{"id":1579,"date":"2012-07-12T17:50:58","date_gmt":"2012-07-13T00:50:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/gc2012\/?p=1579"},"modified":"2012-07-12T17:53:08","modified_gmt":"2012-07-13T00:53:08","slug":"conquer-your-fear-conference-called-to-be-of-good-courage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/conquer-your-fear-conference-called-to-be-of-good-courage\/","title":{"rendered":"Conquer your fear: be of \u201cgood courage\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

Closing Worship calls Conference to be of \u201cgood courage\u201d<\/strong> | By Jesse N. Love<\/em><\/p>\n

After three days of legislative sessions, listening, and holy conferencing, the members of The Pacific Northwest Annual Conference closed in worship. The Celebration of Appointments and Sending lived up to its celebratory name as music from the house marimba band played energizing the young and young at heart into the dancing spirit.<\/p>\n

As the service continued, The Amen Report video was presented highlighting moments from the week. Bishop Grant Hagiya, the Cabinet and respective district lay leaders presented the reading of appointments, sharing the distribution of clergy among the six districts and areas outside of our region.<\/p>\n

Leading up to the message, DJ del Rosario presented the scripture reading found in 2 Corinthians 5: 6-10. Bishop Grant Hagiya\u2019s \u201cBe of Good Courage\u201d served as the closing worship message for annual Conference. Hagiya began his message reminiscing on his childhood experience of being duped into seeing a scary horror movie by his older sister. It was a moment that affected him so deeply, growing up he confronted his fears by visiting haunted houses, murder scenes and other scary locations to overcompensate for his fear.<\/p>\n

Bishop Hagiya commented that the UMC is in a state of fear. The Church as a body is reacting, responding, and making decisions out of fear, as what he observed from General Conference. He questioned the Church\u2019s fears and even commented on the irony of how the Church sees its recent financial decline as scarier than our decades-long membership decline. Hagiya praised the PNW Annual Conference for its good decision-making and for not reacting out of fear.<\/p>\n

Bishop Hagiya shared that being of good courage through faith is what will overcome fear. He cited Abraham Lincoln, Mother Theresa, and Nelson Mandela as great leaders who found strength in their faith. As people of faith living in between both the earthly and heavenly, true courage can be found in the center of these realms.<\/p>\n

He also cited the courage of those working hours and hours to provide better lives for their children, LGBT brothers and sisters serving in the church system, and those in hospice care living out the remaining days as a gift from God. Hagiya stated \u2018courage\u2019 needs to be redefined in the secular word. Good courage is the ability to move forward in faith despite insecurities, fears and hurts. \u201dGood courage is seen in those dealt with bad hands without complaining,\u201d shares Hagiya.<\/p>\n

Despite the Church\u2019s decline, Hagiya reassured that with God, people in the PNW are not alone in our time of fear. Despite declining membership, internal conflict, and a mission field still in need of the Good News, we can find strength in our personal faith. The Pacific Northwest Annual Conference is where good courage, not fear, will allow us to do great things for the mission of Jesus Christ.<\/p>\n

\n

To view this service, visit http:\/\/bit.ly\/ac2012_closing<\/a><\/em>
\n Jesse N. Love serves as the Print & Publications Manager for the PNWUMC.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Closing Worship calls Conference to be of \u201cgood courage\u201d | By Jesse N. Love After three days of legislative sessions, listening, and holy conferencing, the members of The Pacific Northwest Annual Conference closed in worship. The Celebration of Appointments and Sending lived up to its celebratory name as music from the house marimba band played […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":1580,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1579","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conversation"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/07\/BLOG_Closing.jpg?fit=600%2C307&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-pt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1579","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=1579"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1579\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1585,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1579\/revisions\/1585"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}