General Charles Krulak and the Birmingham-Southern Hilltop Singers are the headliners for this year’s Laity Luncheon at Annual Conference, Friday, June 1 at noon in the Great Hall, on the third floor of Norton Campus Center. I believe you will receive a blessing from the program. The deadline to reserve your tickets is quickly approaching; don’t be left out. Order your Laity Luncheon tickets now!

Every four years the General conference of the United Methodist Church is held and this year it’s in Tampa, Florida. Nearly 1000 delegates from all over the word will descend on Tampa for the ten day Conference in April. This is perhaps the most important conference in recent years as our great church is feeling decline in membership and decline in funds like the church has never felt before.

In February I visited the quarterly Board of Trustees Meeting of the Methodist Homes Corporation at Wesley Gardens in Montgomery. Go online to www.methodisthomes.org for further information and for how you can help this great mission for God and God’s older children.

To the world you may just be one Small person, but to one person you may be the whole world!

Isn’t this the plot of the local church as well? To be just a small (or large) group of people gathering on Sunday to hear the word of God and then keep the doors of the church building closed the other days of the week. Yet, the church could be the whole world to someone or some group that needs to hear the word of God, if the doors were open to the world.

How many times have we failed to keep our New Year’s Resolutions a week into the New Year or maybe not even a day? Each New Year gives us a chance to do away with the old and start over with the new, especially in attitudes.

The needs of the Children’s Home are now greater than ever, so they can continue the support of the many individuals and families they touch each month. The United Methodists of North Alabama have generously supported this great work for many years and especially during the holiday season. Let’s make this December a banner month for supporting the Children’s Home!!!

Many of the Laity and Clergy with whom I have worked on Emmaus walks, call the mountain that borders Camp Sumatanga God’s mountain. We all know that all mountains are God’s mountains, but in the Christian life of many North Alabama United Methodists, Camp Sumatanga is a very special place. Camp Sumatanga is the place where they met God for the first time, or had a special experience with God, which helped shape their Christian life.

Does your seat at Church have your name on it? In the past this has been a real unwritten problem of ownership for United Methodist Church goers, “better not sit in my seat, maybe not even in my pew.” Before you read the next paragraph, let me assure you, this next paragraph applies to me as well.

All of us have heard stories of mystical ownership and territorial rights of church members and their church. We all know the church and everything in it belongs to God or if we need some entity, other than God, then the Conference. Personal ownership is trivial in the church, but I had the thought, maybe it would be good, if all seats had a members name on it. I would not want my name on a seat or a pew if I were going to be absent Sunday after Sunday.

In the next few paragraphs the Board of Laity Goals for the conference year of 2011-2012 are outlined. We discussed and voted on these goals last month and we are already implementing these in the Laity work of the Conference.

No two Districts are alike, but all share the same problems and goals. Speaking of goals, at the first Laity Board quarterly meeting in August, Laity goals will be set paralleling the Conference Goals. These goals will be workable goals that can and will make a difference for Jesus Christ in our Conference.