Holy Conferencing

The Annual Conference of the SC United Methodist Church ended Wednesday. With all that occurred, it was, in a word, uninteresting. That of course is just my take on it. And I don’t name it such as a complaint, just an observation. A lot of people worked hard to make things run smoothly and that’s exactly what I told the Bishop when she asked Wednesday at lunch how I thought Conference was going. “Smoothly,” I responded.

Presiding over our proceedings, she did her part well, even getting everything done ahead of schedule. She assigned the preaching and Bible study times to our new church pastors and that was good. Hearing their enthusiasm and commitment to win new converts was inspiring, but it also was somewhat like when the foreign missionary comes to speak at your church. You’re thankful for the work they are doing, but you realize they are in a different world than yours.

We recognized a lot of churches and people for excellence in ministry over the past year. We again took Tuesday afternoon and did acts of service in the Florence community. We voted on the Constitutional Amendments (voting down the ones related to changes for the worldwide nature of the church by a consistent 85%). We commissioned and ordained some great new ministers, and we passed the necessary budget and reports, in general with little discussion. So, we did some good things over the four days.

Maybe that’s all Conference should be, that and the time for fellowship, (catching up with folks you care about but rarely see). But a part of me is nostalgic. I “grew up” in the Conference when the business, the budget, and the social stance of the Conference were often hammered out on the Conference floor. Breaks were a time to discuss strategy and the amendments we’d make motions. There were “characters” who interspersed humor or called us to observe parliamentary procedure with “points of order.” There were the wise leaders of the Conference, often not agreeing with one another or the presiding bishop, but guiding us with experience and vision.

Now it is obvious the “work” is done elsewhere, in committees and cabinet meetings, and Conference is there to receive the reports and give official approval. And maybe that is the way it should be. A new generation of leaders affirms the real work of the Church is done not when we gather as delegates, but when we scatter into fields of service. So I guess Conference should then be a time to celebrate, renew relationships, and worship. But sometimes I miss sitting on the edge of my chair waiting to gauge the next speech in a contested debate, and hoping and praying the Church body makes a wise decision with its vote.

Speaking the Truth in Love 2: The Candidates

Those submitting work for ordination have been on a long journey in their call to ministry. By this time they have been through the Board for commissioning, been in relation with a District Committee on Ordained Ministry for several years, completed a Masters of Divinity degree (for Elder) or equivalent/professional certification (for Deacons), and have been in a continuing formation program while serving in an appointment. In our Conference the three year program (changing to two years beginning Jan 1, 2009) of continuing formation is called Residency.

Because of my work the Residency program I know each of these candidates personally. I have worshipped and prayed with them and shared with them in reflection sessions. I know some who are excellent pastors, and some who are still struggling to find their voice in ministry. I honestly want each one of them to succeed in responding to God’s call on their lives.

I have sensed the stress the candidates feel toward both the written evaluation and the oral examination coming up next month. They know that if they do not get approved, it means going through the whole process again next year. And usually, they are very self-conscious about how they measure up among their peer group. Further complicating the picture is the difficulty of explaining to local church members and family members the pressures and complexity of the process they are dealing with.

I have expressed over and over that there is no way for one person to compare their experience with the Board to another’s. There are simply too many variables. Their fate is affected by which readers their work is assigned to, who makes up the various sub-committees that interview them, and a host of other arbitrary decisions. Still, they are under the gun. Their “effectiveness” in ministry is being evaluated one last time before the Church sends them forth with its seal of approval.

One colleague suggests viewing the process as a dialogue for professional assessment. Learn through the evaluations what you need to address to become the best pastor you can be. Draw from the experience of those who do the evaluations. Don’t view it as a pass/fail trial, but as part of the ongoing journey of professional development.

My colleague’s perspective leads to a final comment. All of this work must be grounded in prayer, for you cannot be open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit without prayer. I pray before assessing a paper that I may have insight into meaning of the words, and the abilities of the writer. Surely those who are writing have bathed their efforts in prayer as well. Perhaps what’s missing are the intentional prayer support groups that will uphold the candidates, and the Board of Ministry, during this important time.

There Is An Election

We heard those historic words with the report of the ballot at the beginning of our Conference session this morning. The Rev. Paul Leland of North Carolina was elected and we have an excellent new bishop for the church.

The South Carolina delegation met at the break and Tim McClendon offered a gracious, beautiful thank you to the delegation members for their support of his nomination. Indeed, that has been one of the good results of this process. Our delegation worked together well, and we have not always done that. If circumstances allow, Tim will have an excellent oppportunity for election in four years. I am proud of the way he presented himself, and represented our Conference.

The rest of our Conference will be somewhat anti-climatic. At least we are here where we can enjoy some of the beauty of the Lake. And fortunately there's a wireless network so we can keep up with what's happening in the other Jurisdictions.

Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference

The SEJ officially opened yesterday morning with Holy Communion. Then there were organizational actions and then a long service of prayers, silence and discernment. Finally we took the first ballot right before lunch. Before the day ended we'd heard back from 5 ballots and took a sixth before adjourning for the night.

The front runner for the one episcopal slot is Paul Leland of North Carolina. South Carolina's nominee, Tim McClendon, has been in second place on each ballot. Now the ones receiving only a few votes are starting to bow out. That could mean big shifts in votes, or it could bring an election pretty quickly.

We spent Tuesday hearing from all the nominees and having time for the delegations to individually interview them. But once the Conference and voting begins it is just up to how individuals choose to vote, or move their vote. Several people ask me, "How is such and such a conference delegation voting?" or "Who is that conference supporting?" No one knows the answer to such questions. Even if noted leaders of delegations say they want to support a particular person, each delegate has their own private vote.

There's been some questions raised by one of The Methoblog bloggers about the amount of politics involved and especially the use of web sites for nominees. Actually, I think we have a good balance of getting information about candidates out, but also entering a covenant that self-restricts our political maneuverings. We could always use more information about the nominees, but what our process provides can help a delegate discern leadership, if the delegate is willing to put the time in to pay attention and read the information provided.

We also have to deal with a thorny issue with the reorganization plan for the SEJ Adminstration and ministries. The idea is for each agency to become self-supporting. That may be fine for those agencies that can generate income (such as the Lake Assembly), but I wonder what will happen to the great Youth Ministry of the SEJ, or the Native American ministry SEJANAM, for example?

Even if we elect a bishop today, the Conference will continue through Saturday's Consecration Service. That's OK, I brought work and reading to catch up on, and this is a beautiful place.

Lake Junaluska

As we drove into Lake Junaluska, NC late last night I couldn't remember when I was here last. It seems as though its been a couple of years. My summer commitment to teach at Emory COS keeps me from taking advantage of the SC Laity Convocation and Minister's Week or other good offerings up here. I didn't realize how much I'd missed being here.

Early this morning I walked down to the cross overlooking the lake and distant mountains. (We're staying on the hill at Lambuth Inn.) It was peaceful, though from my perspective there is a sense of expectation. Most of the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference delegates will be arriving today. We have opportunity to hear the six nominees for bishop this afternoon, and then the Conference, and voting, starts tomorrow morning.

My daughter Kelsey was trying to explain to a friend where she was headed for the week. She said, "It's a hidden valley in the mountains of North Carolina, with a pretty lake, a couple of hotels, a bunch of retired Methodist pastors, an 11 PM noise curfew, and nothing else around." Teenages do have a different view of things.

Dare To Change The World

We have been at the SC Annual Conference this week and the theme for the Conference is Dare To Change The World. Yesterday was our Day of Service and the delegates dispursed throughout the Florence area to do mission projects.

I gave blood, then helped some with the sorting and distribution of the school supplies and hygiene kits. There were a lot of supplies collected by the churches and sent to the Conference this year. The first picture is of some of the supplies before sorting. The second picture is of Bishop Taylor visiting with a lady while volunteers worked on cleaning her yard.

It has been a quiet Conference for me. Good to see friends. The ordination service is always special, and the preaching has been very good. Here on the last day a lot of business will be conducted, but hopefully it will all run smoothly. Then it's home to packing for a lot of ministers.

UM Mission Confusion?

The mission of the United Methodist Church is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ.” GC08 will consider changing that to add “for the transformation of the world” (¶120). While it has a nice sound to it, I’m not sure it is an improvement on what we have.

Some might argue that the addition changes “making disciples” from being our primary purpose to being a “means” or method by which we transform the world. In other words, it says our real goal is to transform our world, and that the reason to become a disciple of Jesus Christ is so that we can achieve that goal.

It’s definitely a “Methodist” statement, which means it is sufficiently ambiguous. It leaves wide open for interpretation “how” we are going to transform the world and what such transformation would look like. That’s the perfect scenario for any cause group to argue that their issue deserves priority attention since it is part of our “mission.”

My hunch is that our boards and agencies will see the two parts of the statement as having equal leverage and then choose which one to emphasize. And since the preponderance of the evidence so far indicates we either aren’t comfortable with “making disciples” (or don’t know how), then we’ll see more and more material on how we good Methodists can and should be transforming the world.

You would think that with all the extensive talk about our declining membership, everyone would want to be clearly focused on making disciples of Jesus Christ. Of course, we don’t work to make disciples just to grow the church, but if we are making disciples, the church will end up growing. And if people become actual disciples of Jesus Christ and aren’t just names added to the rolls, then (as Paul beautifully says in Romans 12) they will be transformed, becoming people who transform the world.

Transformation of our sinful, broken, wayward world is important. Note that even in the Great Commission (Matthew 28) that after Jesus says “Go and make disciples of all nations,” he then says “teach them to obey everything I have commanded you.” If you get into the Word and apply his teachings, you will work to transform the world. That’s always been the Methodist way: warmed heart, accountability group immersed in scripture, and living the faith by “doing no harm, doing good, and attending all the ordinances of God.” (General Rules, ¶103)

The world transforming aspect of our mission is already expressed in the Discipline in ¶124: Our Mission in the World – God’s self-revelation in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ summons the church to ministry in the world through witness by word and deed in light of the church’s mission…As servants of Christ we are sent into the world to engage in the struggle for justice and reconciliation. We seek to reveal the love of God for men, women, and children of all ethnic, racial, cultural, and national backgrounds and to demonstrate the healing power of the gospel with those who suffer.

The new statement sounds more politically correct and is already being used by many of our church leaders, but will it serve us well?

Team Methodist

At a meeting of the Clergy Orders for our Conference yesterday, the small group I was in talked about the many pressures that keep us from forming Covenant groups. We all admit such groups are helpful, even necessary, to living a life of ministry. Yet unending agendas, a need to be busy, distance and time factors, and personality and trust issues all conspire against making such groups a personal priority.

On reflection, I thought one way to describe the larger picture is that we don't have any sense of "Team Methodist." I realize the danger of using a sport's metaphor in a culture that basically worships sports of all types, but I think it works. We don't have a sense of being those "called out together" with a particular identity for a particular purpose.

A team is identified as a team. They wear the same uniform. We serve in a day when many churches, seeking to brand themselves in the church market, drop "United Methodist" from their signs, or bury it in the logo or text. Such churches see the success of community churches that have no denominational affiliation, and they read things like the recent Pew Institute report that shows interest/attendance in mainline churches still declining, so they take the uniform off.

A team works on developing a common strategy to achieve a shared goal. I played basketball. We drilled on particular plays and techniques to win basketball games. In the church, we find it hard to identify what our great variety of churches have in common. We acknowledge the overwhelming number of small membership churches we have, but what is the common strategy and goal of these churches. Honestly, in the communities here in the South, most UMC churches have little association with each other, hardly know each other, and would be hard pressed to identify goals they have in common. I wouldn't be surprised to find this"non-connectional" attitude true throughout the country.

Ministers are not the cause of this situation, but they are entwined in it. If the sense of "team" has disintegrated, why go to the trouble to know, pray with, support, or even built up other ministers? Too many feel as though they are in it for themselves, in their own "career path," responding to a personal call to ministry. No wonder District Superintendents get frustrated over the "optional" attitude many ministers take toward district gatherings - and no wonder the pastors are frustrated over district gatherings that achieve nothing. We are not a team when we gather, we are an aggregate of individual contractors.

At the risk of oversimplifying for an illustration, I look at the pastors who were in the prime of their ministries during the late 1960's (and the 1970's). Though many are now in retirement, they have always struck me as having a sense of cohesion with one another. Facing the social/political challenges of that period, such pastors formed a bond. They had a sense of "team" - identifying with one another as those called out to stand against structures of society. Those bonds continued through years of ministry.

The absence of a sense of "team Methodist," however, is caused by more factors than just whether the pastors cohere or not. And as long as we (churches and pastors alike) simply try to accommodate to the culture in which we live, we will find it nearly impossible to reclaim a shared sense of mission for which we give our lives.