A Journalist and a Cartoon Fish Can Point the Way

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April 25, 2024 | CHARLOTTE, N.C. (UM News)

Key points:

  • Laity Address speakers at General Conference urged United Methodists to work together and keep the faith despite the setback of more than 7,000 disaffiliated churches.
  • Photographer Jack Corn and animated fish Nemo from the Pixar film “Finding Nemo” can help point the way for members of the denomination, the speakers said.
  • “Together by Grace” is the theme for the Association of Annual Conference Lay Leaders for the 2025-2028 quadrennium.

United Methodists seeking a way forward after a season of church disaffiliations could look to a photographer of the civil rights movement and the animated film “Finding Nemo” for inspiration, said speakers during the Laity Address at General Conference.

Micheal Pope, vice president of the Association of Annual Conference Lay Leaders, explained the reasoning during the Laity Address, an April 25 morning presentation at General Conference.

“Jack Corn reminds us that we ‘the people called Methodists’ can begin to answer our ‘how’ questions by becoming active witnesses,” Pope said.

Corn, a photojournalist for the Chicago Tribune and The Tennessean newspapers whose accomplishments include documenting the civil rights movement, is a United Methodist. During a film tribute shown during the Laity Address, Corn acknowledged his work sometimes put him in peril of violence or even being killed.

“I thought I was doing a good thing,” he said. “You grow up with segregation, it’s all you’ve ever known and somebody wants to change it. … But we did change it and change it for the better.”

Likewise, Methodists need to “be there to witness the stories of our siblings,” Pope said.

“(We need to) embrace the spirit of Jesus when we observe and shed light on the stories, and we live into our faith by gathering others to bring care to every place that needs it,” she added.

Though the religious status of Nemo in the Pixar animated film “Finding Nemo” isn’t clear, United Methodists could also learn from his example, Pope said.

In the film, Nemo is caught in a net with other fish, and realizes they must all swim in the same direction to escape.

“Nemo recognizes that they must work together to save their lives,” Pope said. “He shouts to them to swim in the same direction, which they do. The weight of them swimming together breaks the crane holding the net and they are set free.”

Likewise, Pope said, United Methodists must work together to overcome the disaffiliations of about 25% of its U.S. congregations since 2019 over how inclusive to be of LGBTQ people in the life of the church.

“Many of us witnessed the departure of our siblings who we once worshipped with and performed ministry with,” Pope said. “Our decisions as the people called Methodist will impact our current reality, creating a legacy that embraces our youth and young adults while also joyfully caring for those of us that are aging.”

The Association of Annual Conference Lay Leaders’ theme for the 2025-2028 quadrennium is “Together by Grace.”

Pope and LaToya Redd Thompson, president of the association, related how their own conferences have successfully started “Together by Grace” efforts.

“We remain together by fortifying our witness,” Thompson said of her Mississippi Conference.

Between COVID-19 and disaffiliations, the Mississippi Conference lost nearly half of its churches and six members of its Board of Laity over the last quadrennium.

“The church where I had my membership for over 10 years left Dec. 31, 2023,” Thompson said. “The grief from affirming the separation of each church at annual conference session, as well as saying goodbye to my own church in person, was unfathomable.

“But there is something quite resilient about the people called Methodists.”

Bishop Sharma Lewis, who leads the Mississippi Conference, got the word out about Lighthouse Congregations, which support and help create ministries for orphaned United Methodists.

Sarah Sanders, a district lay leader, “not only found a lighthouse church, she founded a lighthouse church as well,” Thompson said.

“Starting with a nucleus group of seven, like a Wesleyan Band, they began meeting and having worship services in the spring of 2023,” Thompson said. “They acquired a regular meeting space and more than doubled their weekly attendance, with more people joining their numbers, people looking for fresh ways to remain together with grace.”

In the California-Nevada Conference, “we have seen laity and clergy working together to share the love of Christ through ministries that are reaching out to the brokenness in the lives of so many people living in the Northern California and Nevada context,” Pope said.

“When we work together the impossible becomes possible, and we begin to see the ‘kingdom’ manifested in every neighborhood, whether urban or rural,” Pope said. “We remain together by sharing our stories. We remain together by living into a future that witnesses something new.”

The California-Nevada Conference is one the most diverse in the U.S., with about 200 languages spoken, she said.

Certified lay ministry programs have grown, “filled with laity that long to partner with clergy as together they witness the power of the Holy Spirit, when all live into the freedom that grace provides,” she added.

To move forward, Methodists need to “bring our faith to the brokenness of the world,” Pope said.

Thompson returned to the “Together by Grace” theme, saying it can inspire Methodists to swim, like Nemo, to freedom and ultimately to a new transformative church.

“Not only is nothing impossible for God, but together by grace, with faith, nothing is impossible for us,” she said. “He expects us, his disciples, to perform miracles because we can.”

Jim Patterson is a UM News reporter in Nashville, Tennessee.