LAKELAND — With a processional celebrating and recognizing the 10 new church starts in the Florida Conference during the past year, the Dare to Share Jesus 2000 Florida Annual Conference Event officially began May 30.

"That is the greatest number of church starts in the Florida Conference in the last 38 years," Florida Bishop Cornelius L. Henderson said. Citing the ministries that received grants through the Council of Bishops’ Initiative on Children and Poverty (BICAP), Henderson said the Florida Conference is "already toward the front of the line in creative ministry."

"What we have done is great," he said, "but the real task is ahead of us."

In the past four years, the BICAP task force has given $375,154 to 104 Florida Conference churches and ministries working with children, the Rev. Barbara Odom, pastor of Lakewood United Methodist Church in St. Petersburg and chairwoman of the task force, said. "Many children’s lives have been affected and improved because of your generosity."

Despite these accomplishments, Odom said there is still a lot of work to be done. Five million children in the United States do not have health care and an equal number of school-age children are left alone at home after school, she said. More than 13.5 million are poor, and 5.8 million live in extreme poverty. "A child is reported neglected or abused every 12 seconds," she said.

Odom reminded delegates that the Council of Bishops has also asked the church to focus on Africa. Henderson himself has challenged the Florida Conference to build a school for orphans in Mozambique. "God has done great things for us in the Florida Conference over the past four years…now we need to freely give," Odom said.

Following Odom’s presentation, an offering was taken to support BICAP and Hope for the Children of Africa. Nearly $33,280 was received.

During his opening sermon, Henderson said the United States has one of the highest child poverty rates among developed nations, with one quarter of American children living in poverty. Families with children are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population. "There is a temptation to become a bit hopeless, a bit frustrated, a bit dismal as the clouds of doubt hover above us," he said.

Using examples from the African-American struggle for acceptance and respect in American society since the American Civil War, Henderson said hope is often greatest when times are tough. During the Reconstruction era of the 1860s after Federal troops were pulled out of the south, black people enjoyed more prosperity in education, business and religion than they do today, Henderson said.

That hope and prosperity comes from roots and traditions that are passed from one generation to the next, he said, adding, "Don’t abandon the traditions of our African and European roots, because they are spiritual."

Henderson also called on delegates to maintain their faith in God who is "not limited…immobilized…imprisoned…static or…staid," and not to be "comfortable in easy optimism and shallow faith."

Painless solutions are not effective, the bishop said, adding that answers to some of the issues facing the church and the Florida Conference may be found in changing the way the church operates. "Ezekiel taught the people to praise outside of the temple," he said. "Is our faith strong enough to survive a change in our conditions and circumstances?"

Following the bishop’s sermon, the Rev. Riley Short, pastor of First United Methodist Church, Lakeland, and chairman of the conference’s episcopacy committee, announced Henderson will return to serve another four years as episcopal leader of the Florida Annual Conference.