This is not only true at the General Conference level, but also at the Annual Conference level. At our recently concluded session of the Florida Annual Conference, we gathered around the theme: Dare To Share Jesus — No More Playing Church. We were blessed with powerful preaching, spirited worship, exciting and informative workshops, genuine fellowship, and special services of recognition and remembrance.

I cannot remember having missed attending Annual Conference for over 50 years — beginning as a youth delegate and continuing as a pastor, district superintendent, seminary president/dean and, now, as a bishop. And although each session is similar, there is a common thread of unity that produces a final garment reflecting our diversity and, at the same time, acknowledging our commonality that only God and the Holy Spirit can produce.

I feel renewed, refreshed, reinvigorated, rededicated, revived. If dry bones can be brought back to life, surely God can bring an Annual Conference back to life. We cannot plan this. We cannot orchestrate this. Sometimes the best thing we can do is simply pray, plan, provide and then…get out of the way and let God do the rest.

Please know that Dorothye and I feel a tremendous surge of excitement for what has been done, in spite of us, and a sense of wonderful expectation for the future as God leads us upward and onward. We are grateful!