It's A Long and Winding Road

It is after 10 PM central time and we have 25 petitions left to address. The agenda called for an end of Gen Conf at 3:00 PM today. That was a joke. During the supper break (of 2 and a half hours - why so long I don't know!) I found an easy chair on the upper level and took a nap. That turned out to be a good choice. I feel OK as we plod along, and plod is the correct word here.

A high point for me was the action we took on allowing Deacons the ability to provide the sacraments in certain circumstances. I thought it was dying, but then a colleague moved to refer it, giving us another chance to speak in favor of the petition. I support it because, as I said, in our Methodist movement form has always followed the function of ministry. Wesley ordained Coke, Vasey and Whitcoat because the people in America needed the sacraments. We allow Local Pastors to provide the sacraments because the people need them. We do ministry with people and keep adjusting our forms to accommodate our ministry. Some Deacons are in places of ministry where the ability of offering the sacraments truly meets the needs of the people. The Deacon has to receive the approval of the Bishop for the particular ministry setting, and I know this makes us keep working on our understanding of the Orders of ministry, but I think it is in keeping with who we are.

Wow. Kathleen Baskin -Bell, the chair of our Ministry and Higher Ed Legislative Committee just took the podium and said since it was her last petition to present she wanted to say hello to her son back home who is watching by webcast. Then she took our hearts by sharing personally:. Some of what she just said was: "This church of ours is absolutely the greatest blessing in my life and my family's life. In my battle with cancer these last 14 months we have known no greater joy than the fellowship of the church." I couldn't catch all she said, but what a witness. Battling cancer, and knowing time could be precious, she took all this time away from home to lead us here because she believes the church is the best hope for her son, and for the world.

It's a long road, to finish conference, and then the drive home tonight. Well, we won't make all the 1400 miles, but hopefully we'll get to Shrieveport.

The Cross of Brokenness

Center stage today is the cross from the Mississippi Conference, made of broken items collected from the destruction left by Hurricane Katrina. Bishop Ward gave us an excellent sermon reminding us that God is always present and is over all, wherever our journey takes us. Bishop Wade is the episopal leader of the Mississippi area.

Bishop Thomas Bickerton is presiding this morning. He reminded us that we will be in session for 3 and 1/2 hours this morning and during that time 430 children will have died from malaria. It is a sobering reminder. On the positive side of this reminder, the delegations continue to raise money here for our Nothing But Nets campaign against malaria. As of last night at closing, the secretary reported we had collected (or pledged) over $350,000. Our SC delegation has collected over $2000, which qualifies us to receive one of the basketballs signed by all the bishops, which I imagine we will present at Annual Conference and may try to use to raise even more money.

Also, we have 68 petitions left to act upon and some are pretty big, including the budget for the next quadrennium. There are calls for us to use restraint in our comments, motions and questions. One good quote: "Kicking a dead horse harder don't make it run any faster." But the way it works is that everyone who speaks does so because they think the issue/comment is important. Yet we have also basically affirmed the decisions of the legislative committees on 98.6% of all the petitions, even those we dealth with individually. Even with that, we probably won't finish until late today.

102 And Counting

On Thursday of General Conference we were greeted by Mrs. Louise Short, the widow of Bishop Roy Short. Mrs. Short is 102 and was full of pep, ready to talk to us. She has attended every General Conference since I believe it was 1938! The Daily Christian Advocate has an article on her today and reports her answer to their question, "What's been the single most importnt development of her lifetime?" She said, "The empowerment of the laity, that has made them the heart of the church."

When she spoke to us she said she was disappointed we haven't done much on temperance lately. "I am saddened by so many deaths of young people driving when drunk." She said she is a member of MADD - Mothers Against Drunk Driving. "We quit talking about liquor in the church."

What a witness, and what an inspiration. "Keep the faith!" she said. And so we shall.

Just Representation for Local Pastors

After some difficult legislative wranglings, the Conference passed a Constitutional amendment that would give local pastors and probationary (now called provisional) members of the Annual Conference the right to vote for delegates to jurisdictional and general conferences. The constitutional amendment will now have to be ratified by the annual conferences, but this is a historic and just step for the church.

I spent a lot of time working on this legislation in the Ministry and Higher Ed Legislative Committee and tried to help shepherd it on the floor. That was difficult because the presiding bishop would recognize me only for a point of order. But as the mood of the delegates became more apparent, I knew that finally, after three general conferences, it was on its way.

Paragraph 35 of the Constitution would now read:
The clergy delegates to the General Conference and to the jurisdictional or central conference shall be elected from the clergy members in full connection and shall be elected by the clergy members of the annual conference who are deacons and elders in full connection, associate members, and those provisional members who have completed their educational requirements and local pastors who have completed the Basic Course of Study or the Masters of Divinity degree, and have served a minimum of two consecutive years under appointment immediately preceding the election.

Notice that there are "qualifying" indicators, so that only certain local pastors will attain the right to vote. I do hope the Conferences will see this as a fair way for just representation for colleagues in ministry who do wonderful ministry and need inclusion.

Together Against Malaria

Just haven’t had the energy, physical or emotional, to write a post until now, and now is Thursday after lunch. Mr. Bill Gates, Sr. is speaking to us, since we have entered a historic partnership with the Gates Foundation to eradicate malaria. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as has been announced, has pledged $5 million to join us in our Nothing But Nets cause.

“We have wiped malaria off the face of one continent (North America) and allowed it to continue on another (Africa)…. Brothers and sisters don’t just sit back and watch children die. We must tell the world “malaria is no longer acceptable.”…”You are 12 million people armed with the conviction that all the world is your parish, which makes you the most powerful weapon against disease.”

“People are dying and that ought to be enough. They are human beings, and we ought to help them.”

“Let me end with telling you a story about the kind of leadership your church has for this cause. Candy Marshall, who works at the Gates Foundation in Seattle, grew up on a farm in Nebraska and attended the local UMC. She said that her church, when she was growing up, had a birthday bank where children deposited a penny for every year of their life. She got a letter from her mom. They still keep the bank and this year the gross receipts were $62.

Williamsburg UMC sent $62 to the work against malaria. Candy’s mom sent a little extra. Her minister heard what Candy does and invited her to come speak. The power of your church is that it teaches children in Nebraska and the children in Zambia that they are part of the same parish. That is your gift, and it will end malaria.”

This was a great message about Our Future With Hope, a timely message as we needed to refocus on the world beyond our internal struggles.

Endless Debate on Human Sexuality

ALL afternoon we have dealt with the social principle statement on Human Sexuality in paragraph 161.g of the Discipline. Essentially the report out of committee removes the statement "we do not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider this practice incompatible with Christian teaching" that was put in the Discipline in 1972 and has essentially remained unchanged (though debated regularly) through all GC's since. The report out of committee states that we are not of one mind on this subject. A minority report reinstated the phrase.

I just now got the post for this morning up on the blog, but now we are going to finally vote, after endless motions, etc., to "perfect" both the majority and the minority reports. The minority report prevailed 394 to 293. Oops that vote was ruled invalid by a point of order. So now we are at it again. This time the minority report prevailed again 517-416. Now we have to vote on whether we approve the minority report, which now is the report, but essential the traditional phrase is retained because if it fails the present Discipline remains.

It is 5:14 Central time and the vote is being taken. By a vote of 501- to 417 we have a new statement. We are tired and people are on edge. May we find a way forward for there is yet much work for us to do and we will need some way of working together.

Wednesday Morning at GC

The conference has dealt with about 75% of the petitions. Most of that was done with consent Calendars. But nearly all those calendars (list of petitions with very little opposition) are completed. Now we take the remaining ones singularly. We have about 120 petitions to complete, and with the legislative time left, that gives us a max of 10 minutes per petition. Yea, like we will hold to that! The last days are going to be hectic.

Important items can be passed on consent calendar. One of the items done that way today was a change to our membership vows. Now we are to ask if people will serve Christ with their prayers, presence, gifts, service AND WITNESS (capitalized words were added). This petition was brought by the association of conference lay leaders.

Opening worship today was great, and not just because my girls were singing in the choir. The music was of great variety (including probably the first rap song every sung at GC) and the sermon by Bishop Violet Fisher was powerful. She spoke on the woman at the well (John 4) encouraging us to be aware of positions of privilege and to recognize how God opens grace to all. We have heard some excellent preaching at this conference.

Then we heard the report on Africa University. While there are calls for us to recognize and give support other United Methodist school in Africa, there obviously is still a lot of pride in AU, and there is a lot to be proud of with the school. It was good to hear the school is able to “survive” in the harsh economic and political climate of Zimbabwe. And it was good to be reminded how graduates from AU are serving throughout Africa.

Then we began the difficult work on petitions relating to homosexuality, etc. First, one from Ministry Legislative Com called for retaining our present Discipline language that prohibits ministers from performing civil unions. It passed. Then we passed a new resolution on homophobia. More is in store for the afternoon.

We had a moment of celebration before adjourning for lunch. It is the 100th anniversary of the United Methodist Men. Several statistics were given showing the important of men having a significance impact on the faith development of their families. They repeated that men can Make a Difference. I immediately thought of Trinity’s early Tuesday morning bible study where we call ourselves M.A.D.Men meaning “Men who Make A Difference.”

Tues Pictures and Process at GC

Tuesday was another long day of work at General Conference. The legislative process is tedious, pushing you to the edge of frustration with your brothers and sisters as there is always someone wanting to be recognized to ask a question or add an amendment.

Actually, that’s not so bad. What’s frustrating is when with a vote the conference expresses its “mind” on a matter, and then someone tries to do a “run-around” by changing a petition relating to the same subject. There have been times when we have “tinkered” with the legislation so much on the floor with amendments that you wonder if the petition will make any sense when it’s put in context in the Discipline.

Still, significant work gets done. We did approve yesterday the new mission statement, that I opposed. Now our mission is “to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.” My earlier post states why I thought it would be ambiguous and unhelpful. But, it won’t hurt us and there are bigger fish to fry.

The worship times, dinners, celebration moments, etc., that punctuate the proceedings keep us going. I don’t think we could do this without those frequent “change of pace” events. The picture is of the Higher Education Dinner. It is always an excellent event, good food and this time a choir made of students from a variety of our colleges and theological schools. Kelsey and I were fortunate to sit at the table with representatives of Africa University. The acting chancellor, Dr Fanual Tagwira, remembered me from a mission trip there in 2000! The picture is of Kelsey with Bishop Nhiwatiwa, episcopal leader of the Zimbabwa Annual Conferences.

Walking into the convention center yesterday morning there was a display, a reminder of the cost of war. Shoes, most of them army boots were set across the lawn. It was a powerful reminder that as we meet and debate, there are serious issues and conflicts across our world that need the church’s message and witness. We cannot afford to “do church” just to do church, but to bring the hope of Christ to our broken world.

The Hope for Africa Children’s Choir that blessed us the day before was back at the lunch break for those who were in the convention dining area. Such energy. Then when the president of Liberia, Ellen Sirleaf, addressed us in the afternoon, they sang for her. Sirleaf's address was historic, the first leader of a country from the continent of Africa to address GC. She said, as a good politician would, “I am a United Methodist. I see my Bishop and my pastor here. And I am the product of U M education in Liberia. I feel very much at home here.”

Big legislation in the evening as we debated and debated and finally passed the report of the Episcopacy Study Committee. The effect of the petition is to reduce the number of bishops by one in every jurisdiction, saving the church $14 million beginning in 2013. Carolyn Briscoe of our delegation was on that committee and did a great job representing the petition. Janet Forbes, chair of the legislative committee that brought the petition to the floor of the Conference, represented the effort to defeat the petition. After it passed they went to each other and hugged. It was a small act, unnoticed by nearly everyone, but I thought, “wow, that’s the way Christians struggle with differences.” I was proud of Kesley, gaining the microphone to ask a question about the legislation.

When we got back to the hotel, we had to take the service elevator to our floor. Then Secret Service agents kept us from going to our room. President Sirleaf was staying in the suite our floor. Lauren said the hotel desk had called the day before wanting the names of everyone in our room, not just my name. Guess we were all checked out by the government yesterday. You never know.

It is Wednesday morning. The worship that is beginning is fantastic and then we will hear the Africa University presentation. But there is tension in the air as we’ve heard that this is the day Soulforce tends to interrupt GC with a demonstration. I hope I can capture more os this morning in a later post.

Words, Order, and Sacrament

Wish I was more polished in my speaking. An amendment was on the floor today that would change a major re-working of the section of the Discipline that determines the membership on general boards and agencies. The legislation was a needed clarification of several different changes made in the last couple of general conferences.

A big change was to proportional representation for the jurisdictions. Each jurisdiction is to have basic representation, but then there are additional members (at large members). The guidelines of the petition before us said that those members of the agency would be apportioned to the jurisdictions based on the membership size of the jurisdictions. (In effect, the Southeastern Jurisdiction, the largest American jurisdiction, would have more members on the boards and agencies.) The amendment before us was to remove the proportional representation from the legislation.

One speaker said that proportional representation was not fair representation. I think it is. We had in the legislation the concept that every area has basic representation (like our US Senate) so that then the at-large members could be apportioned the way we do representation in the US House of Representatives. I spoke against the amendment.

Whether my speech helped or hurt, I do not know, but the amendment failed and the legislation was approved. I was pleased with the outcome, but as I sat in my chair afterwards, I realized there were many people who felt (even if the facts said otherwise) they would be “left out.” I wondered how I could have been more gracious to acknowledge this in speaking for my position.
Well, I know you just have to do the best you can do in these situations and then let it go. But I also know we have many sensitive issues still ahead of us and some of them carry strong emotional attachments. I know also we have to speak what we feel is right. So my prayer for myself, and for all of us: God, give us to speak words that are strong in understanding, mighty in truth, and soothing in grace, Amen.

On a more positive note, I stayed at the lunch break for the communion service, held in the center of the convention hall. It was renewing to break bread in that small group of fellow disciples from all over the world.

Come to the Lord's Table, all you who love him.

Come to the Lord's Table, confess your sin.

Come to the Lord's Table, be at peace.

Speed walking at GC

This is not a post about the health initiatives of GC. Its about how we work. It's like those times on the treadmill when you set the pace to where you are walking as fast as you can without jogging. General Conference deliberations are like that. Fast pace, but not not getting anyway.

That's the way it felt last last night as we worked throught the last of the petitions that have financial implications. Those we approved last night are now sent to the Gen Council on Finance and Administration, and then they will come back to us later in the week for approval or disapproval. The late session wore us out. I got to the hotel after midnight and just went right on to bed. Then it was up early for the Emory University breakfast (the Candler singers were Great!), and now back in session.

Couple of big petitions last night. We approved extending the age of retirement for bishops to age 68. That means we will likely approve extending the age of retirement for elders (to 72) when that comes before us. We also approved the UM Publishing House beginning a new hymnal. Adam Hamilton has a great post about this and says this will be the last printed hymnal we have, since in the future we will use something like iHymns for singing. He's probably right, but just think, such a move to music being controlled totally by the worship leaders, is another step of removing the worshippers from full participation. I learned to sing thumbing through a hymnal and it is sad to me to think of a day when that won't be possible.

The chair of the Supertendency Leg Committee just gave us a good laugh with the following poem:
Mary had a little lamb
It never became a sheep.
It followed her to General Conference
And died from lack of sleep.