It’s a Mad Mission… Sign Me Up

Well, things are wrapping up with school. I made a lot of progress today on my “General Conference Study Trip” class paper, so I can afford a few minutes of blogging. Once that is in by 5:00 tomorrow afternoon I just have my Theology of Wesley and Methodist Doctrine final and I’m home free.

As I read other blogs I’m struck by the amount of misunderstanding that there is about the world-wide nature of the church constitutional amendments and petition. On one hand it is unremarkable. I’m not convinced that the Church can pull together 1000 people who really get it. The UMC makes a big mistake when it elects people to go and fight about homosexuality. On the other hand, our annual conferences will be seeing the amendments in a year and between the confusion and demagoguery, they may well fail. If you click here and then click on the text of the committee (majority) report you will see more or less as adopted the guidelines that the study committee will be working with. The social principles, orders of ministry, meaning of membership, episcopacy, etc. all remain the same. The General Conference will still be in charge of “all matters distinctly connectional.” The regional conference (of which there will be only ONE for the United States) will be responsible for local church, conference, etc. administration, distinctly regional funds (ie black college fund), etc.

This is all a really good thing! This is actually a step towards a global witness, not away. It will cause us to have to struggle together about what really makes us a United Methodist Church. Non-US United Methodists are in favor of it. When Matt Laferty finished leading the conference through the constitutional amendments, the bishop of Angola came up to him and said, “thank you, we’ve been trying to get this done for forty years!” There will still be a quadrennial General Conference. It will still be worldwide. There will also be a US regional conference (just like there are central/regional conferences in other countries!). It will meet to address distinctly US concerns (just like central conferences do now with their regional concerns!). It won’t be significantly more expensive because the US Regional Conference and the General Conference will meet back to back at the same site. There will be much less business for the General Conference because it won’t have to fight about how many members belong on the Annual Conference Board of Church and Society, an issue that doesn’t effect the church in Africa or the Philippines now because they are allowed to ignore the result and organize as they see fit in their contexts.

It won’t be easy, we will have to learn how to really listen to each other. We in the US will have to learn how to give up our dominance. I think it can still be done with a representative system. So does the General Conference because there were two other petitions that called for a non-representative system.

Two posts ago I noted the fact that it was middle-aged white men from the Southeastern Jurisdiction who dominated the against side of the global nature debate. I actually typed “Old. Southern. White. Men.” Actually, the one southern white woman who spoke against was the one who was looking to table it because the central conference delegates were “confused”. More on that later though. The regional tone to this debate was remarkable in my mind. I still don’t have a handle on it. The sexuality debates weren’t as regional as this debate. Perhaps one person from another jurisdiction spoke against it. I’m pretty sure no one from a central conference did. I think it has to be lingering Methodist Episcopal, South consolidation of power issues. I can’t see what else it could be. If it were about the church’s stance on homosexuality there would be more people from other jurisdictions hollering about it.

Now as for the central conference delegates being “confused”. That was a remarkably ignorant statement first of all. Second of all, if people were paying attention, they would realize that the central conferences, especially Africa and Philippines are sending their A-teams and we’re the ones who look more than a little slow in comparison. We elected a Filipino Supreme Court Justice to our Judicial Council last week! The Africa central conferences are sending university presidents. We are letting 20-year-old college students chair our delegations! They are where we were seventy years ago. Former Kansas governor and presidential nominee Alf Landon was a delegate to the 1939 Uniting Conference. Now, we clearly weren’t sending as diverse delegations back then, but that doesn’t change the core issue.  You don’t see many of our top businesspeople, politicians, doctors, or lawyers serving the church today. I’m going to go a step further and say that you don’t see many (note I don’t say any) of our best and brightest lay people period serving the church today (or becoming clergy for that matter). Something about the work we do is not compelling. We aren’t starting clinics or schools any more. Heck, we are hardly starting new churches!

I’m biased, but I think a handful of the young people that were at General Conference as lay people are those best and brightest in society who we need offering leadership in the Church. I know that some of them will be our best and brightest clergy. I would not be surprised one bit if four or five of the young people giving service to the General Church today were elected to the episcopacy in 24, 28, 32, 36 years.

I’ve diverged quite a bit and haven’t given an altogether coherent discussion. I’ll definitely be exploring some of these themes more though.

Now, to dinner and back to work.

-Luke

(my transcript)

DEVIN MAUNEY: Now Bishop, this is my first General Conference to be a delegate and I’m not confused about these petitions. So, what I am confused about is how our most venerable leaders in the church are so confused. I think it’s actually very clear what these petitions would do. They would give us the opportunity to listen to what the study committee over the next four years tells us and implement those results. I urge the passage of this petition because we have already passed a separate petition with language similar. Now, some leaders in our church have been able to create confusion through amendment upon amendment and motion to refer upon motion to refer. But I would urge us to refrain from that and use the rules to help the majority of this conference rather than hinder the progress of this conference. Please vote in favor of this petition.

(applause)

BISHOP ALFRED GWINN: Alright, thank you. I request maybe next time you speak with a bit more passion (laughter), but you did it in love and we’re very grateful for that.

Archives of the General Conference streams are here. This took place on the Thursday, May 1 afternoon session at 2:12:50 on the video. Start watching at 2:07:30 to see a little of the ridiculousness from our “most venerable leaders”.

Well, my cough and congestion is worse and if I had to guess, I would say I’m a little feverish. It irritates me that I have so little energy and that the General Conference seems to be in such need of leadership.

It is hard to make a case against the young people carrying the day today regarding the constitutional amendments related to the global nature of the church package of legislation. The old guard would not lead and so teenagers and twenty-somethings did.

Matthew Laferty, a senior at Ohio Wesleyan, lay delegate from East Ohio, and chair of the Conferences committee did a masterful job presenting the legislation despite its differences from the plan he originally supported. He answered all questions precisely and would not be baited. Several young people from all across the connection stood up to speak to the necessity of a just structure for the future of the United Methodist Church. They were not without opposition though.

With maybe one exception the opposition to these constitutional amendments came from Old. Southern. White. Men. And boy, did they play the game. Amendments and questions that they already knew the answers were spoken at the microphone to confuse the body. A constitutional amendment was voted down. Salvation came when Devin Mauney, a junior at Arizona State and lay delegate from Desert Southwest called them out. With creativity and passion that I don’t dare try to represent here he told the naysayers in effect, “your nonsense isn’t fooling anybody.” It was met with wild applause and a smile from the chair. Unlike other cases of applause, the body was not censured. Ultimately all constitutional amendments were passed and will go to the annual conferences for approval.

It really was inspiring to watch. For a moment in time anyways young people exercised real influence over and even leadership in “adult” affairs. What people need to understand is that there are remarkably few arenas where young people can exercise influence that isn’t radically circumscribed. Student government and the like are almost comical in comparison to what we are doing here in Fort Worth. There is a long way to go, especially in the local churches and annual conferences, but this is one area where the United Methodist Church is on the curve and maybe even ahead.

Now, if only I wasn’t hoarse and stuffed up.

-Luke

I’m not going to write about homosexuality today, at least not directly. You can read about that many other places. That is what we did today though. Basically the whole day. I missed most of the discussion actually. I left the session at about 10 AM because I wasn’t feeling well and I napped until 1:00 pm. I worked on a paper from then until about 5:00 pm, ate dinner and came back for the evening session. I made the mistake of opening the GC live feed for ten minutes at a time several times and thus was not nearly as productive as I could have been.

I guess my first question on the day is, “am I a coward?” I basically excused myself from all of the discussion today on homosexuality: the social principles, church membership, ordination, the whole bit. Granted, it was to get healthy and do homework. I can’t say I was looking forward to it though. I’m not sure what I think about homosexuality, even still. I absolutely hate having to engage in discussion about it. There is so much passion behind it and understandably so. And I can empathize with them. When I saw people weeping tonight after the vote, I also wept. But I didn’t engage and I don’t engage in what is for some an issue of justice. Being elected chair was great for that part of me because I could make it my job to make sure that everyone gets to be heard (a very necessary thing on the Kansas East delegation) and not have to engage the part of myself that is struggling.

Following the adopting vote for what is a less progressive paragraph 161G, many advocates for a church inclusive of homosexuals around the arena stood and began to sing “Jesus Loves Me”. This started quiet, but grew louder, although it was much louder following another vote after the dinner break. This continued until the dinner break while our intrepid Secretary of the General Conference read aloud a lengthy and technical Judicial Council decision relating to several petitions on mandatory recusal in cases of a conflict of interest. This went on for what must have been nearly 10 minutes. The contrast is what got to me and still gets to me. A steady voice reading the monotonous, legal business of the church over (or under) the voices of a hundred profoundly wounded souls. I don’t know a better way, but there sure aren’t many worse ways.

The way in which we addressed requests from several African Conferences for more bishops and from most of Africa for more support for theological education was another bit of “business as usual” which disgusted me. Remarkably with all the growth in Africa, there still isn’t a way to assess the need for episcopal leadership. Several areas requested more bishops to lead their rapidly growing churches and we turned them down for four years of study and perhaps eight years until implementation. Now, there were good reasons why we didn’t grant every request. Resources are limited and we should be sure that we put are money where it is most needed. That sure is easy to say though when you are American the ones with the money. We did not agonize over those decisions nearly enough. Theological education in Africa is also a tremendous need which we haven’t addressed adequately. One of the African delegates (forgive me for forgetting his conference/country) talked about how 500 people apply for spaces in a theology program and they can only accept 10 of them. We did barely pass $2 million dollar off-budget for theological education in Africa, but who knows what will happen when the General Council on Finance and Administration gets done with it. We also refused to pass a $300,000 study to aid ministry with Pacific Islanders in the United States and in an (increasingly common, praise God) act of leadership, the General Secretaries of our agencies agreed to see that the work gets done within the current budget.

This isn’t how you run a mission movement. I’m with Kacey Andrews, another young delegate from Missouri who came to the mic and spoke with sadness about the time it would take to get new bishops where they are needed in Africa. We have got to find a way to get things done more quickly. We are paralyzed with bureaucracy and in all reality by distrust.

-Luke

I really can’t bring myself to write much tonight. I took a nap early this afternoon so as to hopefully keep myself from getting too sick. Most of what is worth saying has been said in news reports or other blogs.

The highlight of the day was the speech from Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf. Her speech was really the capstone (so far) of hearing about the difference the church can make and is making in Africa.

Tired. A little sick, though it hasn’t gotten worse over the course of the day and I have felt better at times.

-Luke

(Frank Beard at the beginning of the Superintendency committee report)

Mary had a little lamb,
it ne’er became a sheep.
It followed her to General Conference,
and died for lack of sleep.

I’m getting sick. Grrr.

-Luke

I have a feeling everything will start to run together starting today. We are now in plenary starting this morning  and going through Friday night. Today we worked on legislation with financial implications so that the General Council on Finance and Administration can propose a final budget late in the week. We approved the creation of a Hymnal Revision Committee to present a new hymnal to the 2012 General Conference. We passed the National Hispanic Plan, Strengthening the Black Church for the 21st Century, and Native American Comprehensive Plan. We passed a resolution to form a study commission to present to the 2012 General Conference a plan for a new global structure. It was based around a plan proposed by the Council of Bishops and Connectional Table and a substitute motion by Arthur Jones of the North Texas Conference.

This morning were Judicial Council elections and the conference spoke decisively in electing gifted moderate candidates advocated by a broad coalition rather than the conservative candidates advocated by the conservative renewal groups who have been at the center of controversy recently for a their gifts of cell phones to central conference delegates. If you search or poke around methoblog.com you can read about all of these issues.

The highlight of the day though was the Hope for Africa Children’s Choir. This choir is made up of orphans from a United Methodist school in Zimbabwe and it was amazing. The story was inspiring and the children were energetic, excited, and adorable. It is remarkably already on youtube. I highly recommend it.

Tomorrow there is an address from President of Liberia, Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf. She is a United Methodist and agreed to come and address the conference.

Tomorrow I’ll get to present legislation from the Discipleship committee to the plenary from the podium.

Out.

-Luke

General Conference is such a strange place.

Pretty much each morning I get up, shower, get dressed, and eat breakfast in the cafe on the bottom floor of the hotel. After that I walk the four blocks to the convention center. Starting a block away I begin to walk a gauntlet of people who are handing out fliers and newsletters trying to influence my vote. Some advocate for small and rural churches, for the full inclusion of gays and lesbians in the church, for a streamlined process into ordained ministry, or for certain judicial council candidates or a slate of candidates. Once I get inside the convention center the active deluge of paper ceases and my name-tag which is marked “Delegate” gets me through one of three “Delegates only” entrances. When I get to my desk about 27″ of space on a narrow table, there is a copy of that day’s “Daily Christian Advocate” which contains the agenda, reports from the previous day, and transcripts of plenary sessions. Each day there has been a free book from the publishing house including Bishop Rueben Job’s Three Simple Rules: A Wesleyan Way of Living the other day. I am also the proud owner of a gilded faux-leather bound reprint of Wesley’s Primitive Physick. On the floor we are in the bottom of a bowl. The plenary is in a large arena. There are a thousand delegates on the floor and another couple thousand in the seats. At the opening worship there were 6500 people total.

One thing that still feels pretty remarkable is the way in which the entire process is geared towards helping the delegates do the work of the church. There are pages whose job it is to carry messages or paperwork for the delegates. I was vice chair of the Discipleship legislative committee and the pages would go and get the officers water bottles. It is pretty remarkable that this whole business works. Nobody is in charge. There is a business manager, a secretary, some volunteer coordinators, and committees that coordinate worship, schedules, and presiding officers. Clearly people have worked hard to see that everything will happen, but as much as some people might think they are, no one really controls what is going to happen.

I’m a United Methodist nerd and haven’t outgrown a sense of awe about some things. All of the UM “dignitaries” are here in a community of several thousand: bishops, general secretaries, prominent pastors and academics. The brightest lights in Methodism are here. I found myself the other day suddenly in a circle with a couple prominent pastors, a bishop, and a seminary president and felt like I had to leave for slightly less rarefied air.

The schedule really contributes to the surrealism and unreality of it all. We are scheduled from 8 in the morning to eleven at night. When we are on break delegates share what we’ve been hearing or seeing and strategize. Every waking moment is related to General Conference and 18 hours a day is a long time.

One of the sad things is the lack of interaction between US and non-US delegates for the most part. Nearly 1/4 of the delegates are African and I haven’t had much of a conversation with any of them. I’m not the exception either. I’ve talked briefly with a few Europeans and I worked with a Filipino woman, but the connections that spiderweb among US United Methodists don’t reach overseas in the same way that they do across the country.

Sorry for not writing yesterday. It was a particularly long day. My first meeting started at 7 am and my last one ended at 12:15 am. I was pretty drained and very frustrated after my legislative committee. I have an unfortunate tendency to personalize things that aren’t personal and that didn’t help me much.

Bedtime soon. I have to churn out a little blurb on my experiences for Newscope here in a bit. I may post it too.

-Luke

The highlight of the morning session was Bishop Bickerton’s presentation on Nothing But Nets. After a video highlighting the remarkable success of many United Methodists young and old in raising money to buy $10 bed nets treated with mosquito repellent, he gave a more personal request. He told a story of how he was in a College of Bishops meeting on his daughters 24th birthday when he heard that an African colleague’s daughter had died of malaria. He challenged the conference to respond to the reality of killer diseases that are affecting the lives of our sisters and brothers around the world. The conference was inspired and the center altar/table was covered with money to buy nets.

The morning and afternoon legislative sessions saw sub-committee work. I spent some time in the sub-committee that was dealing with youth and young adult issues. The rest of the time was spent keeping things running smoothly and preparing for the evening session.

I had lunch with Kurt Cooper and a group of students (including Libby Cramer and Cindy Heilman) from campus ministries in Kansas. That was nice, but rushed. I hope I can hang out with them a little tomorrow.

The highlight of the evening session was chairing a brief session of the full committee. I received several nice comments from folks about my leadership. I think some were genuinely impressed and maybe even surprised in one case. The rest of the evening was spent watching the various sub-committees do their work and helping manage petitions as they were passed and as committees finished their work. Discipleship is basically done with subcommittee work and will start into full committee tomorrow afternoon.

I would call your attention to the blog of two of our alternates. Stephanie had a really fine post today about the challenges of being young and in leadership in the church. http://stephandjanatthegc.blogspot.com/2008/04/something-to-ponder.html

I have a calendar meeting in six hours.

Bed.

-Luke

This morning and afternoon was a marathon of worships and addresses. Opening worship flowed right into the Episcopal Address which was marvelous. Sharon Brown Christopher gave a wonderful message of hope innovatively integrated with the communion liturgy. It was probably the most powerful message of the day.

The Young People’s address was good. I guess all the hype about it had built my hopes up a little too high. Six young people took turns speaking alone and in unison from different parts of the arena with some drumming intermixed. Parts of it felt flat, while another time I found myself yelling, “there you go!”. I was hoping that there would be more of a challenge to the church to become the kind of place that values the gifts of young people. I’m not sure that the address challenged the audience at all. That may not have been the aim, but that was my hope.

Lyn Powell did a nice job with the laity address, challenging lay people to live out their own calls to ministry, rather than thinking about ministry as something that only clergy do.

I spoke from the floor today, so I guess that means I can go home now. I rose to make an amendment to one of the rules proposed by the rules committee. It ended up being fairly controversial, only passing 54% to 46%. The rule was related to the election of committee leadership and said something like “attention should be paid to inclusiveness in age, gender, race, clergy or lay, and young people”. The last “young people” was redundant and so I stood up and said so. I said something to the effect of “it already says ‘age’ and that encompasses young, old, and anything in between”. I got some applause for that comment and the bishop had to remind the body not to applaud. Another young person rose to speak against my motion, saying that it was good the way it was emphasizing young people, and it only barely passed. Afterward Eduardo texted me: “Way to go Luke. You just split the General conference!” ha

We started legislative committees tonight. I’m in the discipleship committee which handles legislation related to local and connectional youth and young adult ministry, lay ministry, the General Board of Discipleship, Strengthening the Black Church for the 21st Century, and the hymnal study, among others. My amendment didn’t hurt young people (or me) too much because I was elected vice chair of the committee. Another young person (I think he’s 25ish) is chairing the “Conferences” committee and Becca Farnum who was part of the young peoples address is the secretary. I was trained in the intricacies of the legislation reporting process very rapidly over an exceedingly mediocre boxed dinner. The computer program and paper system that is used to manage all of the legislation changes is pretty remarkable. I worked with the chair to organize the committee into subcommittees, which was kind of stressful. The subcommittees did finally get under way after electing their leadership and things calmed down a little. Tomorrow I ought to be able to participate in a subcommittee some. I have to help coordinate who is going to present legislation on to the plenary next week and will probably be up front a bit myself presenting legislation from the discipleship committee.

That all took my through 11:30. We met as a delegation, talked about what we had seen today, judicial council election, and when to wear our national championship t-shirts. Now it is just after 1:30 am and I’m ready to go to bed.

Peace,

Luke