Day 3, April 25, 2008

This blog is dedicated to my wonderful wife Julie, who is home with our three boys, Daniel, Gabriel, and Luke.  She is the most awesome wife in the world to stay home while I run off to conference for 2 weeks.  What would I do without here?  I don’t know either, but it would not be pretty.  I love ya’ honey!

 

Well the third day was very long.  We started with worship at 8:00 am.  The music was great again…though we sing way too many songs!  Bishop Jaoa Muchada from Mozambique preached in Portuguese with a translator.  He was great.  He said we cannot transform the world if we ourselves are not transformed.  He also had the shortest sermon so far this week, and that alone should have earned him the standing ovation he received.

 

We then had nominations for Judicial Council—and this is a BIG deal.  You might remember that it was the Judicial Council who approved letting a pastor exclude a man from membership because he was a “self-avowed, practicing homosexual.”  Remember also that one of the JC members failed to recuse himself for conflict of interest and cast the deciding vote in favor of his clergy colleague from the Annual Conference where this took place.

 

Well, the Council of Bishops, in a VERY bold step did not nominate for reelection to the Judicial Council either this conflicted JC member nor another JC member who voted for this exclusion.  One would have to scan the history books to see if a sitting JC member who wanted reelection was not nominated by the Council of Bishops.  Very encouraging.  Of course they were both nominated from the floor…so it remains to be seen if the center of the church will hold them accountable for their actions.  The elections are Monday!

 

And, to add to the intrigue, apparently, the super conservative Good News movement has purchased ALL 250+ central conference delegates (those from Africa and Asia) cell phones to use during General Conference.  Allegedly so they can text message them who to vote for…during the Judicial Council Elections.  This is not all that surprising as they have already circulated their list of preferred candidates.  And, as delegates walk into their committees, the Good News hands everyone a list of every petition and how to vote on it.  (I am not making this up!)  How easy is that?  Even W could be a delegate here…but I digress.

 

Sooo, the sub-committee I am observing passed my two petitions, one requiring recusal for conflicts of interest by JC members and the other requiring JC members to actually be members of the UM church for 4 years prior to election.  A few more hurdles before they are passed on, but I am optimistic they will go on the consent calendar for almost certain final passage.  I won’t know until Saturday or Sunday.

 

Tomorrow is a big day!  Last week I emailed the whole KS East delegation and asked if we should all wear KU National Champions T-shirts together one day.  Everyone thought that was a great idea and asked me to bring the shirts for everyone…doh!  So I put 40 t-shirts on my credit card and I brought them down here and I have sold 34 of them so far.  We are all wearing them on Saturday (tomorrow)—Both KS East and KS West—and even the Bishop and his wife, and Bishop and Etta Mae Mutti, and two other former Kansas Bishops!  Should be a lot of fun.  Rock Chalk Jayhawk!

 

Bedtime!