Barneyisfat

I am praying about going to South Africa this december for the Youth Convocation. If I can go as a delegate it will cost less than $1000. If I just go as a random person it will cost around $2000. I would love to go as a delegate, and maybe there aren't other young adults from my jurisdiction who want to go to Johannesburg. I just think it would be so exciting to meet so many other youth from all over the world who have similar ideas and passions as I do. I was going through the stats on my home conference and ... well it's pretty dismal. There are a lot of churches that should be closed down. There were a few exception, of course, but overall each and every church shrank last year. Sometimes I wonder if it's even worth sticking with a dying denomination. I love the United Methodist church - but I think at this point it exists only as a springboard. I think that the emergent church will come out of the United Methodist faith. We will have to go back to a lot of Wesleyan doctrine. We will have to start loving. We need to stop our reliance on "superpastors" for church growth ... and maybe focus on Christ instead.