{"id":13144,"date":"2016-05-20T15:31:26","date_gmt":"2016-05-20T22:31:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=13144"},"modified":"2016-05-20T15:31:26","modified_gmt":"2016-05-20T22:31:26","slug":"stanovsky-we-will-not-leave-divided","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/stanovsky-we-will-not-leave-divided\/","title":{"rendered":"Stanovsky: \u2018We will not leave divided\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Charmaine Robledo<\/strong>
\nMay 20, 2016 | PORTLAND, Ore. (UMNS)<\/h4>\n

On the last day of the 2016 General Conference, Bishop Elaine Stanovsky of the Mountain Sky Episcopal Area reminded those attending that \u201cwe will not leave divided because God is not finished with us yet!\u201d<\/p>\n

As she recalled Jesus\u2019 resurrection story in the book of Matthew, she asked each person to \u201cget out of that tomb.\u201d This included assumptions about the LGBTQ community and African delegates.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you believe that the Bible condemns homosexuality, but have never asked a gay Christian how they understand the Bible, you gotta get out of that tomb.\u00a0 If you believe that all African delegates are voting from somebody else\u2019s game plan, you gotta get out of that tomb,\u201d Stanovsky said.<\/p>\n

\"Bishop<\/a>
Bishop Elaine Stanovsky gives the sermon during morning worship May 20 at the 2016 United Methodist General Conference in Portland, Ore. Photo by Patrick Scriven for the PNW Conference.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Throughout her sermon, Stanovsky illustrated \u201ctomb\u201d moments where we face choices for life or death. This was especially true with the church\u2019s involvement with the Sand Creek Massacre<\/a>, in which nearly 200 women, children and elderly in the camp were killed and many more left wounded.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving worked with descendants of the Sand Creek Massacre for six years, I live with a constant and sobering awareness of the capacity of the church to choose death over life,\u201d Stanovsky said, \u201cand to convince itself that it is doing the will of God when it serves up death time and again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Proclaim the good news<\/h4>\n

But life is out there, Stanovsky emphasized. As in the Matthew story, she said United Methodists are called to proclaim the good news that Jesus Christ is risen, as Mary Magdalene did.<\/p>\n

And she warned against being distracted by naysayers who only deal with death.<\/p>\n

She added it is easy to be caught up with General Conference, and \u201cto think more highly of ourselves than we ought to think (Romans 12:3), and to imagine that what we do here is Gospel. But it is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

Stanovsky concluded that the real work is done once the 10-day event has finished. She gave the General Conference assembly an assignment to \u201cchoose life\u201d as they talk about what has happened here in Portland.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we return to our homes, we become storytellers,\u201d she said. \u201cThe story isn\u2019t over once the church has spoken.\u201d She cited Romans 8:16 in that \u201cthe Spirit bears witness with your spirit\u201d to tell a good story.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat good news is there from The United Methodist Church?\u201d Stanovsky asked.<\/p>\n

Robledo is Mountain Sky Area <\/em>director of communications.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Charmaine Robledo May 20, 2016 | PORTLAND, Ore. (UMNS) On the last day of the 2016 General Conference, Bishop Elaine Stanovsky of the Mountain Sky Episcopal Area reminded those attending that \u201cwe will not leave divided because God is not finished with us yet!\u201d As she recalled Jesus\u2019 resurrection story in the book of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":13148,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[449,3],"tags":[270,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-13144","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-conference","8":"category-umns","9":"tag-gc2016","10":"tag-umc"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/stanovsky.jpg?fit=1300%2C678&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-3q0","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13144","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13144"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13144\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13151,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13144\/revisions\/13151"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13144"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13144"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13144"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}