The sound of the shofar blew once again to open the worship services for the eighth annual Heal the Land unity services held at First United Methodist Church.
In the absence of First UMC pastor, the Rev. Mike Sahler, who recently had surgery, Donna Fite, church lay leader, welcomed a diverse crowd of between 200 and 300 worshippers.
“The attendees enjoyed a wonderful worship experience of various praise dancers, poem, singing, illustrations and of course a wonderful message from our speaker,” Heal the Land founder Corene Russell said. “The entire audience had an opportunity to actually participate in the service by identifying themselves as individuals with the understanding that we are all different, but this does not prohibit us from being one in the Body of Christ.”
The featured speaker, the Rev. Johnny Porter, drove the point home that we should all want our portion of the anointing authority that will engage us in teaching our children and continuing the responsibilities of “Securing the Church” by passing the mantle to the next generation.
“Just as Elisha has asked for a double portion, we too need to shoulder our portion of these responsibilities, if we want the church to be sustained,” Russell said.
Russell then thanked the audience for their participation and support for the past eight years.
“Our focus for this service is to experience God and His glory with our sister and brother without the biases and stigma that drives us apart; I encouraged them to pray, humble, turn, and seek God’s face to make a real difference in the lives of others; and pray God’s anointing on the next generation as we transfer the mantle of responsibility to sustain the church and the oneness of His mission. Just as the prophets wore the mantle as an indication of authority and responsibility as God’s chosen, we too wear the mantles as our responsibility to teach our children to carry the mantle into the next generation. Moving forward, we will not continue to do the same things as in the past. We will do things differently; leave good examples for our children to sustain the church.”
Fite further emphasized passing the mantle when she passed a family prayer shawl to her next generation, her daughter and grandchildren.
The Rev. Brian Stewart closed the program with a “Litany of Christian Unity”
“As the ambassadors of Christ’s reconciling work, we make our petitions to God, when we pray together from our diverse traditions, read the Bible together in our diversity of language, establish relations, work for justice and solidarity, and when we yearn for peace and justice for all,” Russell said. “The audience responded by recognizing God as holy, revealing, merciful, strengthening, wounded, triune one, make our unity visible and bring healing to the world.”
The services concluded with the Lord’s Prayer in unison.
Pictured Above: Participants take center stage during Sunday night’s eighth annual Heal the Land held at First United Methodist Church in Columbia. | Photo Submitted
