An up and down day...

The day began with music provided by the Christ UMC of the Deaf Choir in Baltimore, MD and Grace Notes of First UMC in Plano, TX. The worship service was the memorial service in which the bishops who have died since the last General Conference were remembered. In addition, there was a time in the service to remember delegates who have died in the past four years as well as a time for individuals to remember persons dear to them who have died recently. The preacher for the day was Bishop Hee-Soo Jung of the Chicago Area who preached on “Jesus, Remember Me” based on selected verses from Luke 23 and Luke 24. Bishop Jung was very clear in stating that he believed Jesus would accept everyone into the kingdom and thus, shouldn’t we in the church be as open? It was a powerful sermon.

The morning session was presided over by Bishop J. Lawrence McCleskey. The retiring members of the Judicial Council were recognized as were the newly elected members (including our own Kathi Austin Mahle) and the officers of the new council: President is Susan Henry Crowe; Vice-President is Judge Jon Gray; Secretary is J. Belton Joiner. I believe the new Judicial Council has selected three very competent persons as its officers. When the monitoring report was made this morning, Minnesota was represented again! This time it was Rev. Dennis Oglesby. (Later in the day, I discovered an old friend of mine from Troy (my former) Conference is a friend of Dennis’. We were talking to each other and getting caught up with each other when Dennis came walking along!) Even at General Conference, like Annual Conference, there is a flavor of a family reunion – it is just quadrennial, not annual, in nature.

The morning session was interrupted with a scheduled "recess" in the form of a silent protest or demonstration by the GBLTQ community their family and friends. (I wrote a small report that is posted on the conference website www.minnesotaumc.org and the video of the 15 minute demonstration can be found on the general conference website (go to www.umc.org and click on the General Conference logo at the top of the page). This was a painful time but it was also the beginning of what could be profound healing within our denomination because of the leadership of our bishops.

Virtually every piece of legislation dealt with Thursday was a constitutional amendment. While you might say, “Yuck, that must be as dry as dust!” Au contraire! Many of them dealt with the Global Nature of the Church and, as the evening drew on, the voting rights of Local Pastors, associate members and provisional members (what will become the new name for probationary members). If the constitutional amendment passes, Local Pastors who have served two years following completion of the course of study or M.Div. degree or provisional members who have completed their educational requirements for ordination, along with Associate Members will be able to vote for General and Jurisdictional Conference delegates although they will not be able to serve in that capacity. It will help them feel that they are being represented during these two conferences that are so much a part of our connection.

What was most troubling to this writer, and I checked this out with several other veterans of numerous general conferences to be sure I wasn’t off on my own, was the way in which many folks just love to parade to the microphone and add no light (or even heat) to the discussion at hand. While I’m sure it is a variety of these, all of these motivations seemed to be at work: inept and/or inattentive delegates who prefer to come to the microphone instead of asking their seatmate their question, those who possess enough ego that they want to see their name in print in the verbatim of the session, or and this is the most troubling to me, what can be seen as a carefully orchestrated attempt to block legislation by raising all kinds of questions and parliamentary maneuvers.

The evening session was presided over by our own Bishop Sally Dyck. Her style, which we have become used to in Minnesota, was a breath of fresh air. She kept things moving and maintained her own sense of humor while keeping everyone else in good humor. If you looked for this post late Thursday evening or early Friday morning, I apologize. I have been writing this sitting in the press section. While I have internet connection, I have no power source. About half way through this post my computer told me to shut down or lose my work. Thus, I shut down to avoid disaster. When I got back to the hotel at 11:30 p.m. I was too tired to keep writing and do this post. Oh well, one more day. I mean, only one more day!!!