Day 2, April 24, 2008

Blog 2

April 24, 2008

 

The second day began with 4 hours of sleep.  We did try a different coffee shop.  The coffee was not as good as Starbucks, but the scone was freshly made.  So what to do, maybe Starbucks and then the fresh scone…it’s hard work here…

 

So we started the day with worship.  It opened with the requisite banners, liturgical dancers…the bishops were more subdued, for which I was grateful.  Then, the liturgical dance ended with a concert-like light presentation and out from the back of the stage came the bishop to preach, emerging like a rock star.  Now there was no smoke, which would have been a nice touch, but out walks Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher.

 

Wow, she looked incredibly striking and is clearly the best dressed Bishop in the house.  She had the obligatory purple Episcopal shirt with the all white clergy collar.  But she was wearing a silver skirt suit, that almost shone like a lame’ that matched her silver hair.  She then proceeded to give a remarkably thoughtful sermon, highlighted by the quotation, “We must threaten this world with the resurrection!”  Which was not militant at all but drew a rousing round of applause.   Then they trotted out some male bishop, and bless his heart, they should have put him in a silver lame’ suit too, because he looked pretty darn drab following his colleague.

 

Then onto business.  We heard a looooong presentation on the new 4 priorities of the church: 1) Ministry to the poor, 2) Stamping out killer diseases, 3) Start new and revitalize existing churches, 4) Develop transforming leaders.  I liked the presentation and I am guardedly optimistic that it might help focus our church.  Two hours!  The best part of this is that our delegation is sitting in the very front, so every time they need a crowd shot for the 5 video screens hanging in midair from the rafters, it is our folk, who were not caught sleeping or picking their noses, which we on the sidelines were worried about.

 

They also mentioned that in the next quadrenium, 2009-2012, UM churches worldwide will collect $28 Billion.  Eighty-five percent will stay local, with the rest going to world wide missions.  They are proposing a $642 million budget for the church for those four years, a 1.2% increase.  Big numbers.

 

Then we heard the first ever young people’s address.  An hour long presentation from 6 20-somethings about their view on the church…that Rocked.  They were the first one’s to actually say the church is divided over homosexuality.  The day before we had sensitivity training about how to be open minded about gender and race…and sexual orientation was disturbingly absent.  But the young folks hammered it home nicely.  Then we went to lunch.  Then back for another hour speech from the lay representative…which I am sure was great, but I skipped…look, we had just heard 5 straight hours of talking…how much can you take in?  And people think I talk too much!

 

Then we went to legislative committees where they divvy up the 4,000+ petitions.  We elected officers and went to dinner…BBQ…which was not as good as Gates.  Then back to legislative committees where we elected sub-committee chairs.  My committee is Judicial Administration.  It is the smallest committee with only 60 delegates and a little over 100 petitions…none of which we dealt with.  Instead we got to know each other and divided into 7 sub-committees…that took 2 ½ hours…and we were done for the night.

 

It was day, and it was night, the second day.

Day one April 23, 2008

A little long for the first day…

 

To begin, our entire delegation’s thoughts and prayers are with Yvonne, Hazel, and Nancy, three members of our delegation who are not able to be with us.  They have all had illness or illness in the immediate family and were not able to attend.  We are thinking about you!

 

I arrived late last night and as I got off the elevator at the hotel was delighted to be greeted by our whole delegation, all in good moods.  Since I made the hotel reservations I have had this recurring nightmare that I would show up and be greeted by an angry mob of Kansans in the hotel lobby with no rooms anywhere!  But alas, everyone was checked in and ready to go.

 

The General Conference (GC) staff notoriously treats GC as a 1,500 person conference with the requisite hotel rooms.  Well, they are only counting those who absolutely have to be here.  This is really a 3,000 person conference and consequently there are people staying 8-10 miles away.  That does not seem so bad except it runs from 8 am to almost midnight many nights.  Our hotel is a refreshing 4 block walk away from the convention center.

 

Today was slow with registration and orientation.  There were several meetings to step in and out of.  I did manage a Starbucks for breakfast.  The convention center has a dome at the center, seats probably 9,000 at capacity.  The seating has a floor area for the 1,000 delegates.  The stage is big enough for all the bishops (hundreds) and then there are padded stadium seats above and around in a horseshoe that seat all the visitors and reserves.  This a much better set up than the aluminum bleachers we all sat on in Pittsburgh.

 

Worship started at 6:00 pm with a bang.  There were an estimated 6,500 people in worship.  There was a huge processional of banners, dancers, and bishops…even some bishops dancing, unfortunately.  It looked like the start of the Olympics.  We sang every song in the world, some more successfully than others. 

 

Bishop Janice Huie of the Houston Area gave the sermon and she was AWESOME!  She is the current president of the Council of Bishops and she is really a leading voice in the church.  She reminded us that there are 1,000 delegates representing 11.4 million United Methodists in 128 conferences, in 48,000 congregations, in 50 nations, on 5 continents.  I wrote that part down, and I may still not have gotten it right, but something like that.

 

She talked about the special interest groups dividing our church, some who believe they have cornered the market on “righteousness”.  But, she reminded us of Paul’s message that all fall short of the Glory of God.  She also talked about “marshmallow faith” that looks good and tastes sweet, but when it gets too close to the fire, it drips off the stick onto the ground and burns up.  We have to have real faith in Christ.  Wow.

 

So after 2 hours of inspiring worship we went into 3 hours of meetings!  We really know how to spoil the moment.  We spent almost 2 hours adopting 64 pages (literally) of rules for General Conference!!  What?  Then we spent another hour of announcements and mind splitting minutia.  Then the rain stopped long enough for us to walk back to the hotel for a brief delegation meeting.  Then some of us stayed up until 1:30 talking about homosexuality.

 

More tomorrow…Keep praying!

Test Post

Ok, I am very new to all this, so here is a test post to see if it is going out…you DO NOT need to reply and tell me if you receive it.  I can check that out here.  By the way, I will be here Sunday, I do not leave until Sunday after church.

Thanks!  Mark

Getting Ready for General Conference

Hey all,

Just a few days now before I leave for General Conference. This is my first ever blog…sad really since many of my friends have been blogging for years. For those of you newer to this idea than even I am, a blog is simply an on-line forum. I will post daily during General Conference and anyone in the universe can respond and post a comment.

If you want, you can receive these blogs sent directly to your email by clicking on this link:

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If you have a question or comment that you want everyone to read, you can hit the ”comment” button below. If you have a question just for me, you can email me by clicking here: revmark@trinityumckck.org

Anyway, I may try a few test runs as folks start to sign up, just to make sure it works. Then, I will post something every day during the two weeks of General Conference. After that you can easily unsubscribe to this. Or, if you want, you can continue to subscribe as I intend to blog weekly about the church and KCK.

I hope you enjoy! Mark