As a pastor one of the greatest gifts for me doing ministry is working with laity to bring God's plan for salvation to fruition. God has equipped each one of us with unique gifts.

One of the things I remind my congregation is that there would be no church without laity, we can have all the pastors in the world. But if there is no laity there is no church. I have been blessed with the most loving, talented on fire for God congregation in the world.

Last week we did a revival meeting at a Recovery center (for those recovery from alcohol and substance abuse) that was on a ranch. We were suppose to have a church picnic. One of my members called the day before and asked if we could have a revival meeting and a church picnic at the recovery house, she said there were people who wanted to go to church but were not welcomed by other denominations, she had been praying about it. I said of course! This is your church and God is speaking to you. We got on the phone and called everyone. It was powerful. We bought extra food and had so much fun.

Last night the chaplain of the sons of allen called to give me his weekly report, for he does outreach in the community. And he shared with me what it meant to the men at the recovery house that our church had come. My chaplain had followed up with them during the week, one of the men at the house was native american and he called his reservation to tell them the ame church had come personally to preach to him. We have been invited to come to the reservation and preach. I look at the ministries in my church and they are led by laity, that feel empowered. We are a "Holy Spirit Church" which means we may pack up on a sunday and go preach to a group that needs to hear the word. My chaplain of sons of allen also called a member of our church, who was out of town in Atlanta at a high school debate national meeting. The member has diabetes and the heat and humidity was making him sick, it meant a lot that his church called and the 30 kids were happy that we had not forgotten them, even though they are not members of our church. I might add, the kids wanted to get back home quickly, we do not have a lot of humidity in the mountains.

Soon it will be time for the Lay convention, I ask that we begin with prayer now for this convention. For I am sure God will be giving the laity instructions of how to run his church.

I also pray that clergy will empower laity and let them have have a strong voice in the church. God did not call clergy to be dictators or to be kings and queens, we are called to lead and care for the flock. Amen

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2003