 Well, good evening and welcome to opening worship. It is our joy to have you here. My name is Arthur Jones. I'm one of the pastors here at St. Andrew and it is our joy to welcome you here, both online and in person to our opening worship. And so on behalf of St. Andrew, we'll be hosting this annual conference. We have had two years of hosting annual conference and they have both looked very different but it is our joy and our privilege to host as we begin worship. Thanks for being here. For things when member of the family lives together in love and peace. They shall be treated. Hey, the church be one, just a Christ and God are one that Christ may be glorifying us. They shall be. The grace, mercy and peace of the Lord Jesus be with you all. Let us and worship God to reconcile others by the spirit. We trust God. We are called to be the church, to celebrate God's presence, to live in respect with creation, to love and serve others, to seek justice and resist evil, to proclaim Jesus crucified, risen, our judge and our hope. In life, in death, beyond death, God is with us. We are not alone. Thanks be to God. Amen. You may be seated. And I invite you to read along, remembering who we are. Let us remember together. We, the people called United Methodists, affirm our faith in God, our Creator and Father, in Jesus Christ our Savior and in the Holy Spirit our guide and guide. Dependence upon God in birth, in life, in death and in life eternal. Securing God's love, we affirm the goodness of life and confess our many sins against God's will for us as we find it in Jesus Christ. We have not always been faithful towards of all that has been committed to us by God the Creator. We have been reluctant followers of Jesus Christ in his mission to bring all persons into a community of love. Though called by the Holy Spirit to become new creatures in Christ, we have resisted the first further call to become the people of God in our dealings with each other and the earth on which we live. We affirm our unity in Jesus Christ while acknowledging differences in applying our faith in different cultural contexts as we live out the gospel. We stand united in declaring our faith that God's grace is available to all that nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus. Grateful for God's forgiving love in which we live and by which we are judged and affirming our belief in the inestimable worth of each individual, we renew our commitment to become faithful witnesses to the gospel, not alone to the ends of earth but also to the depths of our common life and work. The image you have shaped within us mysteriously, incredibly, a reflection of your own being is best seen in the multiple refractions of our variegated humanity, the prismatic kaleidoscope and the prismatic kaleidoscope of our shared life, our interconnectedness, our being with each other. We seek you God, we long for you and thankfully you are not far off. Not hidden. We need only remember that you are most easily found when we find you together and when we are humble enough to look even in the faces we find most strange and unfamiliar. In loving God, again we have gathered together to begin an annual conference in North Texas. As is our tradition and our custom, oh God, we have gathered as clergy and laity but there is something different this year that we have done. The sum of us have gathered in place in this sanctuary. While many others are worshiping with us virtually, we hope, oh God, that our choices that we have made over these past several months have been pleasing in your sight. As together as a people of God, we have sought to do no harm during this season that has lasted so long and which have claimed so many lives. We're grateful, oh God, for our clergy and our laity, and our churches in North Texas and the way in which they have continued to serve you and to serve those within their communities by offering the light of Christ, by a significant word, even virtually on a Sunday morning and other time of the week or simply by a very simple act we have all sought to do that which is pleasing and to do that which has created good. We are grateful for this time together this evening as we do worship and we know that the spirit moves throughout those who are present here with you tonight, either at St. Andrew's or virtually. We know that there'll be a rekindling perhaps even of your will in our own lives and that you will challenge us in new and unique ways. We're grateful for Bishop Gregory Vaughan Palmer who will bring the word this night for the witness that he will share. We're grateful that he can be with us virtually and sharing with us about what love does, has got to do with it. And so God, as we continue this worship, continue to kindle in our hearts for your mission. For it's the name of the risen Christ that I pray on behalf of all the people of North Texas and together we say, Amen. Because of my knowledge of God's true secret, I have been made to suffer. But don't be discouraged. My suffering brings honor to you so I bow in prayer before the Father. Good start, humble-ish. Yes, let them see we're one of them. Okay, yeah, but remember, we're the authority. We've seen Christ with our own eyes. Yes, we're teaching them. Every family in heaven and on earth gets its true name from God. So the Father in his great love gives you a strong spirit. Be careful. We don't want to talk down to them. They're not children. But they are children. How many letters have we sent them, telling them the truth, but they fight amongst themselves over who believes the right way? Who worships the right way? I'm gonna lose it. All right, let's calm down for a minute. Look, let's just hold on to ourselves here. We don't wanna lose sight of the gold. I pray that Christ will live in your hearts and that your lives will have deep roots in love, a firm foundation on which to build. I pray that you and all God's holy people will come to understand the greatness of Christ's love and to know how wide, how high, how long and how deep that love is. Now we're cooking. Yes, draw them in. Yeah, then drop the hammer and close the deal. Take it easy. We don't wanna scare them off. But they have to know how important this is. Their very souls hang in the balance. We're not messing around here. This is the truth. Yes, you're right, you're right. But let's try to love them and open the door, invite them in. Christ's love is greater than anyone can possibly know beyond our human comprehension. But even so, I pray with all my heart that you will know that love, then you will know God. And with that love working in us, God can do so much more than we can possibly ask or even imagine glory to God and Christ forever and ever. They're beautiful guys. Introduce to you my good friend who is with us virtually who will be preaching and bringing the word this evening, Bishop Gregory Vaughn Palmer. Bishop Palmer is a native of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is a son of the church. His father was a pastor in Philadelphia at Tinley Temple. Bishop Palmer is a graduate of Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. in Duke Divinity School. And following that education, he went to East Ohio Annual Conference where he served for a number of years until he was elected a bishop. He served as a local church pastor and as district superintendent and was elected to the Episcopacy, I believe in the year 2000. Bishop Palmer is one of the most creative preachers in our church today. He always brings a very good word. He also speaks not only from just his heart but from the deepest part of his soul. Being able to wed together social mercy and justice, he's the way in which probably he is a complete package as a communicator. He's been with the Clergy the North Texas Conference before at Clergy Day a year and a half ago. And which he shared with us that day on the work of what it means to do anti-racism work. Using the baptismal vows as a guide for that. It's my pleasure to introduce to you one of my very good friends and a trusted advisor, mentor and counselor, Bishop Palmer. And we will hear him after the reading of the text from Ephesians. The scripture reading comes from Ephesians chapter three versus 14 through 21. For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and earth takes its name. I pray that according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his spirit and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith as you're being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, the length, the height and depth and to know the love of Christ as their past knowledge so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask for imagine to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever amen. This is the word of God for the people of God. Thanks be to God. To Bishop and Mrs. McKee and to all of you who are the members and leaders of the North Texas annual conference, grace and peace to you from Jesus Christ. I counted a great honor to be with you via this digital medium and I am grateful that your Bishop and my friend Bishop McKee preached for the West Ohio annual conference which we just adjourned a few days ago using the same medium and technology. Thank you Bishop McKee for doing that and for the many ways that we have partnered in ministry and most of all for your friendship. Oh love that will not let me go. I rest my weary soul in thee. I give thee back the life I owe that in vine ocean depths its flow may richer, fuller be. Grant O eternal one that the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts may find in acceptance in thy sight. O Lord our strength and our redeemer. Amen. Dear friends in North Texas, your theme for this annual conference session rooted in love has already been a blessing to me. It is mostly because I can't stop humming and singing and I confess to you that I go back and forth and all around humming or singing or reciting the words of songs that may be referred to as so-called sacred and other songs that come from the larger culture that is outside the church and yet in many ways is fully a part of the church. Just a moment ago when I prayed I use a hymn. I use the poetic words of that Scottish preacher George Matheson in his hymn entitled, O love that will not let me go. This pastor preacher who began losing his sight at age 15 and was totally blind I'm told by age 18 speaks of the writing of this hymn and says that it came to him out of great anguish and suffering. There can only be and has only been speculation about the details of that anguish or that suffering but one of the stories I heard early on as a young preacher and pastor had to do with him having a deep love relationship with a young woman that he believed would be his wife as the story goes. But ultimately she severed the bond, she walked away, she ended the relationship because it was difficult for her to imagine being with someone for the rest of her life who was not physically sighted. When she broke or walked away from that relationship so to speak, his response according to this tale was to look to God and to cry out and to seek assurance from God and in God that God's love never leaves us, never forsakes us, God's love never walks away, God's love never cuts the tie, God's love never severs the cord. We may never know for sure the precise genesis of Matheson's words but we cannot miss the meaning of them. His was a cry of both anguish and assurance mixed together with a declaration or an affirmation of faith and he declared in this hymn, God's love will never let us go with magnificent and soaring poetry. How could it my friends? That is, how could God's love ever let us go when indeed creation itself is from a theological perspective an act of love? Our very human existence bespeaks the love of God if you read the narrative in Genesis and if you listen to the poetic interpretation of James Weldon Johnson who in his volume entitled God's Trombones has seven sermons coming out of the African American church and preaching tradition that he has put in magnificent verse and in his piece called the creation. There is this scene after God has spoken the world into being, God has declared there to be light, God has created all parts of the creation and then James Weldon Johnson depicts God anthropologically sitting down on a side of a hill the poetry says where God could think and then the poet goes on to say that God held God's head in God's hand and out of his own loneliness it says he thought and he thought and he thought and then he said I'll make human kind. Can you imagine how could God ever cut the cord with us when we exist out of God's love and God's imaginativeness and God's yearning for community to be in relationship not only with the fullness of God's self which we can never completely conceive but to be in communion and community with other aspects of God's creation of which we are apart. What's more not only are we created all along with the rest of creation out of God's heart and out of God's love and out of God's largesse but we are sustained by God's love even in our brokenness with all as one preacher said of our derelections and delinquencies where we stray from the heart of God's love. Everything that we know about God especially if we read the biblical record and when we think about our own relationship with God individually and collectively suggests to us that God's love is pure it's unadulterated it is relentless God is in relentless pursuit of us because God desires relationship and even when we have gone astray God seeks to be in relationship with us and God bids us turn to God again. God bids us if you take some of the biblical images come home, find your heart in God again. We are God's creation God created us out of love and God's love for us will never be revoked. I referred earlier to my inability to think about the theme of love and not find myself singing or humming or reciting the words of some song either out of the Christian faith tradition or out of a larger cultural experience. And sometimes the songs of the larger culture speak to us of love or dare I say of the failure to love or of unrequited love or of love that seems elusive just as effectively as some of the hymns of the faith though they may not reference God but also these songs about love from the larger culture speak to us of the risk of love and the vulnerability of love and maybe that is what we fear we will experience being at risk if we love being vulnerable if we love being exposed if we love if we open our hearts to others there is the risk that they will be broken we will be hurt if we are generous with others there is the risk that we may not receive generosity in return is that what Tina Turner was saying as I have seized upon her famous song which I have used as the title of this homily what's love got to do with it? Can you hear her? She says you must understand how the touch of your hand makes my pulse react that it's only the thrill of a boy meeting girl opposites a track it's physical only logical you must try to ignore that it means more than that oh oh what's love got to do with it? What's love she queries but a secondhand emotion what's love got to do with it? Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken if you and I were to exegete in community this song she's saying a lot both at the surface and beneath the surface about the nature of love about the risk of love about vulnerability about our natural physical needs and inclinations in or out of love but she raises the question about encounters between people who would be lovers what's love got to do with it as the Christian community we have a response and an answer to that called covenant and relationship and sometimes marriage but Tina Turner out of her own experience I mean I understand this is popular music and that there is a financial motive as well but often we sing our joys as well as our pains and her question continues what's love got to do with it what's love but a secondhand emotion who needs a heart when a heart can be broken or may I turn to the songs of Roberta Flack and Donnie Hathaway again in the form of a question they say six times five times where is the love where is the love and then in the verses you said you give to me as soon as you were free will it ever be where is the love you told me that you didn't love him and you were gonna say goodbye but if you really didn't mean it why did you have to lie and Hathaway and Flack come back again and they keep asking over and over and over and over and over again of this song where is the love these two songs speak of frustrations shall we say of personal and romantic love they speak of the desire for relationship but feeling that either trust has been broken or I should never give my heart in trust again these feelings are not left only to us in personal one on one kind of romantic relationships they come up in our friendships they come up in our working relationships even in the church have we not heard people cry out in a moment of frustration when there has been enmity and strife where is the love and oh not to be too lost in the world of romance as we keep singing our way through this theme rooted in love Marvin Gaye raised this to a new level a social level a systemic level when he pointed out the poverty of love in our society particularly in the 60s and 70s and the call by gay Marvin Gaye that it's renewal our renewal as a society that was fair and just and whole that the only path to a redeemed and healed social future was in asking the question what's going on and in responding with love can you hear him mother mother there's too many of us crying brother brother brother there's far too many of you dying you know we've got to find a way to bring some lovin' here today he goes on father father we don't need to escalate you see war is not the answer for only love can conquer hate you know we've got to find a way to bring some lovin' here today in and out of the church the song traditions of the human family deal with matters of love one on one and at a social and systemic level that we must take seriously they speak to that which we yearn for the most and that which we need the most indeed we begin our lives rooted in love because we are created out of God's love but our rootedness your theme y'all gets tested all the time even for those of us of Christian faith that which is rooted must always struggle to stay rooted because if you take the botanical viewpoint or the agrarian viewpoint that which is rooted in the plant world is always subject to the vicissitudes of wind and water and drought and scorch and in our personal lives we refer to this inability to keep faith with love dare I say to be uprooted as our own human sinfulness and it is true also at a social and systemic level whether we are struggling with the temptation to be other than loving in our personal or our societal relationships when we are wrestling with systemic evil may I say to you the call to us as the followers of Jesus Christ is to always let all of our thoughts all of our actions all of our responses be shaped by the love of God that we have seen in the life death and resurrection of Jesus Christ I did not say that it was easy and I'm abundantly aware that sometimes victims and abused parties are the ones that feel like the burden of mercy grace forgiveness and love is on them but for us in Christ at the foot of the cross the call to live our way into love even as we dismantle the isms and the evils of our age it must be rooted and grounded in love let me say it even more strongly you and I are never released even when we've gone astray and felt ourselves uprooted from the call and the command to love we may excuse ourselves by saying well we're only human but I stop by to tell you we never get a pass on love it is not as though God's commandment to love God neighbor and self is not a directive it is not a suggestion that says to us listen Greg love only if and when convenient oh but I'm fighting evil well I may be in a fight but Paul said to the Corinthians in the second correspondence the weapons of our warfare are not carnal or fleshly but they are mighty to the pulling down of strongholds no the call of God to love is for all times and for all situations no matter how difficult we will fail we have failed the call to love does not go away our personal relationships should never be cheapened or commodified and we should not walk away from them acting as if love is not the calling claim upon our lives no matter the hurt we feel because of love we must always be answering the question of who are our neighbors and responding out of the heart of Jesus and seeing all of those around us through the eyes of Jesus we must fight against being sucked into love and law arguments as if we can compartmentalize our lives that neatly and cleanly no we must fight to love and we must fight for love because hate enmity strife alienation and indifference see sometimes we act like we're not hating on each other we're just being cool and indifferent no even indifference is too costly to the human spirit and to the reign of God and to the witness of the church and as Dr. King and others have said only love can drive out hate as Marvin Gaye says only love conquers hate perhaps this struggle is why forgiveness and reconciliation are so hard the hurt has sometimes personally or systemically and socially been so deep and it has gone on for so long that we don't know where to dig in to begin where to pick up it just seems easier to keep on hating or being indifferent or living apart or living unreconciled with the people around us Rabbi Jonathan Sacks who's death last year I still mourn had been chief rabbi of his part of the Jewish world in England for over 20 years in a volume that I go back and read portions of every year entitled the dignity of difference how to avoid the clash of civilizations tells a story near the end of the book about Laura Blumenfeld who has her own book about revenge and its limitations Laura is a young Jewish woman at the time of this incident that Sacks recounts whose father was shot in the old city in Jerusalem in 1986 by a Palestinian terrorist she went on to become a journalist her father was not killed though his life obviously was changed and the life of his family was changed as a part of her own search for healing and hope and a new future which was laced with tones of revenge in her journalistic career she ended up in the Middle East and she befriended the family of the gunman who had shot her father in the old city and she even began a correspondence with the terrorist who himself was imprisoned she visited with the family and they did not know who she was she had not disclosed that she treated it as if she was just writing a story and she recited any number of incidences in which they or other members of the Palestinian community might have been involved and the shooter's father tried to explain that it was the duty out of rectifying a painful history that his son or son's actions were what they were she goes on to testify at the trial having heard even the shooter's brothers say this was just my brother's duty it was nothing personal and while she was on the stand testifying at Omar's trial he has a name eventually her goal was to help this family and the whole world see that it may not be personal to them but it was personal to her that was her father, that was her dad that was her past and she was his future as she's testifying at the trial her mother stands in the back of the courtroom at first Laura does not know it's her just a voice that blurts out I forgive Omar for what he did and then she continues and it is time for the state of Israel to forgive him Laura is flustered flabbergasted when she realizes that not only this unwelcome word to live into forgiveness is being spoken at all but that it's coming from her own mother but they get through it and Laura and her mother walk out of the courtroom embracing and holding each other in tears and then Omar's family follows them and there are words of healing hope and reconciliation there is some embrace of biblical proportions if you read some of the stories of reconciliation especially in the book of Genesis and then this note comes from Omar the gunman to Laura who says we have been in a state of war and now we are passing through a new stage of historical reconciliation there is no place for hatred and detestation Rabbi Sax goes on to comment after he narrates this journey of the Blumenfeld family and I quote now love is more than a possession it is a part of the ability to let go and without it we kill what we most love every act of forgiveness he continues men's something broken in this fractured world the call to love is always a call to heal it is not a syrupy thing it is not only about roses and flowers and hugs and kisses and embraces among family members and neighbors love is about acting out and living in to the healing of broken relationships and so I ask of you hearing this narrative and thinking about your own theme how might any of this speak to a fractured united methodist church how might acts of healing and reconciliation help us as united methodist you in the north texas conference me in the west ohio conference us in the general and jurisdictional and central conferences how might this recollection that we are called to love at all times which sometimes means the hard work of healing and redemption and forgiveness how might we truly conference or confer together through the lenses of love and healing and dare I say hope as I prepare to close I'm struck by a verse of scripture that I am not aware that I had paid attention to until I was about 19 years old I was at a Sunday evening service at Cynthia my wife's home church in south Philadelphia and they were having a series of Sunday evening Linton services you know the drill a preacher came from a neighboring church he pulled a little black New Testament out of his pocket I don't even know how he read it the print was so small that I couldn't have read it when I was 19 years old he opened that New Testament and he turned to the 13th chapter of the gospel of John and he read one verse and here is a portion of the verse for now the background is Passover is coming Jesus is getting ready for the festival along with others and here this portion of John 13 one it references Jesus it's the narrators commentary the gospel writers telling of it and he says having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end I told you that love healing forgiveness redemption and hope were sometimes hard work they were not the thing of chocolates and roses only they were not the thing of going along to get along to get along to get along to get along to get along they were the thing of truth telling of accountability but truth telling and accountability that was not intended to cancel you but intended to call you in to a new healed and redeemed and truthful relationship I need to tell you I hate I hate God help me I hate the idea of the cancel culture because I'm absolutely persuaded that the mindset the philosophy the theology if there is one of a cancel culture is that there is no redemption a cancel culture ends up in war that is unrestricted where we go into the Coliseum and somebody ultimately dies but he who stands or she who conquers today will have their own head cut off in the future a cancel culture cuts off redemption and allows us to be sucked into a culture where we impose the death penalty and impose it with a great unevenness I could go on and on and on and I'm back to John 13 and one having loved his own who were in the world he loved them to the end and that's the kind of love you and I have been called who do you love all the way to the end and for whom would you go to the lens that Jesus of Nazareth went because of his love for us and he was acting out the heart of the love of God who I said to you earlier whose love was so unrelenting that it chases us down and keeps giving us alter call after alter call invitation after invitation and so I close with a song I began with a song I can't stop from singing about this love thing I'm a Wesleyan after all and can't you hear Charles Wesley saying love divine all loves excelling joy of heaven to earth come down fix in us this is an ongoing project of love sticks in us a dwelling is something that you build from the ground up it's gotta be rooted, it's gotta be anchored it's gotta be fixed and Wesley goes on all thy faithful mercies crown Jesus thou art all compassion pure unbounded love thou art visit us thy salvation but not just not just me enter every trembling heart I told you if you start exegeting these hymns and these songs you'll get religion right tonight but then we come to that closing verse I love it where Wesley says finish then thy new creation pure and spotless let us be let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee saints I came by to tell you when love is hard and tough and when you don't feel like it maybe you just ought to send up a shaft of prayer and say master finish by new creation finish by new creation I'm not all that I ought to be I'm not what I used to be but I'm not yet all that I ought to be I'm not through with me with you with the church yet finish by new creation pure and spotless let us be let us see thy great salvation perfectly restored in thee change from glory into glory till in heaven we take our place till we cast our crowns before thee watch this now lost in wonder lost in love and lost in praise it was love in the beginning it's love all the way through despite our derelections and delinquencies and it will be love that will bring us safely in in the name of God who creates and who sanctifies the church in the world Amen Good evening Good evening Thank you I knew I was following the sermon and I had no idea we were following that sermon and gosh I feel like we should be singing right now about love but I am honored to be here thank you so much to the conference for letting us share the story of project transformation tonight I'm Kirsten James I'm the executive director of project transformation North Texas and with me is Shirley Ramirez one of our PT core members and she's going to tell you a little bit more about us in a minute and as many of you know project transformation was founded 23 years ago as a mission of this conference out of the United Methodist Church of North Texas and our mission is to transform communities by engaging children, college age young adults in churches in purposeful relationships and we envision a world that is rooted in love pursues the equity of all people and amplifies God's call on every voice and we do this mission through free after school and summer programs in churches and underserved communities with college age young adults doing the program themselves and discerning their vocation and what they want to do in life so our summer program started two weeks ago kind of with after school and then we start full day camps in two weeks and this summer it is more important than ever with the educational challenges the social isolation brought on by the pandemic by COVID-19 and so now I'm going to let Shirley tell you a little bit about it was like for her growing up in project transformation and now this summer as the site coordinator at Walnut Hill United Methodist Church Good evening welcome to this conference as Kirsten has introduced me as I'm the site coordinator of Walnut Hill this summer well in a few words I will try to describe my whole experience in PT so far I've grown up in the program since I was 12 years old I'm currently 20 years old so I've been in this program for quite some time and to say the least it's transformed me like the name project transformation really changed your life being in this program since that young of an age has actually helped me so much it's put me it's helped me through such hard times in my life as well going into this program at first I thought it was just a regular summer program and I thought it was just there just to get away from home for a little bit and just enjoy the day but as time went on I found that it is really just like a big family that you do make there especially with all the friends that you meet from all over Texas and all over national and now that I get to work with so many new people especially some of my friends that I work with now they're from all over the United States and it's amazing it's so great that this is such a great opportunity for all of us especially through all of the ages kids and college age adults we are volunteers that help us so much with our reading program and the kids love that the kids adore having somebody to read with since they just love that attention and just it just helps so much to have people around and to help change this community and it's been such an amazing time and I hope I get to work with it for more years thank you Shirley, thank you for all your contributions to project transformation Shirley is at University of Texas of Arlington an education major and hopefully some of you will be volunteering this summer and we may see you out at one of our site churches and so now if you will join me in prayer God of all bounding and blessings the gifts we offer you are like seeds some will take root nearby and we will see them grow and bear fruit some will be carried far beyond where we can see and we have faith and good soil and thrive we thank you for the privilege of being called to so bless with the joy of good fruit the seed that we will see and the seed we will never see and we pray this in the loving name of Jesus Gardener and Savior Amen thank you so much for your offering today for those here in person there are baskets at the back and if you are online there is a link on the live stream page and as Shirley said we thank all of you who have already donated so much to the project transformation north Texas with your time your treasure and your talents thank you so much it has been good to worship together in this place and virtually I remind everyone that we begin tomorrow at nine o'clock in the morning and so I look forward to being with you then and remind you that tomorrow evening at seven o'clock is the service of commissioning and ordination in which we will commission those who are provisional candidates for ministry and ordain and elders all are welcome to come and be present here in the sanctuary at St. Andrew United Methodist Church tomorrow evening at seven o'clock will you receive this benediction may we bear the love of Christ in this world so that each stranger we meet may find in us generous friends and now we leave this place for the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the love of our God and the unity and communion of the Holy Spirit and all God's people said amen God bless you