PNW General Conference Delegation Meeting

And so it begins.

Friday evening was the first meeting of the delegation from the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference to the General and Jurisdictional Conferences.

We received words of encouragement and support from Bishop Paup and a report regarding a study of the Episcopacy from Rachel Lieder Simeon the Alaska Missionary Conference Superintendent.

Following dinner we received news that the connectional table of the Annual Conference has elected to fund the travel for all of the General Conference reserves! So as the second reserve my basic expenses will be paid for! This enables us to have an observer at all but one of the General Conference committees. I will be the observer of the Committee on Discipleship. The reports should be available sometime in January so I can begin studying all the legislative proposals. (I understand that there will be a great deal of reading to do.)

Essentially this meeting was an opportunity for the veterans of General Conference and for us rookies to become acquainted with one another and our task at hand. We set a schedule for our future meetings and discussed some possible agenda items for our future meetings.

We received our first reality check of the United Methodist Church in the Western U.S.. The Western Jurisdiction is by far the smallest in the denomination. The seven Annual Conferences of the Western Jurisdiction will be sending 40 delegates to General Conference. The other delegations are as follows:

North Central 138

Northeastern 126

South Central 148

Southeastern 252

Central Conferences 268

The two Annual Conferences in Georgia will be sending 40 delegates equalling the whole of the Western Jurisdiction delegation.

There was some discussion about the difficulties of balancing Spiritual Health in the midst of a very political process. Stories of past hurts from those who had attended before were shared. There was also a sharing of some hoped for guidelines of behavior for those participating in the conference. These guidelines are essentially those used this past summer by an international gathering of youth and young adult United Methodists in South Africa. You can find an article about them here: http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.3082929/apps/nl/content3.asp?content_id={2B1F5695-20AD-47C1-BAC7-18E6878B6063}&notoc=1

I hope that the various delegations and interest groups can follow these basic ideas. If followed equally I believe that there can be a great opportunity for some relationship building during the General Conference session.

I am concerned primarily about the relationships within the church. Unfortunately, I do not go expecting dramatic change for the full inclusion of homosexual people in the life of the church. However, I deeply pray that there will be an opportunity for relationship building so that some who disagree with me regarding the full inclusion of homosexual people will hear the story of the people of Longview United Methodist Church and how being an open and inclusive church has saved the church and saved lives of people who have come into contact with the ministry of LUMC. If our evangelical goal is to save people for Jesus Christ I welcome the opportunity to share the evangelical work of a small town church that is active in the work of making Disciples for Jesus Christ.