adam and I go buy a can of salmon cat food and a cat carrier we’ll only use once. We go to bed, and I’m already dreading tomorrow.

In the morning, Adam stops by the vet on his way to work. They confirm what I already know. There’s only one thing to do. I tell Adam to tell the vet I won’t be able to make it there until the afternoon. I’m already crying.

“I have back-to-back client sessions. Do you want me to cancel and come to be with you?”

No. That doesn’t seem responsible. I can do this. I don’t even like cats. I’m allergic.

When I finally get home again to pick up the cat, I can barely see through my tears. What I do see is that the cat is already dying. I realize he’s been dying since he showed up Sunday. The cat that darted around our feet just 24 hours ago now wobbles to his own when I walk into the garage. His back legs aren’t responding to the signals his braind is sending to stand and walk. He’s tired. He’s weak. He’s worn.

I guide him into a cardboard box, having left the stupid cat carrier I bought in Adam’s trunk the night before, exhausted. I put him in the front seat. I don’t know how I make the drive. His meows join in symphony with my prayers of “I’m so sorry, kitty” and “Help me, Jesus” as my tears rival the rains of the past few days.

As I walk into the vet office, everyone stops in their tracks. They know something is wrong. I squeak out, “My husband came by this morning…”

“Westmoreland?” the lady behind the desk asks.

I shake my head yes. I set the cat and the box down. I make out a check. Not quite two days’ wages. More like half a day’s wages. (Well, at least before Uncle Sam gets his cut.) But I played innkeeper for two days, so maybe God gave me a Samaritan discount.

They ask if I want to sign a waiver to leave, but how can I leave now? They show us to a room. It feels like it takes forever. Every time the vet comes in, he reminds me that this is the right thing to do. I keep saying, “He’s a stray. I don’t even like cats. I’m allergic.” After the kitty falls asleep from the first shot, they try and try to find a vein. I realize they won’t. I’ve been giving the cat water, but I know how much he’s left behind. He’s too dehydrated. The vet tells me they will have to inject the medicine directly into his heart. “Is that okay?” he asks.

No, none of this feels okay, but I shake my head yes.

A few moments later, the vet checks with his stethoscope. He nods his head. It’s finished. I stand to leave. “Don’t charge her,” he tells the vet tech. I just keep walking. I don’t stop to collect my check. I don’t even care if they still cash it.

I don’t know how I survive the drive home. I feel myself curling inward, embracing the emotions rising in me, my own sadness that I so quickly, so often push back down. But not today. I play the Enneagram songs by Sleeping At Last, knowing the songs will help me feel my sadness more fully. Walking in the house, I let Adam hold me as I sob. I crawl into bed. Not my bed, but the guest bed that still smells like my mommy from her 4^th of July visit. I pull my dog Hadewijch close to my chest, feel her beating heart.

Soon, I’ll have to get up. I’ll have to dry my tears. I’ll have to put my big girl panties on, get in the car, and drive to the last night of revival.

“It’s just all so ridiculous,” I think. “I don’t even like cats. I’m allergic.”

I’ve only loved two cats in my life. I didn’t have a choice.

Baptism: Waters of Grace, Power, and Call

“Live your life with love, following the example of Christ, who loves us and gave himself for us.”

—Ephesians 5:2

This weekend I have the immense privilege of spending time with young people and adult volunteers from across our conference as part of Youth Annual Gathering (YAG). Traditionally taking place the weekend leading up to Annual Conference, YAG’s theme mirrors the theme of Memphis Annual Conference. So this weekend, we are celebrating our connection as United Methodists and remembering who we are in Jesus Christ through Word, Water, and Witness.

Last night, we opened YAG with worship at three different stations where we engaged Word, Water, and Witness. At the Water station where I served as facilitator, participants were invited to sit around a white shower curtain flat on the ground. After silence and deep breathing, worshippers considered the promises made and vows taken at our baptisms. For some of us, our parents made those promises before we affirmed and took responsibility for our own journey of faith at confirmation. For others of us, as older children or youth or adults, we answered these solemn vows as a recognition of the faith we were claiming as God claimed us in baptism. Still others who are still anticipating their baptisms engaged these vows they will make one day by God’s grace.

Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness,

reject the evil powers of this world,

and repent or your sin?*

Using markers, we wrote or drew on the shower curtain places and spaces where we encounter wickedness, evil powers, and sin in our world and in our lives.

Do you accept the freedom and power God gives you

 to resist evil, injustice, and oppression

in whatever forms they present themselves?*

We wrote or drew the evil, injustice, and oppression we have witnessed or experienced in our world and in our communities.

Do you confess Jesus Christ as your Savior,

put your whole trust in his grace,

and promise to serve him as your Lord in union with the Church

which Christ has opened to people of all ages, nations, and races?*

Together, we turned the shower curtain 90° counterclockwise to represent the change that happens in our hearts and lives when God names us and claims us as beloved through the waters of baptism. We noticed and reflected upon what others had written or drawn in response to the earlier questions.

And then we remembered that we (or our parents) are not the only ones who take a vow at our baptism. When we are baptized, the congregation that surrounds us promises to care for us and nurture us in the Christian faith and life so that we may come to know God more fully and follow Jesus more faithfully. As the body of Christ gathered around the white shower curtain, we looked one another in the eye as we heard the words our communities of faith had promised to God, to us, to one another at the moment of our baptism:

With God’s help we will proclaim the good news 

and live according to the example of Christ.

We will surround this person with a community of love and forgiveness,

 that they may grow in their trust of God,

and be found faithful in their service to others.

We will pray for them, that they may be true disciples who walk in the way that leads to life.

Then a bowl was placed in the center of the shower curtain. Water was poured, and as we heard it gushing and splashing we remembered….These are waters of grace. These are waters of power. These are waters of change and calling. Offering these words with our hands extended out and palms turned upward to heaven, we asked for God’s blessing over the water.

Today we come to the waters

to renew our commitments in each other’s presence

to the Christ who has raised us from death,

to the Spirit who has given us new birth,

and to the Creator who is making all things new.

Let these waters be to us drops of your mercy.

Let these waters remind us of your righteousness and justice.

Let these waters renew in us the resurrection power of Jesus.

Let these waters make us long and desire to join you in building your kingdom

here on earth as it is in heaven.**

But baptism isn’t only meant to change us. God seeks to change the world through baptized people. God claims us and names us through baptism and, then, through the gift of the Holy Spirit empowers us to join in the work of transforming the world. And so, we took sponges and dipped them into the sacred and holy waters of baptism to wash away the sin—communal and personal—that we had named and drawn on the shower curtain. We found that some of what was written and drawn wiped away easily, leaving no trace. Yet, other parts left a stain behind—sometimes faint, sometimes still bold—reminding us that until Christ comes again in final victory and God’s reign is realized fully, this world will always be in need of transformation. And we will always be called to this work by the Holy Spirit through baptism.

Finally standing again ready to leave the station worship space of remembering who we are as disciples of Jesus through water, we heard these words of prayer and calling proclaimed over our lives…

The Holy Spirit work within you,

that being born through water and the Spirit,

you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.

Amen.

This morning at Youth Annual Gathering we lived our baptismal vows and answered the call of baptized Christians by serving through mission.

We repented of the sin of complacency and inaction towards homelessness in our nation (and in downtown Memphis today), choosing to not look away but to go and search for our siblings who slept on the street last night and offer them a breakfast burrito and conversation through the Urban Bicycle Food Ministry.

We accepted the freedom and power God gives us to resist evil, injustice, and oppression by partnering with a Dorothy Day House in Frayser that gifts housing to families experiencing homelessness, offering our hands to gardening and landscaping work for the current resident family (which allowed the mother of infant twins a Saturday to sleep in and rest).

We served Jesus’s church that is open to people of all ages, nations, and races by assisting in the nursery renovation of a local United Methodist congregation.

Church, our youth are not just your future. Our youth are THE CHURCH NOW! They are boldly living into God’s call as faithful disciples of Jesus Christ RIGHT NOW! May we all be inspired to greater fruitfulness and faithfulness by the ways our young people live their lives with the love of Christ.

Grace and Peace,
Amanda HW

ahwGC2020@gmail.com

*Baptismal Covenant I of the United Methodist Church

** Adapted from the New Service of Reaffirmation of the Baptismal Covenant

Resurrection after Death

“Why do you believe in the resurrection? How do you know it actually happened?”

It may seem like any person seeking to be a pastor should know the answer to these off the top of their heads. But, as I sat in my annual conversation with my district’s Committee on Ministry, I was caught off guard. I had come prepared to answer a different question – “Do you believe in resurrection?” I was ready to share how, “Yes, I believe in the resurrection of the dead. Yes, I believe Jesus was raised from the dead and brought back to life. Yes, I trust the accounts of Scripture that promise we will experience bodily resurrection like Christ.”

Maybe what caught me off guard was not the question exactly, but the words used and the intention behind them. Not “Do you believe,” but…Why? Not “Can you prove it,” but...How do you know?

I’ve been trying to answer those questions ever since. Years later, and I still ask myself all the time “Why do I believe in the resurrection? How do I know it’s real?”

I believe in the resurrection because I’ve seen resurrection happen in my own life and in the world around me. For just thirty years of life so far, I’ve seen a lot of death up close and personal. Not just death in the end of individual human lives, but the death of institutions, of programs, of the world as I used to know it.

On April 30, 2011, I graduated as part of the last graduating class from Lambuth University. I still remember the day I got my letter of acceptance and offer of full tuition scholarship to Lambuth. Opening the envelope with shaky hands, I cried as I read over the words of the letter. Not tears of joy or relief, but tears of grief. I didn’t want to go to Lambuth. My mom had gone there for college. It was only an hour away from home. I had some older friends who were students there, and I didn’t want them to think I was just following them. I wanted my own experience, something new and exciting that would grow and stretch me. So, I sat in my bedroom and cried because I knew a full tuition scholarship meant that I should go, that I needed to go to Lambuth for college. Ten minutes later, I dried my tears and emerged with my mind made up—I’d do the right and responsible thing. I’d go to Lambuth.

Little did I know then, Lambuth would be exactly what I had hoped for in a college experience and more! I would be stretched not only academically, but also spiritually, by the professors I met there – Dr. Gene Davenport, Dr. Cindy Wesley, Dr. Charles Mayo, Dr. Manning Garrett, Dr. Joy Austin, and Chaplain Steven Fonville…just to name a few because I could never name them all. Yes, I would run into those friends who were already students there, but I would also meet so many more, new friends, cherished souls who would help me become who I was meant to be and friends I would keep for a lifetime. I would grow as a person of character through the friendships I formed with staff, administration, and other students, as well as my decision to stay at Lambuth even after the school was placed on accreditation probation and its financial unsustainability was exposed publicly. I would forge a new bond and depth in my relationship with my mom because now we shared Lambuth, but we each had our own unique experiences of what it meant to us. I would learn what true loyalty and selfless servanthood looked like as, during the darkest days at the end of Lambuth, staff and faculty showed up for weeks on end without pay to teach, serve, and help students like me. I would meet and fall in love with my future husband and make the best decision of my life to say “YES!” when Adam asked me to marry him in front of the Lambuth gates. I’d even learn how to pastor and grieve at the same time as I walked through the unexpected death of a friend, Morgan, with my sorority sisters and our campus.

On the day we remembered Morgan’s birthday for the second time after she passed away, the Board of Directors decided and announced that Lambuth University would close at the end of the academic year in 2011, I learned what it felt like when an institution, a place that had bestowed upon me so many gifts, a community that had given my life so much meaning and direction, dies.

But, as the good story goes, God wasn’t done with Lambuth yet. Yes, the Lambuth I knew, the Lambuth I loved, and the Lambuth I had given four years of learning, service, and dedication would no longer be the same. Still, even into its death shroud, God was weaving strands of resurrection. Soon after the decision to close Lambuth University, we found out that the University of Memphis had decided to purchase the campus and would open it as an extension campus. Within four years of the U of M taking over the school, enrollment was over 800 students, double the enrollment during most of my time at Lambuth. The U of M was able to invest money and energy into much needed renovations for campus facilities and retained on staff many of the influential professors and administration who were the heart and soul of Lambuth. The student body continued to keep the Lambuth Eagle Spirit alive, and the newly formed Wesley Foundation under Steven Fonville’s leadership engaged more students in spiritual growth and discipleship than it seemed we ever had regularly attend chapel services. Only through death, a death that hurt deep in my heart and soul, was God able to bring new life through resurrection to Lambuth.

God brought resurrection out of the closing of West Nashville UMC, the congregation where I served as an intern during my time at Vanderbilt Divinity School. At West Nashville, I met Jesus in the face of the neighbors experiencing poverty and homelessness who attended our Thursday Night Community Meal. When the congregation closed and merged with St. John’s UMC down Charlotte Pike, they took on the mission of the Community Meal, ensuring our friends on the streets still had a place to come, sit, rest, and share a meal on Thursday nights. A church even still worships on the property (bought and renovated by a commercial developer) where West Nashville used to sit – a continuing witness to God’s radical and inclusive love for all.

God brought resurrection out of the end of the Turner Leadership Scholars program, which I had the immense privilege to participate in during seminary. Though I was among the last dozen or so students to be part of the program, I have continued long after graduation to connect with and lean on my fellow Turner scholars across the United Methodist connection for advice and counsel. I meet each week via online video chat with my covenant discipleship group, friends who were part of the Turner program, and who have become my deepest, most trusted relationships in ministry as we unpack the intersections of life, ministry, and our own spiritual journeys together.

God brought resurrection out of a terrible season in my life. In 2014, I graduated from seminary on Friday to come home and find out my husband had lost his job the next Monday. When our plan had been to stay in Nashville for me to pursue CPE and Adam to work on his social work license, we quickly made plans to come back home to Memphis, not sure what the future would hold. Over that summer, my mother was diagnosed with a cancerous tumor wrapping around her spine which was removed in an emergency surgery 24 hours after it was discovered. Because we were available in a way we would not have been before Adam lost his job, we were able to move in with her to help her recover and transition to Social Security disability. In September, once Mom was more stable, Adam and I were offered jobs in the span of the same week—he continuing to change the world through social work with Youth Villages and me beginning what would become a beautiful journey with Bolivar FUMC (more about that story in a blog to come). And now, though she still experiences discomfort daily from permanent nerve damage caused by the tumor that nearly paralyzed her, my mom is living fully for Jesus—teaching Bible study with me every week at Grace Place UMC in the women’s prison, leading small group for older elementary children on Sunday mornings, volunteering at a Bible club on Wednesdays at Sea Isle School, serving as the Lay Leader for Colonial Park UMC, and so much more!

During a particularly challenging season of ministry for me, my good friend and mentor Dr. Angela Harris commented, “I don’t know why you’ve had to face so much death and so many endings in your life, but God must have a purpose for it.”

At the 180^th session of the Memphis Annual Conference this year, lay and clergy delegates will vote whether or not to dissolve our conference and form a new conference, combining with the Tennessee Conference. Though I know this decision feels like death in some ways for us in Memphis, I have learned…God will bring resurrection—resurrection for our lives and for the kingdom. Always! If we just have eyes to see it.

I don’t think anyone would argue with the fact that we are in a difficult time in the life of the United Methodist Church. The path towards peace, grace, and love seems difficult. I’m not sure what God will do with the people called Methodist as we seek to move forward from the conflict and harm of General Conference 2019, conflict and pain we have been living with in earnest since 1972.

Maybe the purpose of the deaths I’ve experienced so far in my life is this…that I would come to believe deeply in the promise of resurrection at all times, so that I could answer these questions even when it feels like the denomination I love is at its breaking point.

Why do I believe in resurrection? Because I’ve seen it. At Lambuth University. At West Nashville UMC. Through the Turner Leadership Scholars program and the friends it brought me. In the lives of the women I read Scripture with each week in prison at Grace Place UMC. In my own life.

How do I know its real? Because I’ve experienced death, up close and personal. And, out of that death, I have witnessed God through the love of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit bring the abundant life of resurrection.

May you experience the Grace and Peace Jesus brings through resurrection after death. 

--Amanda HW

ahwGC2020@gmail.com

Why I am running for General Conference 2020

On the evening of February 25^th in the span of just thirteen hours, 15,529 young people from the United Methodist Church across the globe added their signatures online to support the Young People’s Statement to GeneralConference 2019. While there were many things I found inspiring about this letter to which I signed my name, one particular piece of information included in the statement distressed me…

“Only 7% of seated delegates are young people, people under the age of 35.”

While I didn’t expect people under the age of 35 to have overwhelming representation, it shocked me and stung my heart that the generation who will live the longest with the impact of decisions made at the global church level only comprised 60 of the 864 delegates who gathered in St. Louis this year.

And, so, this charge came from the young people present at General Conference, “At this year’s annual conference, elect a young person to your 2020 delegation. Not as a reserve, but as someone seated with a vote on the floor. Mentor a young person to run. Advocate for a young person to be elected. Show up for the young people in your life, and actually celebrate them around these tables in 2020. If we are actually part of the Body, it is time to bring our voice and vote around these tables.”

A few weeks later when I met a friend for lunch, I asked her, “What are we going to do about electing a young person as part of our delegation this year?” I would have never expected the next words that came out of her mouth, “I think you should run.” What?!? Me? No. Of course, I love my denomination. I care deeply about its history, its present reality, and its future. I’ve been discerning God’s call, following the Holy Spirit, and preparing for ordained ministry since I was 14 years old. But, me as a delegate to General Conference? Who am I? So, I told my friend that I would pray about it, not sure I was the right person and doubtful I had in me what it would take to say yes.

Over the next few weeks, as I discussed my hope with others that our conference would be serious and intentional about electing young and diverse persons to our delegation, this same thought kept coming up again and again.

“Are you considering running?”

“Throw your name in and see what happens.”

“Have you submitted your nomination form?”

“I’m praying with you as you decide whether or not to run.”

Over and over I heard encouragement from people who I knew weren’t talking to one another. Finally, I  submitted, through weeks of prayer, that this just might be the Holy Spirit nudging me to place my trust in God and offer myself as a candidate for the Memphis Annual Conference delegation to General Conference 2020.

As I’ve reflected on what is important to me and why the Holy Spirit might have led me towards running this year, these are the things I consider.

I care deeply about ministry with young people who are disciples of Jesus. I’ve learned to describe my call to ministry as a puzzle that God puts together one piece at a time, and the puzzle piece God has revealed to me over the past few years is that I am called to be an elder in the United Methodist Church who invests especially in children, youth, and young adults—not only nurturing them in faith but, also, connecting and incorporating them into the life of the wider congregation  and giving them opportunities to learn and lead in worship, Bible study, mission, and more. As part of this work, I serve on the Memphis Conference Youth Leadership Team that engages our youth in ministry and mission. I’ve volunteered my time and leadership for weeks of summer camp and weekend retreats at Lakeshore Camp and Retreat Center. I mentored a young person who is running as a lay delegate for General Conference 2020. If elected, I would use my voice and vote to advocate for young people, both lay and clergy, who are following Jesus, faithfully serving the United Methodist Church, and engaging the world with the good news of the Gospel.

Since entering the appointive system in 2016, I have cherished the relationships I have formed with pastors serving alongside me. In Hardeman and McNairy counties where I have served under appointment, many of the local congregations are served by local licensed pastors (LLPs). During county group meetings or district clergy meetings, I have been honored to form and deepen relationships with the women and men who dedicate their lives to following their call to ministry in this way. Some of the most creative, innovative, and passionate ministry and mission I have witnessed across our connection has been led by LLPs. It boggles my mind and saddens my heart to think that some other clergy look down on or diminish the important and vital role of LLPs in our connection. Not only would we be lost in supplying churches with pastors in the Memphis Conference without them, but we would miss the richness they bring. At the Memphis Annual Conference in 2017, when as a provisional elder I was not allowed to vote on the constitutional amendments brought forth from General Conference 2016, I experienced a small taste of what it might feel like to be a local licensed pastor who gives the best of their labor to God’s church and mission yet feels they are not valued enough to have a seat at the table on certain matters. If elected, I would use my voice and vote to think creatively about how we could work together to lift up local licensed pastors and recognize more fully their vital role in the United Methodist Church.

Over the last few weeks, I have spent some time looking over journals from past Memphis Annual Conference meetings and compiling a list of the delegations we have sent to General Conference over the past 50 years. Here are some of the interesting things I’ve learned through that study:

• Since the first General Conference of the United Methodist Church in 1972, our laity in Memphis have always elected a woman with voice and vote to serve as a delegate.
• 1988 (the year I was born) was the first delegation to include a clergywoman delegate with voice and vote, thirty-two years after women were granted full clergy rights in the Methodist Church in 1956 (the year my mother was born). A clergywoman has been elected with voice and vote in every Memphis Conference delegation since 1988, with the exception of two – the two most recent delegations to General Conference in 2016 and 2019.
• Since 1972, only five times have elected Memphis Conference clergy delegates with voice and vote been persons of color (1980, 1988, 2000, 2004, 2008).
• Only twice have elected laity of color from the Memphis Conference had voice and vote at General Conference (2000 and 2004).
• Since the ages of delegates are not published in our journals, I cannot with accuracy make definitive conclusions about how young people have been represented with voice and vote. But, from viewing the photographs of elected delegates over the years, I do not believe electing young clergy or young lay people has been a consistent priority of the Memphis Annual Conference.

The delegates we elect with voice and vote to General Conference must reflect the diversity of the Memphis Annual Conference, especially the racial, ethnic, gender, and age diversity of our clergy and laity. I did not arrive easily at my decision to offer myself as a delegate to be elected. It involved countless conversations, many sleep-interrupted nights, a whole lot of prayer, and, finally, surrender to the Holy Spirit. I humbly ask my clergy siblings in the Memphis Annual Conference to prayerfully consider voting for me to represent us at General Conference 2020. Over the next week, I’ll be posting several more blogs to share more of my story, calling, and passion for our shared mission and ministry with you. If you have any questions or would like to have further conversation, I’d be happy to email you, talk to you on the phone, or sit down with you for coffee or a meal. You can contact me at ahwGC2020@gmail.com.

Beyond myself, I ask all of our lay and clergy delegates to Annual Conference this year to intentionally seek out, engage, and support candidates who are young persons (35 years and under), who are persons of color, and/or who are women. Give voice and vote to those who dedicate their lives to God’s mission for the church in the world and, yet, are so often underrepresented at the table. Let’s see together what God can do through us.

Grace and Peace,
Amanda Hartmann Westmoreland

Ordination: A New Work Begun and a Good Work Continued

In one month, I will be ordained as an elder in the United Methodist Church. Not much else in this life has felt as simultaneously joyful and weighty to me. As I pray towards that day, it seems important to mark down my thoughts, to slow down and step back and reflect as I approach a day I have been praying for and striving towards for nearly seventeen years. 

After some searching for and dusting off this blog space I created several years ago and have returned to time from time...I have settled on this forum as the place to record these thoughts and to share them as a way to invite others to join me in prayer over the next month and the days, years, and seasons to follow. 

At the ordination service, the bishop will lay hands on my head and pray "Almighty God, pour upon Amanda the Holy Spirit for the office and work of a elder in Christ's holy church." On at least three other days, hands have been laid on my head as someone prayed for the Holy Spirit to work in me or to be poured out on me -- the day I was baptized, the day I was confirmed, and the day I was commissioned as a provisional elder in the United Methodist Church. All of these days are special and sacred to me, yet my heart has been drawn in a special way to my baptism during my journey to ordination. 

On the day I was baptized, these words of love and promise were prayed over me by my grandfather, "Amanda Laura-Leigh, the Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the Spirit you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ." Several years ago as I was going through family photo albums, a found a picture of my mother holding me on her lap on the garden bench outside of the first home I lived in. Written on the back of the photograph was "Amanda's baptism -- February 12, 1989." Though I had heard stories about my baptism, had seen the pictures of family gathered from near and far, had celebrated and remembered it throughout the years, I had never known the exact date. Grabbing my phone, I set a calendar notification to alert me every year at 9:00 am on February 12 to "Remember my baptism, and be thankful."

When I walked into the sunroom at Lakeshore Camp and Retreat Center at 8:55 for worship before the interviews began on a February morning in West Tennessee (which is to say I don't remember if was cold or warm or inbetween), I was a tightly wound knot of mixed emotions -- nervousness, excitement, doubt, confidence, insecurity, anxiety -- as anyone would expect. I was excited to see my friends, both the other candidates for ordination and the members of the Board of Ordained Ministry. I was anxious to get started, so that I would just know what the answer would be. Like I had told my congregations the Sunday before, there were two possible outcomes for my interview, a good one and a better one. The good one would be a "Not yet;" the better one a "Yes!" As I settled in next to friends, began to lift my voice in songs of praise with others already seated, and waited for the rest of the group to shuffle in, a panicked thought flashed across my mind. Had I silenced my cell phone? And if I had, had I also turned it onto airplane mode so my decrepit iPhone battery wouldn't deplete itself searching for a none to be had at camp cell signal? Reaching for my purse, my eye caught a notification on my home screen, a calendar alert set for 9:00 am on February 12th..."Remember your baptism, and be thankful." And a peace that passes understanding, a peace that drinks deeply from the waters of grace and joy, a peace that I needed in that moment settled over my soul.

On that day in 1989, I was baptized. I was claimed by grace. I was named a beloved child of God.

Thirty years later on that day, the Board of Ordained Ministry recommended me to be ordained as an elder in the United Methodist Church at the 2019 Memphis Annual Conference.

I am overwhelmed by the love and grace that had been shown to me. I am overjoyed to join my friends and colleagues in ministry in full connection, upon the approval and vote of the clergy session in June. I am humbled 

that others believe and have confidence in me. I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I have only arrived at this moment with the love, support, encouragement, and intention poured into me by so many throughout my life. 

I am most overcome by the awareness that those words prayed over me at my baptism are both blooming and being planted in my heart again, "Amanda Laura-Leigh, the Holy Spirit work within you, that being born through water and the Spirit you may be a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ."

So thank you, community, for walking and praying with me this far. May we continue together to follow where the Spirit leads.