Letter to my FM Leaders
Dearly Loved Free Methodist Leaders, A little about myself to begin. I am a young elder in the church. I am seminary trained and have an M.Div from one of our finest institutions. I served at a church as associate, worship, and youth leader 5 years before attending seminary. I converted in from unbelief. The revelation that ultimately led me to Christ and kept me in the church was our emphasis on the poor. Growing up in an underprivileged community with parents struggling with addiction, seeing the way God in Christ identified with the last, lost, and least was the revelation that convinced me of the validity of the Gospel. I had originally thought that God probably loved and preferred the religious and robed. Seeing Jesus prefer the company of "unlettered" fisherman, those with disability and disease, the poor, the average ordinary folks found on the outskirts of the kingdoms - the marginalized - was the ordained epiphany that the God of the universe loved me and I was ...