GC preview for Gen X'ers

Ladies and Gentlemen, the General Conference of the United Methodist Church is just one week away! (audible groans ... nervous chuckles ... looks of fear).

I thought I'd pass along a few things you might find interesting as the quadrennial event approaches. Let me say first of all that my outlook on GC has swung back and forth from great optimism to near despair as I have read various related stories over the past few months. But starting today, I am switching to official 'optimism' mode for the duration. The bishops, the GC planners, and apparently everybody else wants us to think of this year's GC as embodying "A Future with Hope", so that's what I'm gonna do. There. I said it.

Moving right along...

-- Duke Divinity student Arthur Jones, scion of Bishop Scott Jones, is a lay delegate from his annual conference and yesterday moderated a discussion here at Duke about issues before the GC. It was a good and informative event, and we were able to here from three North Carolina Annual Conference delegates in addition to Arthur. He also prepared us by drawing up this
ABCs of GC information sheet to familiarize us with various aspects of the GC. He said I could post it, so feel free to download it and use it (giving Arthur proper credit, of course).

-- Circuit Rider, the official clergy magazine of the UMC, devoted its most recent issue to the global nature of General Conference. It included this interesting piece called By the Numbers
that looks at the demographics of both global church membership and delegation size. Note the growth of the church in Africa over the last decade. It is also significant to me that the church in the Southeastern Jurisdiction of the U.S. posted a small gain in membership, whereas the church everywhere else showed a decline.

-- There are a lot of issues Gen X'ers and Millennials should care about at GC. But since I couldn't write on all of them, I picked the proposed changes to the candidacy process and the proposed changes to the 'guaranteed appointment' system to focus on in my most recent United Methodist Reporter column. You can access it here. On the guaranteed appointment issue, Erika Gara has a related post with a lively conversation arguing the pro's and con's here.

-- On a somewhat related topic, a few weeks ago I wrote a column on Lovett Weems and Ann Michel's new book, The Crisis of Younger Clergy, where I suggested that "it takes a village" to raise a pastor. Gary Pelusa-Verdend saw that column and forwarded me this article he wrote for the Circuit Rider a few years ago where he addressed the same issue of the kind of community that is needed to support and sustain individuals who are being called to ministry. I recommend it.

-- Jenny Smith, who is a student at United Theological Seminary, is preparing to film a documentary on young clergy in the UMC. She talks about the idea on her blog. Jenny is planning on starting the filming at General Conference next week, and she is inviting all young clergy there to participate. Check out the website she has begun here, which includes an invitation to join a related Facebook group. Jenny, if you read this blog and can offer further details, feel free to do so!