Tears of Hope

For the second time in just a few hours we have been moved to tears through a presentation to the Conference and at the same time were filled with hope. The Hope for Africa Children's Choir, all the way from Gula, Uganda, came to sing to us.

These children, about 22 in number, filled the room with joy, energy, and praise. Less than a year ago they were living in squalor in refugee camps. Through a church program, through Humble UMC, over 200 children were taken to their own "camp" or homes. A school was started and the music became a joyous part of their lives.

The South Georgia Conference paid for them to come sing at GC, and then they will go on tour singing and raising money for the mission. Changed lives! If our local churches could experience what we've experienced today in two presentation and see what a difference the United Methodist Church is making, we'd have no trouble raising money for missions!

(Blogging note: Thanks for all the comments. I'm glad these posts are helpful, as are your responses. I took video of the choir singing and if I can figure out how to get it uploaded I'll post it as well. Important votes all week are before us, so keep the prayers going up.)

The Advance

I have just been moved to tears through part of the presentation celebrating the Advance, one of our church’s mission arms. A woman from Bolivia spoke to us. She told of the weaving project the UMC helped her develop. When we arrived at Conf, each delegate received a cloth bag which had a section woven. They provided the weaving for those bags.


The lady, Justo Sarazia Mamani, said, “All this I have done without an education. But because of our work, my three daughters have all graduated high school. They will finish their education and come back to be leaders in our community. Where I come from the people of the Methodist church are called good people, because they share what they have, and they help those in need. Thank you for helping us.”

Her words were so sincere and pure. You can’t help but be thankful for the work being done all over the world by brothers and sisters in ministry. Gloria a dios!

(Updated 4 hrs later with lady's name and pictures.)

Sunday at GC

Was it Sunday yesterday? We began the day with worship, just as we’ve done every day, but it was a long day of GC work just like all the other days. I know we had to shorten the length of GC for financial reasons, but I miss having Sunday for a day of visiting an area church and some time of renewal. My meeting day began at 7 AM and ended at 12 midnight.

What a day in the Ministry and Higher Ed Legislative committee. Some ground-breaking decisions were forwarded to the plenary session and now we’ll see what happens. The biggest perhaps was a petition to give qualifying Local Pastors the right to vote in General, Jurisdictional and Central Conference elections. The qualifying level would be completion of their educational requirements and completion of two years of service under appointment.

We voted to increase mandatory retirement from 70 to 72. We forwarded a change to the probationary membership (which we renamed to provisional membership) from 3 years to 2 years for provisional elders and provisional deacons.

We approved a measure that would make it easier for Bishops and the cabinet to exit ineffective pastors. In my opinion it didn’t not undermine “guaranteed appointments” as some were concerned about, but simply provided an avenue to address some problem pastors. We reaffirmed the prohibition on performing same sex unions with a 49-34 written ballot vote. A reporter showed up taking pictures as we voted on that one. Interestingly that’s the only issue he hung around for when we were dealing with some major changes for the church.

It looked to me that even without a lecture on inclusiveness our committee heard from many areas, international, lay and young adult. Probably the quietest were the lay women. I can remember seeing them at the mike only 3 or 4 times. However, the sense of working together as a team really developed in the committee today. Our chairperson did a great job fostering that. When we gathered at 8 PM (while everyone else was attending the “Night Under the Stars” areas entertainment event) she began the session by throwing out bags of candy and chocolates to us, then shooting us with a water gun/rifle reminding us to “remember our baptism.” It was great, alleviating the weariness and taking us into a long session with renewed vigor.

On a final note, someone took a picture of the two most astute, focused, globally minded, inclusive, and good looking delegates. We couldn’t get a hold of that picture, but here’s one of Kathy James and me during a break.

Too Much Inclusiveness? Oh my!

Being politically correct is a difficult thing, but we work hard at it as United Methodists. So let me warn you, this post is about my present frustration with our fanatical insistence on inclusivity, so it would not be PC sanctioned.

There are many people who for a variety of reasons observe the work of our Legislative Committees. Sometimes there is an overflow crowd. But once about 100 chairs are filled, that’s it. But our rules say that four seats are reserved for the PC monitors. Two monitors from the Commission on the Status and Role of Women and two from the Commission on Religion and Race record the proceedings in terms of what “type” of persons speaks and how much.

I have no problem with that, and neither do I mind a report from the Monitors, letting us know what they see. We want to be respectful of others and encourage full participation and such information helps us. But twice now, as we have begun our Legislative Com. sessions, the Monitor has then told us what we needed to do. We needed to have more laity talk. We should have more women (“except not clergy women because they’re doing fine”) talk. We need to have more of our international delegates talk, etc.

Why? Do we get pretty stars on our petitions if we achieve the undefined goals of full inclusiveness? Is the reason for the great expenditure of our time and money to report equal participation, or is it to primarily get the work done that we were sent here to do?

Let me explain a little. On our LC we are dealing with matters of ministry, ordination, conference relations of all categories of clergy, etc. To deal with some of the petitions, you have to have a good working knowledge of our rules regarding ministry (the 300 paragraphs of the Discipline), and how things work on the Board of Ministry.

We have several clergy members of our LC who have such experience, DS’s, former DS’s, BOM chairs and members, etc. There may be laity who have such knowledge as well, but the many times we have struggled over how a particular petition relates to the “whole picture,” it’s been a clergyperson who’s gone to the mike to explain. We have essentially been lectured not to do that. Why? Because it is apparently more important to be politically correct on our inclusiveness than to efficiently get our work done.

I was talking with one of our translators whose degree is in cultural relations. She said the international delegates have different cultural expectations for participation. We want them to speak and give their opinion. She said their attitude is, “If I am comfortable with my opinion, why should I give it to you?” Also, they cannot understand why we Americans are so ready to give our opinions without being asked.

She gave a few more reasons why, for cultural reasons, many of the international delegates do not wish to participate by speaking. And yet we’ve made it a high priority to not only provide everyone equal access, but to make everyone participate equally.

So, yes, I challenged the Chairperson on this. I did it quietly during a break. I informed her and our parliamentarian that our Rules of Organization do not allow non-LC members to speak to our group, unless they are speaking to the issues we are working on and the body has voted to allow them voice. According to our rules, the Monitors have no basis for speaking to us as a group. She was very agreeable and we’ll see what happens.

To many people this rant may seem minor. But this situation is repeated over and over throughout the Conference. I think we have to offer participation to all and to conduct ourselves in a way that shows respect of persons and their opinions. But when we mandate it, despite practical needs or cultural differences, and place parity as our highest value in the process, we have erred just as bad. May God save us from ourselves.

Are We Who You Think We Are?

Walking to the convention center this morning I stopped to enjoy some of the festival spirit on Main Street. There was a Run For the Cure taking place and a large festival raising money for the cure of breast cancer. To that group we probably don't even exist.

Arriving at the Convention center I noticed that the Soulforce witnesses had arrived overnight. Also, I had heard yesterday that over 200 scholarships had been given to bring in young people for the weekend who would stand in witness for Reconciling Ministries events. Now every time we enter or leave the Center we will walk the "gauntlet of niceness and phamplets."

Worship this morning emphasized the renewal of our baptism. Bishop Bill Hutchison's message was full of humor, but was direct in saying, "we have been baptized into form, but not into power." Based on the passage of Nicodemus (John 3) he reminded us of the danger of having the form of righteousness but not the power thereof, that with our baptism of structure, we need the baptism from above of God's spirit. He asked, "Have we moved from the "my, my, my" state of baptism to the "yes, indeed" state of baptism?"

Then confirmation class members from the North Central Texas Annual Conference walked among the delegates sprinkling us with water, as a reminder of our baptism. It was a very nice moment of connection. Is this who we are?

Then came a copy of the local paper with their article that simply wrote about "sensitive issues" to be addressed, focusing mostly on the issues dealing with homosexuals in the church. There was nothing there about the large crowds for our worship, or the worldwide ministries celebrated in the opening ceremonies, or the Nothing but Nets focus, etc, etc. Is this all we are to the media, a big conflict or fight that people will read about?

Finally, and I'm writing this as I listen to the report, we've been hearing the Report on Rural Ministries, and Town and Country Ministries. Volunteers came in with banners of 2500 butterflies, representing 2500 Places of Hope in rural settings. Some were riding P.E.T.s (Personal Energy Transportation) arm powered carts which are designed for people who have lost mobility. Visit their website to see how you could donate one.

Following that there has been story after story of the impact of small membership churches on individual lives, producing leaders for the church. We heard (and saw) many stories of outreach ministries and renewed churches. One story was about the St. Thomas Charge in the Charleston District of South Carolina. Their choir was here to lead us in singing. Great moment! Are We who others think we are?

This part of the Body of Christ called Methodists is a multi-facted, multi-personality, multi-conflicted, multi-blessed, and multi-gifted body. And out of all this there is yet one body and one spirit, and one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, and one God and Father who is over all and in all, thanks be to God!

Friday recap at GC

Oh, the fun of GC work. It is midnight on Friday as I write this, although I won’t post it until tomorrow when I can find some free wireless access. We finished up work in the sub-sub committee about 11. I caught the bus to the hotel, found some snacks to eat for supper and am settling down for a few minutes before bed. Friday night in a pretty cool city with a lot happening and all I can think about is getting some sleep.

Good worship and sermon this AM. The sermon was given in Portuguese by Bishop Joao Machado. He spoke about Paul writing the church in Galatia (Gal 5:7), “You were running the race so well, what happened?” And he said Paul could ask the same thing of the UMC. “We cannot say we are going to transform the world if we are not transformed ourselves.” “The world does not listen to us because it sees us speaking only with words, and not with actions.”

Another high point in our plenary time was the emphasis on Nothing But Nets, for Malaria day. We were challenged to give freely by placing at least $10, the price of one net, on the communion table at the center of the convention hall. I look forward to hearing tomorrow how much was received, since it seems all the delegates filed by and put an offering on the table.

We got into our Legislative Committees and organized into sub-committees. Then the sub-committees organized into sub, sub committees. The work all this afternoon and night has been in the smaller committee. I am in the sub-committee on the Local Pastor petitions and chair the sub sub committee to review about 25 petitions. Our sub committee has spent the day debating and considering the parameters of whether local pastors should have vote on certain matters, and why or why not. At this point it looks like the report that will go forward will recommend vote for constitutional matters and elections for those who have completed basic Course of Study, or its equivalent with two years of service to the Conference.

Another highlight of the day – lunch with several of the young adult delegates. If I didn’t have my girls here with me, it wouldn’t happen. But they made the connections and I was welcomed to join right in (might have something to do with me paying the check!). Anyway, the energy and interest in the church and the life of faith shared around the table was energizing. I know this is only the third GC where young people been present in any numbers, but I can’t imagine what it would be without them.

Could tell Kelsey was getting fatigued, so she missed her legislative meeting tonight in order to sleep and I will recommend she allow a reserve to sit in for her tomorrow morning. We still have a full week ahead of us, and I still have 15 petitions with me to get through sub-committees.

By the Morning's Light

Just read my post from late last night and I admit it's a bit cynical and I do seem to be harping about a lack of evangelical focus. True. I did bring issue that to the conference as seen in my post about the changing mission statement.

So, let me also say that it WAS good to see the Report of the Council on Bishops address our issues of division in a positive way, offering a focus beyond ourselves. I may have felt that it was overly positive in the claims that we can transform the world, but as they suggested, who knows what we might accomplish if we were to work together, faithful to God, who is always faithful to us.

And by offering the litany of measurable objectives for 2012 they tried to make it more than "pie in the sky" platitudes. If we only do 10-20% of what they challenge us with, we might begin to see some changes that are significant in our membership vitality and growth.

I'll have to be careful about posting late and tired. And that will be true for a lot of things these conference days. The pace is fast, there's really no place to rest during the day, and so all of the delegates have to call on emotional reserves to focus and to act with civility and a positive attitude. In truth, it will be the prayers of many people that will carry us through.

By the way, the pictures are of Bass Performance Hall, and Kelsey and Lauren in front of the Convention Center with our Bishop, Mary Virginia Taylor, and her husband, Rusty Taylor.

Speeches and Committees

All morning we heard addresses that told us the way forward, with the 3 Simple Rules, the 7 pathways (to somewhere), and the four mission emphases. We were basically told that if we could stop the internal focus and the bickering among ourselves then we had the resources to actually transform our world. It made me start thinking in terms of "Team Methodist" again. We just need to get on with the business of making a difference in our world.

No one ever really crossed the line to say we would actually make disciples of Jesus Christ, at least not until Lyn Powell gave the Laity address after lunch. But several got close. For instance, Bishop Felton May (of all people) did say, "A distracted denomination, unfocused, will not succeed in making disciples of Jesus Christ." Also, there was a stirring litany of goals for 2012, measurable goals for the four emphases. One spoke to a certain number of new churches , half in ethnic communities, but none spoke to the number of new disciples for Jesus Christ.

Most of the proposed goals dealt with making a measurable difference in our world, addressing poverty, injustice and disease. For example, we applauded the Global Board of Missions decision to send out 50 new missionaries -who were described as medical missionaries to address poverty diseases. That's great, and can and will make a real difference in our world. But I wonder if it will be OK for these missionaries to tell the people about Jesus and actually be evangelistic as well. No one wants to say that, it seems. But if we don't offer Christ, how are we as the Church any different than a relief agency, or the Peace Corps?

Some of the videos shared about particular and different UM ministries with the poor were wonderful and made you proud. After awhile it was just too much information. However, we were revived with the Young People's address, the first one ever. It was done by a team of youth who alternated speaking back and forth: Matt Lockett, Rebecca Farnum, Kira Volkova (Russian), Andrew Craig, Jason Rathrod, and Rev. Annie Rigo. Very well done and reminded us from a youth perspective that they want to be involved in changing our world for the better.

At lunch I grabbed a few shots of people and unusual buildings. If I was smart I'd post them on Flickr or something. But instead here's just a couple.

In the afternoon we began our legislative committees. We elected officers and broke for supper. Returning after supper we were to create sub-committees and elect chairpersons. The first order of business in the Higher Education and Ministry Legislative Committee was dealing with the recommendation from the 2004-2008 Ministry Study Committee to refer all petitions relating to ordination and changes in status be referred to a new study committee that would report to the 2012 HE&M Legislative Committee. After several speeches we defeated that petition, meaning our Leg Com will have a lot of petitions to deal with. But that's OK. We need to begin working on them now and not just postpone to a future legislative group.

We have a group of seminary students in the observer section who are the Spotted Owls. (see pic). They are there to remind us to do something to help increase the number of young clergy, or else they will become an endangered species in the UM Church, just like spotted owls.

I am on the sub com dealing with Local Pastors. That should keep us busy. All in all a good day, long (we didn't finish until 11 PM) but good. Still the hard work is ahead of us.

A Future with Hope

General Conference 2008 began last night with a great worship service. The music reflected the variety of our traditions and really added a lot to the worship experience. Mark Miller is simply great leading the music. Bishop Huie's sermon was very good, basically about strong hope versus wimpy hope. And we shared communion. At points the worship was very moving emotionally.

Then we had a business session to organize the conference and adopt the governing rules of GC. That took some time. I closed my eyes as I sat in my chair, so tired, but then was jolted alert when I heard my daughter Kelsey's voice over the speaker system. She was at the mike to raise a question about the rules and make a correction. That's my girl - no hesitation to get up in front of everyone and speak up. Don't know why I every worry about either of them.

Then we had a presentation for sensitivity training. I don't know why since we had just as a body agreed to use expressions like "did not pass" or "was not approved" instead of the word "defeated" when a motion failed. Why? Because "defeated" has too much of a sense of military conquest associated with it. We are more sensitive than a Gillette super shaver.

Anyway, the real work had gotten underway today, with the Bishop's address, followed by the Young People's address, and so forth. The wheels are rolling and I just pray we don't let them come off! Keep us in prayers.

Taylor Trama and Travels to GC

WE MADE IT, but not without some adventure. Lauren, Kelsey and I left out once Kelsey got out of school, drove for 13 hours and finally crashed for a few hours in a hotel in Shreveport, LA. The next morning Lauren drove while I made phone calls to check on our room, etc. Good thing I did. They had given our room away at the Embassy! So here we were 3 hours outside of Fort Worth with no where to stay and several thousand people flooding into the city! Thank goodness for cell phones and Lauren's blackberry.

We called and called - every hotel booked. We finally secured a room 14 miles out of town. And then I kept trying the majors. One final call to the Worthington Renaissance downtown paid off and "Ernest" gave me a confirmation number. Ernest is my new superhero. The Worthington is where GC is housing all the bishops and international guests, and vagabonds like us.

We arrived about 12:30, but they wouldn't let us check in until 2:30. Afraid that the room would "disappear" I just sat in the lobby until the rooms were ready. Talk about a feeling of relief when the young lady put those room keys in my hand!

Kelsey and I actually made it to our 3:00 meetings. She went to the orientation for delegates under the age of 30. There were about 100 people in the room. But she said when they had the youth stand (those under age 18) there were only a dozen.

The convention center is just 7 blocks down the street from our hotel and is very spacious. So looks like we are set for the next 10 days.