It’s a Mad Mission… Sign Me Up

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