Just finished dinner. I attended a SMU Perkins School of Theology social. Free food, awkward social interactions. I ended up sitting next to a guy from Nebraska that seemed to be on his own as well. I was hoping to bump into someone I knew, but there wasn't anyone. It was always odd to be a person from the west at Perkins. The vast majority of Perkins people are from the South Central Jurisdiction and most of them are from Texas. They have all sorts of established networks and don't really seem to know how to talk with someone that is out of their networking zone. No one really cares who I am, I will never be their D.S. Well, it was free food.
Other random notes about General Conference . . .
Our first committee meeting was excruciatingly long and tedious. It took over an hour to elect a chair, vice chair and secretary!!! The process was interesting in an observer sociological point of view. After electing two men as chair and vice chair three women were nominated for secretary. Ah, gender roles gotta love them! Can't wait until we start debating the hymnal and fun things like that.
The weather has cooled off. Its only 75 and muggy. Although ,many of the PNW folks are complaining. I realize that I must have really been a pain when I was a student and moaning about the weather. Its a wonder Kendra married me.
I have made plans to catch up with my buddy Wes who has just taken an associate position after spending the past several years in Cameroon as a missionary. I am planning to drive out to his church on Sunday and spend some time with him. I will have to skip a few things to do it but hey if a reserve delegate has to have some privlidges.
Peace Y'all
Thursday, April 24, 2008
Middway through Day 2
Two cool cats hanging out in the hallway. Patrick and Marie are wearing "Spotted Owl" hats. These have become the symbol for younger clergy and some of the issues being brought forward to assist the church in recruiting and retaining clergy under 35 or 40 or 45. I'm not really sure what the line for younger is presently.I had been getting frustrated last night and today with Bishops talking about how our differences need to be set aside so that we could do ministry. The unspoken implication seemed to be that diversity was not a value of the General Conference. I don't think this is what they meant. Yet so far the presentations of the Bishop's has seemed to be of a tone that we need magically set aside our differences and get along. I grew frustrated at their lack of naming the differences. I have some great friends in ministry with whom I disagree about many things. Those differences are valued and while sometimes they are difficult to work through in our friendships we do not hide our diversity of opinion or our beliefs. The bishops have seemed to want to hide everything under a rug.
Then we had the "Young People's Address." Apparently this was the first time that there has been such a thing and they did a remarkable job. They spoke of the difference between speaking over each other and talking with each other. The pointed to poverty as the greatest world wide challenge in front of us. They called for the church to be a place where young people belong. I was especially moved by a young man from Nebraska who said that "It is time to transcend the division." He spoke of his life experience as a high school liberal in a conservative area. Then of his experience as a person of faith in a liberal college. He called for us to follow the Wesley tradition of following religion and reason together. I remember him saying both liberal and conservative (or did he say "red and "blue"?) are right! Then Matt from the PNWAC closed the presentation. He spoke of a world that is desperate for Jesus. He encouraged us to interact with one another. He pointed out that it is not only the young who are the church of today and tomorrow, the delegates are also the church of tomorrow!
Three times I heard the young people name some of our divisions and say the word "gay." The word the Bishops have been so afraid to say. The young people named our divisions so NOW we can be the church. We can interact with each other in authenticity, whether we agree or not. It was a dramatic moment to have the youth and young adults lead in such a powerful way when the Bishops could not or would not.
Committee meetings this afternoon and evening. Yippee!
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Day 1 finished
Picture is from Communion service.It is presently 11:43 P.M. local time.
Worship began at 6:00 with a wonderful presentation of music and dance. I chuckled some when even at General Conference the sound system was imperfect with the occasional feedback and on one song the song leader and the person running the video screen got out of sync. Just like our local churches! I was also a bit amused that while we will be voting on creating a new hymnal we don't use them at General Conference. There was a printed order of the service but everything was displayed on the four large screens around the auditorium. Why do we need that new hymnal?
Bishop Huie gave the sermon using the conference theme "A future with hope." I forgot to take notes during the sermon. I remember one example of hope becoming a marshmallow word, such as "I hope I can help" being a way to say "I would rather not." Instead we were encouraged to live into the hope of the risen Christ. A hope that is for something not yet seen but that can be realized.
The first business of the conference was primarily housekeeping. The bar for voting was set as the main floor of the auditorium. They tested the voting system. 90% of the delegate voted that they were present. Leaving 10% who apparently thought it would be funny to vote that they were not present. In bigger news John was voted as the most respected Apostle followed closely by John. Judas got 120 votes. Again, delegate humor.
So with the voting system in full operation it was time to vote for the rules of the conference. TWO HOURS. It took two hours to vote for the rules. There were amendments, questions and referrals. At least one time it took a youth delegate to notice that a whole section of the rules had been skipped. Thank God for YOUTH!
We also heard from the Commission of the General Conference. Apparently they put on this whole shindig. They have a petition to reduce the maximum number of delegates from 1,000 to 600. I am not a fan of this idea. Primarily I object to reducing the number of delegates as we are trying to become a world wide church. Small conferences like the PNW could be reduced to two or four voting delegates and it wasn't all that long ago that we had ten.
We were told that the attendance for worship this evening was about 6,500. I love that they announced that. It could create a game like guessing the attendance at Safeco Field. It seemed like about 4,000 of those 6,500 left immediately after worship.
Finally we witnessed a video and heard from a couple of speakers on the topic of diversity and sensitivity training. Delegates were encouraged to:
Worship began at 6:00 with a wonderful presentation of music and dance. I chuckled some when even at General Conference the sound system was imperfect with the occasional feedback and on one song the song leader and the person running the video screen got out of sync. Just like our local churches! I was also a bit amused that while we will be voting on creating a new hymnal we don't use them at General Conference. There was a printed order of the service but everything was displayed on the four large screens around the auditorium. Why do we need that new hymnal?
Bishop Huie gave the sermon using the conference theme "A future with hope." I forgot to take notes during the sermon. I remember one example of hope becoming a marshmallow word, such as "I hope I can help" being a way to say "I would rather not." Instead we were encouraged to live into the hope of the risen Christ. A hope that is for something not yet seen but that can be realized.
The first business of the conference was primarily housekeeping. The bar for voting was set as the main floor of the auditorium. They tested the voting system. 90% of the delegate voted that they were present. Leaving 10% who apparently thought it would be funny to vote that they were not present. In bigger news John was voted as the most respected Apostle followed closely by John. Judas got 120 votes. Again, delegate humor.
So with the voting system in full operation it was time to vote for the rules of the conference. TWO HOURS. It took two hours to vote for the rules. There were amendments, questions and referrals. At least one time it took a youth delegate to notice that a whole section of the rules had been skipped. Thank God for YOUTH!
We also heard from the Commission of the General Conference. Apparently they put on this whole shindig. They have a petition to reduce the maximum number of delegates from 1,000 to 600. I am not a fan of this idea. Primarily I object to reducing the number of delegates as we are trying to become a world wide church. Small conferences like the PNW could be reduced to two or four voting delegates and it wasn't all that long ago that we had ten.
We were told that the attendance for worship this evening was about 6,500. I love that they announced that. It could create a game like guessing the attendance at Safeco Field. It seemed like about 4,000 of those 6,500 left immediately after worship.
Finally we witnessed a video and heard from a couple of speakers on the topic of diversity and sensitivity training. Delegates were encouraged to:
- Tell the truth about who we are
- Let us listen to each other
- Let us remember that we have not yet achieved the diversity we seek
- Let us demonstrate our respect
The video was well done and I especially the clips from "The Office."
So that's one day done. It is now 12:20 A.M. and wake up is 6:00 A.M. So I can get to the 7:o0 Western Jurisdiction delegation meeting. Yippee! I will have to write my post complaining about how we expect to care for ourselves with this sort of schedule another time.
Peace Y'all!
Day 1
The General Conference Schedule begins late today.
6:00 Opening Worship
8:00 "Organization of the General Conference"
This first plenary session seems to be about testing the voting system, approving the rules, adoption of the calendar and exciting things such as that.
Presently we are waiting at the hotel for a shuttle to the convention center. I am hanging out with the young adults realizing that I am old. Sigh.
Hopefully we will get through registration soon.
6:00 Opening Worship
8:00 "Organization of the General Conference"
This first plenary session seems to be about testing the voting system, approving the rules, adoption of the calendar and exciting things such as that.
Presently we are waiting at the hotel for a shuttle to the convention center. I am hanging out with the young adults realizing that I am old. Sigh.
Hopefully we will get through registration soon.
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
87 Degreees and Muggy
I have arrived in Ft. Worth. Had a pleasant conversation with my Taxi Driver. He was from Ghana. We talked about football (soccer for many of you) and the poor understanding most Americans have of geography.
As the title suggests it is 87 and muggy. Considering the 40 something temperature and rain I just left in Portland that is quite a change. I walked up to my room and realized why I spent most of my time in seminary (Perkins School of Theology, SMU, Dallas) in Birkenstock's, shorts and T-Shirts. I didn't even pack my Birkys for General Conference! The great quandary of life in Texas is; do you dress for the outside temperature or the inside one? Why dress for a few minutes of outside hot and muggy when the air conditioner often seems to be set for 62 degrees?
The hotel room is nice, it even has a little kitchenette, not that I imagine that I will have the time to make use of it. Seems like the daily schedule from Thursday on is 7:00 A.M. until 11:00 P.M.
Feel free to put your questions in the comments and I will try to get to them. I'm going to go explore my surroundings.
As the title suggests it is 87 and muggy. Considering the 40 something temperature and rain I just left in Portland that is quite a change. I walked up to my room and realized why I spent most of my time in seminary (Perkins School of Theology, SMU, Dallas) in Birkenstock's, shorts and T-Shirts. I didn't even pack my Birkys for General Conference! The great quandary of life in Texas is; do you dress for the outside temperature or the inside one? Why dress for a few minutes of outside hot and muggy when the air conditioner often seems to be set for 62 degrees?
The hotel room is nice, it even has a little kitchenette, not that I imagine that I will have the time to make use of it. Seems like the daily schedule from Thursday on is 7:00 A.M. until 11:00 P.M.
Feel free to put your questions in the comments and I will try to get to them. I'm going to go explore my surroundings.
Tuesday, March 25, 2008
A Future With Hope
The theme for General Conference is "A future with hope." It will be interesting to see how the delegates of the 2008 session live into that idea!
As we prepare for the conference the delegation has received reports and looked through "The Daily Christian Advocate" to familiarize ourselves with what issues we can anticipate to be involved with. ("The Daily Christian Advocate" is the title of the published materials for the General Conference. We currently have three volumes of reports and legislation and there will be daily publications throughout the conference.) It is a bit overwhelming to try to look through all of the material. It is also impossible to know which of the petitions will survive through committee and come to the General Conference floor.
Glancing through the material you can find petitions on a wide variety of subjects and often petitions on the same issue from opposing sides. One petition that caught my eye yesterday wants to amend the United Methodist Church's stand on the death penalty. Jonathan Carlsen of Arcadia, FL has submitted a petition asking that we delete the line "We believe the death penalty denies the power of Christ to redeem, restore and transform all human beings." The petition he submitted includes other language to make it sound as if the U.M.C. condones the death penalty as a means of criminal justice. I don't think that particular item will pass but who knows?
In our last delegation meeting Kristina Gonzalez gave a report about the work of "the task group on the Global Nature of the Church." Kristina is a staff member of the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference and she was a member of this task group. Their report is a response to the ever changing nature of the United Methodist Church. For most of our history we have been a church of the United States. However, approximately 3 million of our 11 million members live outside of the U.S. We are no longer only an "American Church." We are the church in Africa, Asia and Europe as well. The major legislation coming from this group will be to eliminate the word "central" conferences for those conferences outside the U.S. and to create regional conferences of which the U.S. will be one. In the proposed legislation the U.S. would retain their jurisdictional conferences and their work of electing bishops.
At first look this seems to me to be the right thing to do. It gives some equality to our relationship with the international conferences and it may open the door for some autonomy for the U.S. church to deal with its social and cultural issues. It is forces those of us in the United States to recognize that there is more to the United Methodist Church than what exists within our boundaries.
The other hot topic of delegation meetings (now that our housing situation is settled) seems to be around Rule 12 of the Rules of Order. It reads "Cell phone use is not permitted in the plenary hall or the legislative committee rooms by delegates or observers. In addition, the use of laptop computers, personal digital assistants, pagers and other electronic devices should be in furtherance of General Conference business and done in such a manner that does not disturb other participants. . . ." There is also talk of an attempt to prevent wireless Internet access on the conference floor. There will be access in other parts of the building so how they are going to shield one particular area is a mystery to me. It has also been pointed out many of the delegates can access the Internet through their cell phone providers. I don't know what the point of this exercise in futility is by the planners but I hope the old codgers catch on that the post modern era is one of making full use of information technology.
Peace, Y'all. (see I'm getting ready for Ft. Worth)
As we prepare for the conference the delegation has received reports and looked through "The Daily Christian Advocate" to familiarize ourselves with what issues we can anticipate to be involved with. ("The Daily Christian Advocate" is the title of the published materials for the General Conference. We currently have three volumes of reports and legislation and there will be daily publications throughout the conference.) It is a bit overwhelming to try to look through all of the material. It is also impossible to know which of the petitions will survive through committee and come to the General Conference floor.
Glancing through the material you can find petitions on a wide variety of subjects and often petitions on the same issue from opposing sides. One petition that caught my eye yesterday wants to amend the United Methodist Church's stand on the death penalty. Jonathan Carlsen of Arcadia, FL has submitted a petition asking that we delete the line "We believe the death penalty denies the power of Christ to redeem, restore and transform all human beings." The petition he submitted includes other language to make it sound as if the U.M.C. condones the death penalty as a means of criminal justice. I don't think that particular item will pass but who knows?
In our last delegation meeting Kristina Gonzalez gave a report about the work of "the task group on the Global Nature of the Church." Kristina is a staff member of the Pacific Northwest Annual Conference and she was a member of this task group. Their report is a response to the ever changing nature of the United Methodist Church. For most of our history we have been a church of the United States. However, approximately 3 million of our 11 million members live outside of the U.S. We are no longer only an "American Church." We are the church in Africa, Asia and Europe as well. The major legislation coming from this group will be to eliminate the word "central" conferences for those conferences outside the U.S. and to create regional conferences of which the U.S. will be one. In the proposed legislation the U.S. would retain their jurisdictional conferences and their work of electing bishops.
At first look this seems to me to be the right thing to do. It gives some equality to our relationship with the international conferences and it may open the door for some autonomy for the U.S. church to deal with its social and cultural issues. It is forces those of us in the United States to recognize that there is more to the United Methodist Church than what exists within our boundaries.
The other hot topic of delegation meetings (now that our housing situation is settled) seems to be around Rule 12 of the Rules of Order. It reads "Cell phone use is not permitted in the plenary hall or the legislative committee rooms by delegates or observers. In addition, the use of laptop computers, personal digital assistants, pagers and other electronic devices should be in furtherance of General Conference business and done in such a manner that does not disturb other participants. . . ." There is also talk of an attempt to prevent wireless Internet access on the conference floor. There will be access in other parts of the building so how they are going to shield one particular area is a mystery to me. It has also been pointed out many of the delegates can access the Internet through their cell phone providers. I don't know what the point of this exercise in futility is by the planners but I hope the old codgers catch on that the post modern era is one of making full use of information technology.
Peace, Y'all. (see I'm getting ready for Ft. Worth)
Monday, March 10, 2008
Ch - Ch - Ch - Changes
Yesterday Longview UMC made the announcement : "It is the intention of Bishop Ed Paup to appoint the Rev. Bruce D. Smith to Mill Plain United Methodist Church effective July 1, 2008."
It was an emotional time for everyone in worship. While I was able to prepare some for the announcement for the most part these things come as a surprise as we work to keep confidentiality and fairness for everyone involved. I hope that the people of LUMC will be able to begin looking forward to the possibilities of the new energy a pastoral change can bring.
From the other side: Brianna is giddy that Daddy will be closer to home. Camas UMC is happy to have some added security that Kendra could be their pastor for the next few years. I anticipate that Mill Plain is excited to have a pastor named and to be looking forward.
I will greatly miss the people of LUMC and I look forward to hearing about their continued ministry in the coming years. In the meantime there are the celebrations of Easter and LUMC's 5th anniversary of becoming a reconciling congregation!
May God Bless everyone in the midst of these changes!
It was an emotional time for everyone in worship. While I was able to prepare some for the announcement for the most part these things come as a surprise as we work to keep confidentiality and fairness for everyone involved. I hope that the people of LUMC will be able to begin looking forward to the possibilities of the new energy a pastoral change can bring.
From the other side: Brianna is giddy that Daddy will be closer to home. Camas UMC is happy to have some added security that Kendra could be their pastor for the next few years. I anticipate that Mill Plain is excited to have a pastor named and to be looking forward.
I will greatly miss the people of LUMC and I look forward to hearing about their continued ministry in the coming years. In the meantime there are the celebrations of Easter and LUMC's 5th anniversary of becoming a reconciling congregation!
May God Bless everyone in the midst of these changes!
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