I have been passionate about treatment of young people in society and church since I was in junior high school. I promise I won’t write every post about young people, but it seems to be where I’ve been wanting to go lately.

This letter was published in “Dear Abby” on June 30, 2008.

DEAR ABBY: I am a 14-year-old girl. I don’t get angry often, but when I do my parents disregard it by calling me a “hormonal teenager.” They say things like, “She’s such a CHARMING 14-year-old” and “There are hormones raging.” I find their comments hurtful and degrading.

Please don’t misunderstand. My parents are usually nice, but when something bothers me they automatically resort to the above comments. I personally believe I am pretty good at handling and expressing my emotions calmly. It just seems that my parents don’t consider the credibility of my emotions and blame them on my being a teen. Is it wrong for them to say these things? What should I do when they say them? — DISREGARDED IN OREGON

DEAR DISREGARDED: No one of any age wants to feel patronized, and that goes for people from 13 to 93. (And, interestingly, it happens to people from both ends of the spectrum.) If your parents want to exchange comments like the ones you mentioned, it would be better if they did so in private. However, if they are saying things like, “She’s such a charming 14-year-old,” it may be a clue to the fact that you’re acting like anything BUT — and perhaps you should find a more mature and controlled way of expressing your emotions.

Sarcastic and humorous comments about teenagers are remarkably common. In this case they were directed towards an individual, probably in frustration, although it is hard to tell. Other times they function as a means of forming bonds between two or more parents. One person makes a joking comment about teenagers, those hearing laugh, and the two are brought closer together by the shared understanding. I have observed it in conversation, job interviews, and even from the pulpit.

I’m going to speak prophetically and say that such behavior in most situations is sinful. Whatever is gained by making those kind of comments is more than offset by the demeaning effect of those comments on young people, whether or not young people are in fact present. When young people are present it is especially demeaning. Individuals find it “hurtful and degrading” as Disregarded put it in the letter. Comments like that dehumanize the subject of the comment. A person ceases to be “Sally” they are a “CHARMING (read “whiny” or alternatively “bitch of a”) 14-year-old.” They aren’t experiencing legitimized feelings like anger or sadness, but rather they are “hormonal”. If indeed the response of the teenager is inappropriate and influenced by changes in the body, the teenager may well know it and the sarcastic comments about hormones only increase the shame and the feeling of powerlessness.

Generic comments about teenagers are every bit as demeaning. In the case of jokes, community is built among the old at the expense of the young. They only increase the gulf between young and old that we have constructed in society. This is true whether or not teenagers are present. The understanding that these kind of comments build is artificial. Rather than sharing frustrations with being a parent of teenagers (which I acknowledge are often many) with other parents to build real understanding and gain real insight and comfort, people make throw-away comments that demean all teenagers, their children especially.

The presence of these kind of comments in the Church of Jesus Christ are unconscionable. They do not glorify God. They tear apart the body of Christ of which all people young and old are essential. When made from the pulpit, I can say from experience, they alienate the young from worship.

The point of this is not to deny that parenting teenagers isn’t frustrating. I obviously have no direct experience in that regard, but I have every confidence that is the case. The point is to condemn speech that is unproductive and harmful, that demeans the humanity of an individual and group of people for some temporary relief of frustration or a laugh.

So to answer the two questions that “Disregarded” asked and Abby rather condescendingly neglected to answer:

DEAR DISREGARDED: Yes, it is absolutely wrong of them to say those things. They fail to address you anger or what makes you angry while demeaning you and your feelings in the process. Further, those kind of sarcastic comments are not productive, whether you hear them or not. Next time this happens you should wait until both you and your parents cool down and talk to them honestly about how those kind of words make you feel. Whether you are 8, 14, 21, 35, 50, or older, an open, honest, and respectful relationship with your parents is a great thing to cultivate.

Peace,

Luke

Mike is the Associate General Secretary of the Division on Ministries with Young People of the General Board of Discipleship and a friend of mine. His mother, Carolyn Aldridge died in an accidental drowning while she, Mike, and Mike’s wife Lynn were on a mission trip in Belize.

This is the GBOD press release:

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Mother of Young People’s Leader Dies in Tragic Accident

NASHVILLE, Tenn., July 1, 2008 /GBOD/ –Carolyn Aldridge, mother of the Rev. Michael Ratliff , died Monday while on a mission trip in Belize with Ratliff and his wife Lynn.

Aldridge, of Waycross , Ga. , lost her life in an accidental drowning.  According to unconfirmed news reports from a Belize-based radio station, Mrs. Aldridge was in a Jeep Cherokee that rolled from its parked location into the nearby flooded San Jacinto River .  The river was believed to be over 20 feet deep.

“We are deeply saddened by Mrs. Carolyn Aldridge’s tragic death. We ask for prayers for Mike and Lynn, their family and all others impacted by this devastating news,” said the Rev. Karen Greenwaldt , top executive for the General Board of Discipleship (GBOD).

Ratliff, the associate general secretary for GBOD’s Division on Ministries with Young People, and his wife and mother were part of a volunteer mission team assisting with service projects in Punta Gorda.

GBOD’s mission is to support annual conference and local church leaders for their task of equipping world-changing disciples. An agency of The United Methodist Church, GBOD is located at 1908 Grand Ave.   in Nashville , Tenn. Visit www.gbod.org for more information or call the Media Relations Office toll free at (877) 899-2780, Ext. 7017.

A commenter to the aforementioned post on young people and annual conference by Bishop Willimon made the following comment:

Dear Bishop,
I am well aware of your policy of discouraging the trend of second career folk entering ministry. I was sitting in a United Methodist Men’s retreat day in Baton Rouge where you were the guest speaker and you said as much. I had just experienced the call to ministry and was so excited. I had already applied to a Methodist seminary with which you were associated. Funny, I didn’t think you could possibly be speaking to me. I was only thirty six years old.

Thank God, when I was denied admission to your school, I picked myself up and reapplied to a school just south of there. Now, I’m a member in full connection in another annual conference. I serve on a district board of ordained ministry. I’ve mentored people of all ages as they discern their own call into ministry. I’ve pointed young people to the ministry beginning with their confirmation experience. I’ve worked with older youth and young adults getting them acquainted with district and conference ministries in hopes that ordained ministry would be in their career sights.

I’m an old forty nine years old now. I’ve served churches for the past twelve years. Nobody I know expects to retire before seventy. My thirty-plus years of ministry will only be richer and more fruitful because of my experiences in a first career.

Thank the Lord, I didn’t let you tell me no.

Whew! Praise God for the ministry of this fellow and praise God for the ministry of Bishop Willimon! Isn’t it  nice to be able to do both? I’m not in the least bit interested in judging either Bishop Willimon or his anonymous commenter because even if I did know intimately about the commenter’s situation and what Bishop Willimon tends to advocate, I wouldn’t be qualified.

I think I can safely opine though that this post can be seen as an indicator of what turns into a false dichotomy between encouraging the young to answer their call and discouraging the old from doing the same. While Bishop Willimon’s comments in particular may have affected the anonymous comment greatly, they probably weren’t the only affront that he has felt given his response to Willimon’s post that didn’t even deal with this issue explicitly.

Age and sensitivity to age is such a peculiar thing. People don’t like to be considered old. Inevitably discussions about connectional young adult ministry for example turn to age definitions. About the time somebody turns 31, they start to think that we should be defining young adult ministry as including through age 35 or 40. They are often vehement. At those moments I have trouble believing that it is about a missional imperative so much as it is about individual vanity or more charitably a reaction to the culture. I think that the age definition issue as well as the encouraging young/discouraging old dichotomy are symptoms of a very real “cult of youth” that is present in society. The overvaluing of young in the culture (but undervaluing in decision-making structures in society) can make it sound like someone who is encouraging young people in particular to go into ministry is discouraging old people.

We don’t have the luxury in the church to to discourage older people from answering their call to ministry. There is something unfaithful and disrespectful about it. First of all, we need to be taking everybody’s calls seriously, period. Second of all, it can be argued that second-career folks have bailed out a church that has done a poor job of encouraging younger people to go into the ministry. Based on my relatively limited experience though, we haven’t been discouraging older people from answering their calls. There have been more than one second-career pastor on the cabinet in Kansas East in the past few years. They are getting some of our more challenging appointments and doing wonderful ministry there. Other professional experiences can be a great asset to pastoral ministry and I think that the church has recognized that.

At the same time, we can’t afford to go the other way. It is vitally important to help people recognize their calls as young people and fulfill them. It is vital to our leadership development, it is vital to our efforts to attract new people to the church, and frankly it is vital to our pension and health insurance funds. Leaders in the church need to consider the unique gifts that a younger person might bring to the ministries of some of our medium to large churches. An attitude of “paying your dues” and “moving up the ladder” is not scriptural, nor is it missionally essential, much less advisable. Gaining experience is important, don’t get me wrong and no pastor, young or old, should feel entitled to a certain kind of appointment. That said, I think it is possible that young clergy with some creative mentoring and assistance could bring a breath of fresh air into our congregations that may just be coasting.

I think that our efforts to encourage young people to pursue ordained ministry and to take a greater role in the work of the church have been right on the money. We have identified the lack of young clergy as a problem and are seeking to address it. We can not do this at the expense of older persons who have discerned a call, but I don’t believe we are doing so. Let us boldly go forward challenging all people, young and old, to answer the call that God has put on their lives (and I’m not just talking about ordained ministry) in the interest of making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world!

Peace,

Luke

I just couldn’t resist the title. I hope some of you appreciate Raffi. Here are some cute kids on youtube doing the song I’m referencing.

Bishop Willimon has posted recently about “empowering a new generation of United Methodist leaders” and I want to address what he said there in this post and then write in the next post a little about what one of his commenters said.

His post contained the text of letter from Dorothy, a pastor in his conference telling him about the great experience that a couple of younger people had at the annual conference session and the great leadership and hope they offer the church. Then, he issues a challenge, or perhaps a mandate:

Dorothy’s story is far from unique. This is what happens when we really focus ourselves upon the priority of a new generation of Christians. I’m recommending that next year our entire Annual Conference be focused upon the single priority of empowering a new generation, that any reports be made exclusively by those under forty, and that every church send lay delegates who are all under forty. Jenny and Izy (the two people Dorothy refered to) are in every congregation. We must notice them, nurture them, and empower them for God to use them in giving our church a future. By God’s grace, we will!

My first thought is, wow that’s a gutsy challenge. There is some firmly entrenched power that this comes up against. It is clearly an ambitious and probably idealistic goal, but if you’re going to cast a vision, make it bold, right? If I recall, Bishop Willimon has taken other steps to try to encourage young people to come to Annual Conference by shortening the session and moving it over a weekend. I’m sure he knows that not every church will send someone under forty, but if even half or a quarter did, the change would be monumental.I say the change would be monumental because the simple presence of younger people is such a powerful thing in an annual conference.

I have absolutely seen the effect of young people in meaningful leadership in an annual conference. When lay people see competent, confident young people in leadership they are energized. They are excited by the present and see that the future is in good hands. It transforms clergy attitudes. I’ve seen a clergywoman in our conference go from skeptical about and maybe even threatened by young people who didn’t want to “pay their dues” or acknowledge experience, to being thrilled about going forward into the future in partnership.

Now, this is just the first step, and I’m sure Bishop Willimon knows that. There is more to meaningful leadership in the annual conference than attending the session once a year. It is important to engage younger people in the real mission and ministry of the conference. The next step is finding younger people in the church who are passionate about making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world with gifts for administration, and passion for missions or campus ministry, and inviting them into the committees, equipping them as necessary and watching the transformation begin. In my mind, young people in leadership is by definition transformative. We are failing to be the church for all ages when certain people aren’t in leadership. Additionally, young people can bring the new and add it to the best of the old so that the church can be in more vibrant, effective ministry.

Beth Quick has commented on this post already and she asks some good questions and her commenters make some good comments.

Obviously this is much more challenging than I’ve made it sound. I am the first person to acknowledge the difficulty of getting young people to commit to coming to meetings. There are a myriad of issues around this that I may get to blogging about one day.

What do you think? Should the lay people who have been coming to your annual conference for 30 years keep coming? Are the young punks too uppity? Do they need to pay their dues?

-Luke

If that title doesn’t grab people from the methoblog front page, I’m not sure what will. Adam Hamilton, senior pastor of Church of the Resurrection (a UMC of 15,000+ members where I am currently interning) made the following announcement on his blog yesterday:

At the end of May I started a project that will not be completed for six or seven years. Over the next six or seven years we hope to provide a leadership, preaching and evangelism training program for all 16,000 United Methodist clergy and at least one layperson from all 32,000+ United Methodist churches. The program consists of three 90 minute sessions: Essentials of Leadership, Improving Preaching and Worship, and Evangelism and Outreach in the United Methodist Tradition.

We’re providing this training exclusively through the sessions of annual conference so that every pastor and a lay member of every annual conference must attend. There are sixty-six annual conferences in the United States and they are all held in late May through mid June, which will require speaking at 8 to 10 a year - two to three a week. To my knowledge this has not been done since the time of Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke - the first two General Superintendents of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America in the late 1700’s.

We’re challenging every United Methodist Church to have a written mission statement that is short but compelling and consistent with our denomination’s mission statement. We’re challenging pastors and church leaders to develop several specific and measurable goals to strengthen their churches in the following year. We’re challenging pastors to develop a preaching plan, to offer sermons that will connect with unchurched people, and to develop follow-up strategies for new visitors. And we’re encouraging lay and clergy leaders to honestly evaluate their strengths and weaknesses in the area of leadership and to focus on at least two areas they will work to improve.

Ambitious, I don’t envy his travel schedule… and gutsy. Generally people don’t tend to offer their services to annual conferences. I’m pretty sure that most people wait to be asked to speak, and then they are often given a direction to go by the bishop or sessions committee. Additionally, it takes a certain amount of audacity to compare yourself by implication to Francis Asbury and Thomas Coke. I say this at some risk, you understand, as Adam is my boss’s boss’s boss currently, although I have had one or two occasions to tell him what to do on the delegation. I also got to drive his Mustang once, but that’s another story. I’ve found Adam to be very humble, so I don’t accuse him of of arrogance, but the comparison that he makes is striking.

What he is proposing is in one sense, episcopal. “The purpose of superintending is to equip the Church in its disciple-making ministry. Those who superintend carry primary responsibility for ordering the life of the Church. It is their task to enable the gather Church to worship and to evangelize faithfully.” (para 401 Discipline 2004). Now, he isn’t really superintending strictly speaking, he doesn’t consult on appointments or supervise clergy, but he is assuming a teaching role that really hasn’t been seen except in bishops (think Robert Schnase or Will Willimon) or seminary professors (think Lovett Weems), and on a scale that, as Adam said, hasn’t been seen since Coke or Asbury.

By offering and ultimately probably doing a training session at most conferences in the country, he will fill a void in our current episcopal leadership. The “general” part of “general superintendent” was greatly diminished as bishops were forced to locate and assigned several and eventually one to two annual conferences to oversee. Additionally, general agencies took over some of the general instructional function of the episcopacy as they ballooned in the late 19th and early 20th century. Also, the administrative responsibilities of the bishop within an annual conference have increased greatly and further diminished their opportunity to offer leadership and training to the whole church.

It is hard to classify what Adam is proposing. Before I stray too far, I recognize that he is ultimately appointed to The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS and doing a fine job of it. In the role he is carving out for himself and COR as resource and teacher for the United Methodist Church and in this specific role though he is like a general evangelist, but for annual conferences, a function that is very much indeed like what Asbury and Coke did in the late 18th and early 19th century.

What does everyone think? Incredible asset to the mainline church? Picking up the slack? Remarkably presumptuous?

-Luke

Well, I got back late last night from a two-day jaunt to Nashville where I was on a hiring team to interview candidates for chief administrative officer of the General Board of Discipleship. Those kind of meetings are always interesting, although this one would have been more interesting if I had more of a finance background. There was a lot of nodding about things that I didn’t completely understand. A couple people who respect affirmed my thinking about future Ph.D work and teaching (something I’m considering along with pastoral ministry), so that will be something I will keep thinking about. I hung out with a friend of mine who was also at the meeting and we both complained way too much about the General Church, young people in ministry, ordination process, and the like. Sometimes it is nice to get things off my chest with people who can understand, but in this case I think we agreed with each other so much that I just internalized it, such that I’m more than a little disenchanted with the connectional church at the moment. That kind of thing usually passes though.

I’m preaching this Sunday in Louisburg, KS, so I’m starting to prepare my sermon. The text is Genesis 22:1-14. My title is “Unconditional Faith in an Unpredictable God.” The scripture is difficult this week. It is the binding of Isaac, where God commands Abraham to take his son Isaac up Mt. Moriah, prepare an altar, and sacrifice him as a burnt offering. When Abraham is raising his knife, God stops Abraham and a ram is provided for the sacrifice. This a tough one to preach. Almost everyone has trouble with a God who tells somebody to kill their son. We want to think about it from Abraham’s, Isaac’s, or even Sarah’s perspective. We want to search for some way to explain that away or dismiss it. How do you take the text seriously and not get sidetracked by those issues? That is going to be the trick. I hope to be able to bring those who hear past their distress or disgust at the story and into a struggle with the idea that we worship a God who is wild and unpredictable, who asks for all that we have and are, who upsets and unsettles our lives. I’ve fiddled with the idea of using a teddy bear (a god who we turn to when we need God) and a book (a god who fits into neat theological systems) as illustrations of ways that we try to construct a predictable god of our own understanding and deny God’s power. I may post it after I preach it. I would like to post a perfect manuscript, but I usually don’t have one of those. I tend to have one that gets marked up and changed in the hours before I preach it.

My new project at work is developing resources to help members of small groups at COR to care for each other. It should be an interesting one. I will be putting together one page summaries or pamphlets to help leaders of the 200+ small groups here to care for their members. There will be resources on divorce, death, hospitalization, birth, etc. It will help remind the leaders of training that they receive, direct them to resources within the church for the individual in need of care, and help them to help the small group to care for the individual, or obtain the healing that they need.

Peace,

Luke

I feel like I’ve accomplished a good bit today, although I’ve avoided doing much work on my message for staff chapel tomorrow. I’m on the team for staff chapel this much and the theme for the month is summer blockbusters. We made the interesting decision to choose movies for which there are sequels/remakes coming out this summer and then finding clips in them to use in a short message and discussion time. I’m using The Mummy and am talking about social responsibility. I’m still working on it, but will draw on a few scriptures including Adam shifting responsibility in the garden, Jesus saying “the last shall be first” and perhaps the Great Requirement (Micah 6:8).

Things are starting to move. There are projects I’m excited about, plans for some neat experiences, and a pile of books to read. I think it will end up being a good summer despite some early frustrations. One of the things I did today as I avoided working on that message was read about half of Jeanne Stevenson-Moessner’s A Primer on Pastoral Care. It was pretty straightforward for the most part in terms of practical basics: representing God/Christ in difficult situations, practicing/creating and atmosphere of tolerance/respect/validation, prayer, song, sacraments, touch as ways through which God’s presence is manifest (if she were a Methodist she would have called them means of grace) and understanding pastoral care as coming alongside someone and helping illuminate the possible steps, among other things. One thing that Stevenson-Moessner emphasized that I hadn’t though much about is the importance of a biblical self-understanding of pastoral care. She emphasized the classic Good Shepherd model, but also drew on Ruth helping Naomi, Micah, and Matthew 25 (sheep feeding hungry, clothe naked, etc.) She strongly emphasized finding a scriptural model that resonates with you to form your understanding of offering care. She introduces this in chapter 3 and tells the reader in chapter 4 (where I stopped, incidentally) to find one before they continue on. I guess that means I need to search the scriptures. I’m not sure I believe that somebody needs to have a specific scripture in mind when they are offering care or thinking about how the care for others, but it is important to study the scriptures and be shaped by stories of care.

Tonight is the “visitor’s night” worship service for the Kansas East Conference Institute youth camp. Baldwin City was the site of one of the Epworth League Institutes of the Methodist Episcopal Church, so youth camp has been happening there for over ninety years. Pretty cool.

Peace,

Luke

Since two weeks at GC couldn’t make me blog regularly, perhaps a summer will. I’m interning this summer at the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS. I started about three weeks ago, but between Student Forum and Annual Conference it really got going last week. I have a nifty little badge that says: “Luke Wetzel, Congregational Care Intern,” as well as desk, computer, phone, and e-mail address, and just recently business cards, a stapler, tape, and scissors. I’m interning in the congregational care department working with Rev. Andrew Conard, and doing hospital visits, observing counseling, helping with some smaller worship services, tasks on Sunday morning, and projects in the area of pastoral care. I’ll be doing some reflecting here this summer on what I’m experiencing.

The last six weeks since GC have been busy. I came back to Atlanta from Fort Worth and spent a little more than a week finishing my final exams. Then I got to relax a little in Atlanta and spend a couple days with my girlfriend up in North Carolina. We went visited the Biltmore Estate and had a relaxing time walking around the property, touring through the house and looking at flowers. Then I drove back to Kansas, started working for a couple days and went to Washington DC for a long Labor Day weekend for the United Methodist Student Forum. This was a gathering of UM college students from all around the country. It was a fair event, I feel like it tries to be too many things, a leadership training event, legislative gathering, and social justice movement/rally, each to the detriment of the other. The best thing about the event was the people. I got to spend time with some new friends who I met at General Conference and with old and new friends from Kansas. Not too long after that was Annual Conference which was a whirlwind. I preached the opening worship service/memorial service and that went pretty well. It was well-received, to my relief. The best part was hearing afterwards all the different ways that God worked through my preaching to give people what they needed to hear. The second best part was that I got it over on the first night, because I had to coordinate and help give presentations about General Conference for the next two days. We had four 15-minute time slots alloted to us and we went well over time on all but one. The conference secretary and chair of sessions and rules (she is on the delegation) are both saints for putting up with us. Now I’m working and looking towards a trip to Nashville on Sunday to be part of a hiring team for the General Board of Discipleship, preaching in Louisburg next Sunday, Jurisdictional Conference in July, and a trip to Italy in August to see my girlfriend who is studying abroad this semester.

This morning I sat in on a counseling session with a person who came to the church seeking a pastor to talk with. He moved here two years ago with his wife and three kids from the northeast. He had been unable to find a job, his wife had cheated on him, ands she filed for a divorce. He was looking towards moving back to the northeast where his parents and siblings are, and more importantly where he knew he could get a job. What he wanted more than anything was to keep his family together and stay near his children, but it just didn’t seem possible. He felt belittled by his wife and her family, and useless for his lack of a job. The most powerful part of the session was when Andrew told the man how much God loved him. The man was visibly affected by this and I was moved as I thought about the power of God’s love. He grew up nominally Catholic and his wife was the one who brought him into a Protestant Church which got him thinking more about God and reading the bible. One of the most challenging parts was watching him struggle with the question of how his wife could both be a Christian and be deceitful and belittling. Despite all that was going wrong in his life, his faith didn’t seem to be shaken much. It was certainly being tested, but he was still confident that God was with him. What he seemed to need was reassurance that was the case and some help clarifying his options and priorities.

I’m also working through lists of prayer requests, praying for each one and making notes for follow-up (phone-call, note, etc.). There is so much brokenness in the world, individual lives that are really a mess. I think I’ll understand really soon the importance of robust personal spiritual practice to be able to reflect light into the dark places and run dry spiritually. I’ve recognized my own tendency with hospital visits to not pause and pray before I enter the room that God will give comfort through me and help me to know their need so that I can help meet it. It would be easy for me to charge in without the proper intentionality. Care isn’t something that we do so much as something that God does through us.

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”.