Feeling Energized by the CONNECTION and so Grateful!

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Western North Carolina Annual Conference | April 23, 2025

Over some 48 years of connectional relationships through United Methodism, I’ve participated in many missional efforts, including several hurricane-response teams to Eastern North Carolina and the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Today, I’m energized and freshly inspired by the “tie that binds our hearts in Christian love,” because the supportive recovery-oriented hands and feet of Christ have come to my home area in the mountains of Western North Carolina! Jesus Christ binds us together in ways deeper than earthly friendships. “The fellowship of kindred minds is like to that above.”

A pastor serving in retirement, whose personal home was damaged, and who lived in Sunday school rooms until an apartment was found, received ERT assistance, and is now under case management and construction coordination from the conference. A deacon asked her retired district superintendents to help with children in Swannanoa; then, they asked their church networks to fund restoration of the children’s mobile homes. Retired clergy from Mississippi volunteered in the initial call center of the WNC Conference, and now are part of the Church Relations/Connectional Partnerships Team.

A Kentucky friend from days on the alumni board of Candler School of Theology came to Asheville with his bishop and colleagues to prepare a recovery operations center for the southern mountains. Pastors and laity from unaffected areas sent supplies and thousands of dollars to churches in the affected areas, some of it directed back to their communities of origin.

Even without prompt by the connectional system, clergy, laity and staff who had known each other in ministry for decades made personal contacts and formed partnerships for relief and recovery …. like ones from Myers Park to Montmorenci, Williamson’s Chapel to Pine Grove, Denver to Celo, Matthews to Alan Campos, Jamestown to Watauga Cooperative Parish, West to Old Fort, and so many more.

Youth minister friends with missional hearts from Mt. Tabor, Guildford College and Williamson’s Chapel are organizing for a combined summer mission trip to Buncombe County. Money and teams have poured in from eastern North Carolina, Virginia, South Carolina and all over the country, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Maryland, even Las Vegas. It’s no wonder I’m Feeling Energized by the Connection and so Grateful!

Since Hurricane Helene, I’ve said it many times, “I’m thankful to be part of the United Methodist Connection! It was “Connexion,” as John Wesley spelled it, and as he adapted the concept from the 18th century of any network of individuals or groups linked in social, commercial, or religious spheres.

For Methodists, the links were of societies made up of classes and bands (small accountability groups) related to Wesley himself, and to each other through the Connexion. Since 1744 Wesley gathered Anglican clergy and lay preachers for holy conferencing on doctrine, discipline, and practice.

For six months after the storm, I have worshipped with a different congregation each Sunday, offering encouragement and expressing gratitude, even at New Hope Presbyterian that financially supported our United Methodist relief and recovery work. I have given updates of the connectional work of the WNC Conference, as we shifted from immediate relief through food, water, and supplies to plans for long-term recovery work of restoring homes and church buildings.

In church after church, my wife and I have felt the power and joy of belonging in the Connection. After brief remarks of thanks, and cheering congregations on, I’ve presented a framed log cabin block quilt square from our Conference as acknowledgement of their church’s value in the Connection of WNC United Methodism.

I’m quite aware that my recent gratitude has surfaced after previous months and years when the Connection has been severely stressed. There were differences of biblical interpretation, leading to differences of who could be married and ordained, leading to disaffiliations of congregations from the UMC. During the COVID-19 Pandemic, congregations struggled to meet together, and subsequently lost participants. Then, on September 27, 2024 Hurricane Helene moved inland as a tropical storm, causing flooding, landslides, high winds and downed trees. People died, and homes, businesses, and churches were devastated.

Through it all, I’m seeing Resurrection power and renewed energy as the Connection comes together to rebuild.

Grounded in the biblical understanding of church as the Body of Christ, our connectional life, our membership in the body, is the foundation of Wesley-oriented Methodist ecclesiastical organization. Our polity is partially based on I Corinthians and Romans, where Paul emphasizes that members of the body are diverse, each with unique gifts and roles, yet are united in Christ with each one essential. I have noticed that with each congregation playing a unique role, the Connection is kept vital and whole!

I knew him years ago as Superintendent of the Kingsport District, Holston Conference. Now David Graves is the Bishop of the Tennessee-Kentucky Episcopal Area. He’s the one who recently brought his district superintendents to Asheville for a week of cleaning-up, preparing, and painting our emerging recovery operations center that will house and feed future work teams.

Brian Mateer, WNCC Director of Missional Engagement and Maggie Armstrong, Director of Recovery, hosted a closing dinner, celebrating our connectional relationships. Bishop Ken Carter remarked to the superintendents from Kentucky, Central Appalachian Missionary, and Tennessee-Western Kentucky Annual Conferences, “Could one of the blessings of this storm and its aftermath of disaster be the renewal of our connectional church? In all of this heartache and devastation, this very well may be a time of revival for the people called United Methodist!”

Yes! I am feeling so Grateful….because “our fears, our hopes, our aims are one,” and because “we share each other’s woes….” Yes, and even now “as flows the sympathizing tear,” I’m Feeling Energized by the CONNECTION!

For more details visit the Western North Carolina Disaster Response page. 

The Rev. Dr. John Boggs serves as Interim Co-Superintendent for the Blue Ridge District of the Western North Carolina Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. This article is republished from the conference website with permission.