Another very long day! To start there was a Race for the Cure downtown when we got up and Starbucks was swamped beyond our ability to wait in line…then our back up coffee shop was closed on Saturday. This began the day with a scent of desperation as I have had about 1 good night’s sleep split over 3 days! But alas, I found good-enough coffee and a bagel…otherwise I might have just turned around and gone back to bed in despair.
Eduardo Bousson let me sit on the floor of the Conference for him during the morning session. I wanted to sit down there while we were all wearing our KU National Championship shirts. I have sold 38 of 40 shirts that I brought, so we had a great contingency. Then, Bishop Jones made an announcement challenging the conferences from Memphis, North Carolina, and California to match our delegations’ contribution to “Nothing but Nets” a national effort by the church to buy life-saving bed nets for children in Africa to protect them from Malaria carrying Mosquitoes. We will hear tomorrow if they will accept the challenge!
Another rockin’ great sermon this morning in worship….please note I have logged 4 sermons and 6 ½ hours of worship…not to mention about 17,000 songs…mercy! Bishop Bill Hutchins of Louisiana rocked the house talking about remembering our baptism and getting excited about our faith. Then to business…apparently someone stole the Bishop’s gavel from the podium, so an appeal was made for its return. Then we had more reports that could have been shorted from 2 hours to like 30 minutes! Then we went to a nice Mexican restaurant for lunch.
Phone-gate is heating up here. Apparantly the Good News movement did purchase phones for select international delegates. One group called them out and Good News claimed they were just trying to help them…which absolutely no one believes. Anyway, there was an appeal for the ethics committee of the GC to review it. The motion passed and then some people wondered aloud if there even is an ethics committee of the GC. Who knows. People are really fired up about this attempt to manipulate the international delegates.
Then, back to our committees. Well, I was very optimistic yesterday about the progress on my 3 petitions about the Judicial Council. The first one was a Constitutional amendment that allowed the General Conference to set some organizational procedures for the Judicial Council. Well, they misrepresented the point, and it went down in flames with the record so far in our committee…it lost 50-0! There have been other unanimous votes, but none with everyone there. I feel like I am contributing to the unity of my group.
Then, less than 20 minutes later someone gets up and raises the question of the constitutionality of the proceedings and referred exactly to the paragraph I had cited. No one caught the irony—because only a sub-committee of 5 had even read the petition.
Then my second petition which requires Judicial Council members to be members of the United Methodist church for at least 4 years was cruising along until a very influential person…who I like and could have smacked…got up and spoke against it. It failed 27-17…which is the most contested vote on any petition. I feel like I am contributing to the divisiveness of my group. This one will come on the floor of the whole conference, so I will try to substitute in for another member of our delegation so I can try to save it at the microphone.
My third petition sought to provide for recusals of Judicial Council members in the face of conflicts of interest…like every other court in America. This one endured a grueling re-write and went from 4 short paragraphs to an astonishing 3 pages! Verbosity is the kiss of death for petitions…so I have only guarded optimism that it will survive.
Both KS East and West had a combined dinner with our Bishop and his wife. Then we had 4 more hours of committee work. So…I am skipping worship tomorrow and sleeping in. We have had 4 great sermons in a row…5 has never happened at GC and I cannot believe the string will hold…I need some rest.
The biggest bummer is there is a baseball game tomorrow afternoon…and it is supposed to rain…and my last petition that is hanging on a thread is due to be heard in the committee during about the 3rd inning…so…the game is in jeopardy…
Stay tuned!
Mark,
I love your updates. Especially “I am contributing to the unity of our group”….”I am not contributing to the unity”.
If you can get me any of the cell numbers on the international delegation, I’ll start counter-texting them now.
a quick, funny note about the race for the cure run in fort worth. we were coming in from our hotel in the van and got side tracked due to the race. as we turned to come down houston street toward the convention center i looked up in my rear veiw mirror to see hundreds of people running toward us with a police escort. pretty darn exciting.
glad you are there doing excellent work! – KC