Save us a place at GC

Delegates are descending on Fort Worth and I hope my hotel holds my room for me. Because my daughter has missed so much school this semester with sickness, I decided I would let her attend today and leave immediately once school is out. That means a 13 hour drive in basically 23 hours if we are to arrive in the time for the Youth Delegate Orientation on Wednesday. Let's just hope Interstate 20 traffic moves smoothly the whole way.

With all the talk about being more inclusive of youth at this GC, it is still tough to take them out of school for 9 days. Fortunately Kesley has an understanding principal who won't count the days as official absences, if she keeps her classwork up. Then she has to come right back and take the SATs and her History AP test. Ask her and she'll tell you she wants what we do in Fort Worth to be significant for our church.

Everyone needs a place at the table, and great efforts have gone into this Gen Conf to see that everyone does have a place. But the primary issues awaiting us aren't really about having places at the table, but being able to control what happens at the table.

Will we spend most of our time debating and maneuvering to determine who gets to control what? (Rather than fighting over who gets to sit at the right and left hand of Jesus when he comes into his kingdom, we prefer to fight over who gets to sit in his seat until he comes back).

Seems to me that the first business of being a disciple is learning to follow. Can we demonstrate to the world that we can be the kind of disciples of Jesus Christ who are so intend on following him faithfully that we deal with our differences with respect, humility, and charity? We have to learn to be good disciples if we ever intend to really make disciples for Christ. I pray for God's Spirit for these days, for myself and all of us. And I pray for safety on the road.