reflections from Sunday evening & General Conference

Today Cindy and I went to Trinity UMC in Appleton City to go to church with mom and dad. This is Dad's 81st birthday. Tuesday will be their 60th wedding anniversary. Our kids joined us as we went to eat at mom and dad's favorite Sunday dinner place. The restaurant even baked us a cake! My brother and I are truly blessed to have such great parents. Their influence has done much to form us and continues to do so. I got back in time to go to church and move back and forth between NEXT (contemporary worship) and ReFuel (Youth service.) Lots going on. I need to make a special note of Spencer's sermon! Great job young man! It was good to get back to my favorite church. Which brings me to another reflection from General Conference. As you know GC 2012 concluded about 10:27 on Friday night (but who was counting?) Frankly the final day was maddening. People had worked for over 2 years to develop a re-structuring plan that would be intended to position the church to be more nimble (a word that was often used) to help empower conferences and local churches to be more effective in making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. By the time we got to Tampa the IOC (we have lots of these things) or Connectional Table and the Council of Bishops had the Call to Action. This was soon countered by another proposal by MFSA (the social action caucus) and then by another group who developed Plan B. When the proposals were discussed in legislative committee none of the plans were able to gain sufficient support to move forward. At that point people who had been involved with the development of the plans began to meet and in a couple of days brought forward a new plan - Plan UMC. That was the plan that would eventually be approved by the General Conference only to be ruled unconstitutional at 4:00 on Friday afternoon. Frustrating. But after getting home things do not look as irritating. Now people will go back to work and craft a new plan that will correct the errors and hopeful provide General Conference 2016 will a new structure that will find wider suport. It could happen! One piece of legislation that was approved eliminated "security of appointment" or what we generally call "guaranteed appointment" for elders. As things developed it appears this act could also be ruled unconstitutional when the Judicial Council meets this fall. We moved our pension from a basic Defined Contribution to a Defined Benefit plan. With these acts I saw my guaranteed appointment removed and cut my pension 20-30%. Actually I supported both these initiatives. I call it a good step forward. The conference maintained the current disciplinary language related to homosexuality. The conference did not support a move to divest our pension funds from three companies doing business with Israel. That was a heated issue but failed to gain support by a 70 - 30% margin. On a positive note annual conferences were given flexibilty to structure themselves as they need to in order to fulfill their mission. We feel this is very positive for us in Missouri. Probably 80 - 85% of the petitions that were submitted were placed on a consent calendar and never brought to the floor. One that some of our members were interested in dealt with the issue of pay day loans. I will look but feel sure this resolution was passed. General Conference showed that our world wide church is extremely vast in perspectives. This conference voted about 60 - 40 in favor of more conservative positions. But there was never a clear, uniting vision that emerges. One part of our church things more pragmatically and is focused on making disciples for Jesus Christ with evangelism (something that was never seriously brought up) as a major point. Another group desires to make disciples for Jesus Christ with the emphasis on diversity and inclusivity. Frankly we have competing visions of how to fulfill the mission. I come home grateful for having the opportunity to engage in issues that affect the church and trust good will come. I also have hope that God will once again direct our attention, focus and resources to share the good news of Jesus Christ in life changing ways. It's been some 12 days! It's been good. I hope you've had a good day. steve