The Best of all is God with us

                              The First Methodist Conference of Sri Lanka, 1814            The month of August every year is significant for the people called Methodists in Sri Lanka. The Annual Conference of the Methodist Church meets in Colombo for its annual deliberations. The Methodist clergy and lay leaders representing different parts of the island gather for deliberations on the mission work of the church. The gathering elects the President Bishop, the Vice-President and other officials for a term and is the supreme decision-making body of the Church. The annual Conference is a great tradition of Methodism, introduced by John Wesley in 1744. John Wesley has recorded the following: "In June 1744, I desired my brother and a few other clergymen to meet me in London to consider how we should proceed to save our own souls and those who heard us. After some time, I invited the lay preachers that were in the house to meet with us." The first Methodist Conference on Sri

  The Spirit of Judas in Modern Churches Judas is mostly remembered for his betrayal of Jesus. But this is not the whole truth about Judas. When looking deeper into the relationship between Jesus and Judas, it seems that he would have been an admirer of Jesus as the expected Messiah. Otherwise, later, how did Jesus choose Judas to be one of his twelve apostles? The twelve apostles spent time together, travelled together, and shared meals together with Jesus. Jesus seems to have developed confidence in Judas to the extent of appointing him as the keeper of the common purse (treasurer). Jesus may have chosen him for what he was and what he might have been, not for what he became! However, at the anointing of Jesus by Mary in Lazarus’ home, another side of Judas’ life is revealed (John 12: 1ff) …Judas Iscariot, who was later to betray him, objected, "Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages. Isn’t Judas repeating almost the same thin