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The seven-member Eden Korean Women’s choir sang at the beginning and end of the service.

Bishop Yeakel read Scripture from Revelation 21:1-6 before Bishop Kenneth Carter from the Florida Conference preached on “The Other Side of the River.” He used as his text Luke 3:21-22.

Carter was elected to the episcopacy in 2012.  His older daughter lives in the area and is a member of a United Methodist church in Maryland.  Carter is the author of eight books, most recently “Pray for Me: The Power in Praying for Others.”

Carter said that baptism, whether in a river immersion, done by a bishop at annual conference as his first daughter was, or renewed at the River Jordan, “is a set-apart immersion into this life of death and resurrection of Jesus.” Baptism began in the Exodus, when the Hebrews on the journey went through the Red Sea, he said.  It is a set-apart immersion into this life of the death and resurrection of Jesus.  

Like Moses, some of us avoided this call to ministry, Carter said, referring to the clergy being remembered. “But somewhere along the way we waded into those waters and Jesus came with us. We knew we were not alone.”

“In your journey it must have seemed like a huge leap of faith to cross those waters,” he said. “Sometimes your journeys must have seemed like a wilderness – new parsonages, new people, new communities, learning to live one day at a time. ... But there were also times when you could say, ‘I’m doing what God created me to do,’ and that God’s story was your story.

“As we remember these men and women today, we can see their faces, hear their laughter. We call this the connection,” he said.

“Perhaps you, like me, now have more friends on the other side of the river than on this side. Along this journey they blessed us.  …  They stood in the river of life with us. If we listen, they are singing to us. We sing back, ‘Yes, we’ll gather at the river, gather with the saints at the river that flows from the throne of God.’”

“We remember with thanksgiving and celebrate the life of …” said the Rev. Mary Jo Sims, as she solemnly read one by one the name of each bishop, bishop’s spouse, clergy, clergy spouse, or lay person who had died since annual conference last year. A family member or friend lit a candle and placed it on the altar while the congregation sang prayers.

Following the recessional, “Shall We Gather at the River,” the guests were invited to a luncheon.