For the last year we have needed hope like never before. We have struggled with a pandemic, increased deaths and disease, racial injustice, economic disruption, political turmoil, an attack on our capitol, and isolation from others. It has been hard to be hopeful in the midst of difficult times.

We United Methodists are a missionary movement. We began as an effort to reform the United Kingdom and its established church. As the United States began with its experiment in religious freedom, we became a church.

I have seen it happen in countless local churches and annual conferences. Someone casts a compelling vision of God’s future. Most of the members get excited. They want a better future! Then a few months later the details of that future are released. What looked and sounded exciting in the abstract and vague language of a visionary future now entails change.