Come, Sit Beside Me

Baltimore-Washington Conference, 2007.

Incidentally, held at the Marriott Wardman Park (Washington, DC), where this year’s session will be.

I had been a provisional elder (back then we were still called ON PROBATION) for a couple years. Long enough to be sure I knew everything. Not long enough to have sufficient good sense to temper my, eh, forthrightness.

You know those people who go to the microphone too much?

Yes, that was me that year.

I’m not saying that’s not me other times. But it was definitely me that year.

I—I kid you not—am pretty sure I asked a point of order of the Bishop (Bishop John Schol).

Yeah.

I know, right? But at least I’m owning up to it. Oh, and by the way, sorry, everyone, for 2007. J

After I think my third trip to the microphone in probably the first two days, my father simply said to me at break, “Why don’t you come sit beside me?”

You see, I’d been all worried about just being seen as Rick Andrews’ kid that I had wanted to establish my own space. I was sitting a couple sections over from him. My father and I were very different people. For many reasons. It’s always a bit surprising to me (but I suppose I’ve gotten more used to it) that people tell me how much of my father they see in me. Like many parents and kids, I suspect, our relationship was often most about our differences. I also think it takes some pretty special people (and our colleagues are clearly just that) to see a father’s image in his daughter—our culture I think has a harder time with that one than a mother and daughter.

So I sat beside Dad.

And wouldn’t you know it, the urge to get up and go to the microphone quickly waned.

My father never told me not to go.

I suspect there was something about knowing he might, but also something about being alongside someone with a bit more experience, a bit more perspective. Someone to learn from. Be sarcastic with (I really don’t know how I’d survive any church conference without humor and sarcasm).

I have had the opportunity to sit beside Dad at other times, and also to sit beside many other mentors and elders thus far. Whether in local church ministry, denominational meetings, parenting, you name it. I have grown so very much from those sitting-beside-times.

Sitting beside allows us to learn from those with more experience—and less experience. Sitting beside leads to conversation both ways. It deters talking AT the other person. It inspires connection and relationship.

Last summer, as I was part of the VERY VERY SERIOUS GROUP 4 at Pastors’ School in Zimbabwe, I was also able to sit beside some powerful and gifted people. The very first day, as we all separated into our groups, my group grabbed chairs from the chapel and circled up outside the back door of the chapel. It was a popular site, since it was in the sun, and July is winter in Zimbabwe. As I first sat, the pastors around me spoke and joked with each other in Shona as we got settled. I had tried my level best to learn a bit of Shona in the few months since I’d known I would be with them, but it simply wasn’t enough time.

As our group began to focus on the discussion questions at hand, a pastor (with a bit of ribbing from others) took pity on me and scooted close. He came to sit beside me. And he translated for me. Through the remaining days, various others would do the same. Our group developed the rule that they would speak in English if they felt comfortable (all knew English, but as with anything, their comfort levels varied—and hey, we all prefer our native tongue) and otherwise, whoever sat closest to me would be changed to translate. And let’s be honest—some sessions people tried not to be the ones sitting next to me). J

But always someone sat beside me.

And in many ways, the entire group sat beside me. And I beside them.

I learned of the ways we are similar—like how humor and sarcasm are needful parts of any church conference. How we are all trying to wrestle with how to make Jesus Christ’s good news relevant in a rapidly changing world.

I learned some ways we are different. How deep poverty can shape the church’s work in ways which aren’t limited to a few communities, but spread across an entire nation. How old cultural rules about marriage—in Zimbabwe it’s plural marriage—create very real challenges for a faith tradition which does not accept such practices (and what that means for those already in it). How pastors offering dramatic faith healing and sudden experiences of God can challenge our best efforts at helping people understand the importance of a constant, growing path of discipleship.

Come to think of it, maybe we are more similar than we might think.

Perhaps we need to sit beside each other more.

My earnest prayer is that the next two weeks, as delegates from United Methodist Churches around the world gather for General Conference in Portland, Oregon, will be a powerful time sitting beside each other.

As the rest of us watch from afar, I hope those present will endeavor not so much to talk at as to talk with each other.

It has been a great honor to have been part of our larger delegation from the Baltimore-Washington Conference. As a jurisdictional delegate, though my work will happen in July in Lancaster, I have been honored to sit beside some amazing people who are there in Portland beginning their work today as our delegates from the BWC. I know them to be earnest, prayer-filled, faithful disciples of Jesus Christ who firmly rely on scripture to discern God’s leading, using the Wesleyan tools of reason, tradition and experience to help focus in on God’s guidance in scripture. I look forward to hearing more about the conversations they will have as they sit beside delegates from places like Zimbabwe, Texas, Maine, Finland, etc.

I invite you to join me in prayer for our United Methodist General Conference—both for their decisions, but also the ways in which the do their work. That they may do it sitting beside each other. And in so doing, embodying the love for each other which Jesus calls us to.