You need to read this article

My colleague at the United Methodist Reporter, the Rev. Don Haynes, has written an extremely important column.

His latest in the Reporter, entitled, "Call for GC special session is reality check," offers a lucid and articulate view on the issues likely to face a specially-called session of the General Conference in the coming months.

One of Don's paragraphs that particularly struck me goes as follows: "Whether we have a special session of General Conference or not, this is the time for a painful reality check. We can no longer copy the corporate culture of the 20th century; connectionalism can no longer mean an obsolete, hierarchical flow chart."

In casting a critical eye at the United Methodist Church's present organization, Don suggests needed changes in everything from guaranteed appointments to the mission of the publishing house, and from the size & role of the general boards and agencies to the prevailing anxiety over the pension fund.

But he's also not making cheap shots. Don's commentary is realistic, and it is respectful to the institutional arrangements that served the Church so well in the last century. He's just not willing to let inertia dictate the Church's future course.

Don writes quite self-consciously as a member of the Church's older generation. But he offers a fresh critique that provides a ray of sunlight into our current discussions on the Church's top-heavy bureaucracy on every level from local church to annual conference to general board.

I'm not anti-institutional, and you shouldn't be either. The Church is an institution, and it is a Christ-created institution. We need the Church to be a strong institution in order to give us a community where faith can be formed and discipleship can be developed.

And that's why Don's article is so important. He's asking the right questions - questions that can help us move strongly into the future. Go read the article. You'll be glad you did.

Worlds enough and time

Well, the last 24 hours of my life have been crazy. I'm in Nashville, ready to fly to Lima, Peru, very, very early tomorrow morning with a mission team I'm leading to work with a community in Chincha Alta. This is the same community I've visited several times before, and it is led by Pastor Pedro Uchuya, who is a friend, Christian brother, and spiritual hero to me.

The last day of my life has been spent grading final exams, packing, praying, and generally not getting a lot of sleep. I had planned to do one big General Conference-related post, and the time just caught up with me.

So all that's to say, I'll just have to do a GC breakdown when I get back!

There has been a WHOLE lot of interesting stuff come out of Ft. Worth over the past couple of days. If you have any thoughts and want to share them in the comments section, please feel free. I did get an e-mail tonight from Carol Bruse of the Texas Conference about the passage of the candidacy petitions. That's exciting news. If anyone at GC wants to comment on that or any other matter, I'll be checking the Internet from time to time in Peru and would love to hear some info!

Otherwise, I will be back from the mission on May 21 and will start posting again regularly - about Peru, GC, and otherwise - at that time. I would also appreciate your prayers for this trip. My experience with Peru over the past few years has shown me the depth and fullness of God's grace at work in this world. The church is a wonderful place to give your life. And friends, we've got all the time in the world for this stuff.

Peace to all +

General Conference cans and can'ts

As we enter into this second week of General Conference, I wanted to share some thoughts on what I think General Conference can and cannot do. I do so in my current UM Reporter column, where I approach the issue as one of form vs. content in ministry.

That is, General Conference has the ability to make changes in the form of the church, which (hopefully) will make the church a place more conducive to the Holy Spirit's work. The example I use here is the proposed alteration to the candidacy process. But even with changes made, it is still up to individuals and congregations to do the real work of ministry. I think that is an important distinction to remember, lest we be tempted to think that GC can be the cure-all for the church's ills.

May God continue to guide the work that is ongoing in Ft. Worth. Above all, the fact of the General Conference is a powerful witness to the faith of the People called Methodists!

GC first couple o' days

J. Richard Peck of the United Methodist News Service has two summaries of the first few days of GC the first one here and the second one here. Here's a highlight of some of the notable happenings:

-- The Episcopal address, given by Bishop Sharon Brown Christopher. Bishop Christopher suggested that membership decline in the U.S. branch of the church is at least partially attributable to infighting that arises out of differing liberal and conservative viewpoints. That is an interesting perspective, though not one I have ever seen backed up by any statistics. Also interesting to me is Bishop Christopher's suggestion that "right relationship" should take precedence over the "fervent pursuit of being right". That's a curious statement, since it suggests that ethics and doctrine are wholly separable for one another. I appreciate the bishops' frequent appeals for unity, but I often fear that their statements lack the depth of substance that would allow real unity within the church to exist.

-- It sounds as if the laity address, given by Lyn Powell of the North Georgia Annual Conference, was heavily focused on evangelism. Peck indicates that she had some challenging words for the laity, particularly in terms of being willing to go out into the world and actively participate in ministry.

-- The 13 general boards and agencies are adopting a fourfold emphasis for the coming quadrennium: 1) Developing principled Christian leaders for the church and the world; 2) Creating new places for new people and renewing existing congregations; 3) Stamping out diseases of poverty by improving health globally; 4) Engaging in ministry with the poor.

-- The "Seven Pathways" developed by the Council of Bishops served as a model for these four areas of focus by the general boards and agencies. These pathways offer a fuller description of what the church is wanting to do in terms of mission, evangelism, and development. I do have one question here: Why do we in the UMC seem to have such a difficult time talking about salvation as a real, spiritual process? If you read Peck's article, note that the four emphases and the seven pathways all talk about making material changes in the lives of people in order to help them out. And this is certainly one aspect of the Wesleyan understanding of outreach and ministry. But Wesley's first call to his preachers was to save souls, and this is not just done through eliminating poverty and disease. Why do we have such a hard time claiming the evangelical portion of our heritage, which holds that souls as well as bodies need salvation? For those of you at GC, are the news reports failing to emphasize this, or is it simply not there? I like the language of forming disciples, but it isn't just about getting people to do good works in a local church setting!

-- The UM Task Force on Immigration is supporting a couple of resolutions that would support the church's harboring of immigrants. A press conference was held today, I suppose to anticipate the upcoming resolutions. Regardless of one's position on immigration, I believe the church has a biblical duty to harbor the alien in our midst, and that means protecting the vulnerable when they seek sanctuary with us. I hope the church can act prophetically in this area.

-- Looks like the committees have elected their chairpeople and gotten to work sifting through all the proposed legislation. Godspeed your work!

-- As a sidenote, I would be curious to hear from anyone at GC who can offer some insight into how prominent the transgender issue has been at the conference thus far. A couple of news stories reported the press conference led by Rev. Drew Phoenix, where he claimed that his gender reassignment/sex change surgery represented "steps toward wholeness." I can only assume that this press conference, like others, is designed to influence pending legislation on transsexuality. My understanding of our embodiedness as God's creatures makes me highly skeptical of anyone claiming a greater wholeness by artificially mutilating their bodies, whether through cosmetic surgery or intense hormone therapy. But given the typical nature of the sexuality debates at GC - which have been focused on homosexuality in the past - at least Phoenix's pushing of the transgender issue will allow the church to come to a better degree of understanding of the range of sexuality issues. I only hope some folks do some significant theological work on this after the GC is over. As I said in a recent post, I tend to be skeptical about the amount of substantive theological work that can be done in the context of the conference itself.

Young People's Address at GC

The 2004 General Conference created the Division on Ministries with Young People, within the General Board of Discipleship. Now the 2008 General Conference has heard the first ever Young People's Address, before the whole gathered body. United Methodist News Service reports on today's address in this news story. It sounds like the 6 teenagers and young adults represented a diverse cross-section of the church.

The church yearns for young people, and young people yearn for a place to belong, according to one of those who gave the address. Amen to that. What they said up there is important. The fact that the church invited them to say it and celebrated their presence is even more so.

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!

General Conference fear & trembling

General Conference will take place in Fort Worth, TX, from April 23rd to May 2nd of this year. Our church's website begins its description of GC by stating, "General Conference is the top policy-making body of the United Methodist Church." The second sentence invokes the makeup of GC according to "church law".

Now, if I were a non-Methodist and I saw a statement like that about our church's largest gathering, it would send me screaming in the other direction. Heck, if I were a typical, relatively uninformed Methodist it would send me running away. I cannot, for the life of me, figure out why church bureaucrats think that the rest of the church wants to conceive of, read about, and proclaim the church in bureaucratic terms. If all General Conference is going to be is a "policy-making body," then we ought not to spend the millions of dollars it takes to put it on and give that money for hunger relief.

The church does not "make policy." The church interprets Scripture, and from that interpretation, gives doctrine to the faithful. There has been a lot of talk over the past year about how everyone wants the General Conference to be a more prayerful, worshipful time - a time where the delegates can truly engage in holy conferencing together. The prospects of that happening are not helped when our official website uses such impoverished language to prepare us for what to expect.

If whoever it is that writes and posts information on umc.org wants to find out what Wesleyan conferencing is supposed to be about, that person ought to go to the sources and read a little bit about our tradition. Ignorance of it is a large reason why our church is in a state of slow dissolution. And if Methodists are truly more interested in policy-making than in holy conferencing, Washington D.C. is a much better place to do it than the General Conference.

I started this post with the intention of talking a little bit about my own hopes for General Conference, which I outline in an open letter to the delegates in The United Methodist Reporter. And now I don't think I can do that.

Electing Gen-X delegates

Guy Williams has an insightful post over at Guy's Mental Wanderings about electing younger delegates to General Conference. With a lot of talk - especially in the Methoblogosphere - about electing young adult delegates, Guy wants us to take a step back and ask some important questions about how we go about making choices.

For starters, Guy suggests that age should not be a determining factor. That is, he does not want to elect a young delegate just because that person is young. He wants delegates who represent faithful views, with regards to the doctrine and missional priorities of the church. He also wants to elect strong leaders, which may or may not correlate with a certain age range.

I think Guy's views are right on. I have been supportive of electing younger delegates to General and annual conferences. In fact, not long ago, I wrote a column specifically supporting the selection of younger delegates to annual conferences, as a way of familiarizing young adult laity with United Methodist polity and encouraging them to become involved in leadership. But Guy is right in insisting that age cannot and should not be a determining factor. As much as the UMC needs the energy and insight that young leadership brings, it needs truly faithful leadership even more.

So what does that mean for the push to elect younger delegates? It is still very important. But potential younger delegates should be put under the same scrutiny as their older counterparts, so that they will be elected for who they are and what they represent, not just how old they happen to be.