As a delegate to AC again this year, I was disappointed with a lot of the conference. We were supposed to be "table conferencing" about the resolutions and petitions, except all we got to do is go around the table to give a concern and affirmation about the one petition or resolution we were assigned. On the day when we talked about the proposal to become 1 new conference with the 2 Kansas conferences, my table group abandoned the prescribed format and had a real conversation, which was much better (but not what we were supposed to be doing).
The following are based on my notes from being at AC:
Petitions & Resolutions related to GLBT Issues
PASSED:
--Resolution that churches in the Annual Conference study the retired bishops' statement and engage in "holy conferencing" (passed by 6 votes out of over 400)
--Petition to include "civil unions, civil marriage" in the list of equal civil rights regardless of sexual orientation
FAILED:
--Resolution all-encompassing to embraces all GLBT into full church life
--Petition to remove the "incompatible with Christian teaching" from the Discipline
--Petitions to end prohibition against homosexual clergy
When the first of these resolutions was brought up, there was a motion to "refer" all of them until next year, to give more time to talk. This motion failed (barely), with the argument that we've been talking for years, and referring all of these effectively means defeating all of them since now is the time to forward petitions to General Conference 2012.
During debate on the last of the petitions, although we had already had 2 speeches for and 2 against (rules of debate), Jim Keyser stood up to say that he was offering a substitution to the motion--if we are going to be "scriptural" to ban GLBT clergy, then we should be consistent and ban divorced people from full church life, since Jesus does speak against divorce in the Bible.
I found it almost sad/pathetic that so many people stood up to oppose these resolutions & petitions; the gist of their argument was begging to be allowed to continue their discriminatory ways. Their reasons to continue discrimination were (a) tradition, (b) fear, and (c) willingness to pick and choose certain parts of the Bible to take literally and other parts not. The Wallace UMC was especially vocal with this fear--they seem to believe that their church will close if homosexuality becomes compatible with Christian teaching. There were many allies who stood up to speak in support of the various resolutions & petitions, but it wasn't enough for this year. The votes were closer this year than they had ever been, but close is still discouraging. During the table conferencing, I had to sit next to a pastor who said he still believes GLBT is a lifestyle choice and un-Biblical.
The budget was adopted nearly unanimously; it is 2% increase over last year. Several of us pointed out during the table discussions that the theme of this year's annual conference was that we need to change--we can't keep doing what we've been doing if we want to change the course of church decline. Yet, the budget represents doing what we've always been doing.
Other resolutions & petitions:
PASSING: Support immigration reform, fully fund the African universities; support 20/20: Visioning an AIDS free world ($20 per member per year, spend 30 minutes in local churches, spend 30 minutes at 2012 Annual Conference); study the UMC's involvement with RCRC; don't shorten the UMC mission statement
FAILING: withdraw from RCRC; stop endorsing abortion; allow churches to serve/sell alcohol (the alcohol one failed unanimously; no one stood to speak in favor of it, only against).
The Transition Team (7 people each from Nebr, Kansas East, Kansas West) has been meeting for 18 months. After all this time, they have advanced a "plan" for this year's AC to consider. However, the entirety of the plan is: create 1 new conference that covers the area previously served by Nebraska, Kansas East, and Kansas West. The new conference will be better. Period. They had lots of pretty words, but there was zero substance to the plan. Many people pointed this out. As recently as March, the goal had been for each of the 3 conferences to vote on becoming 1 conference at this point in time. However, there was enough push-back that instead we did a "five-finger vote" to indicate our level of support for the Transition Team to move forward to create a new Great Plains conference. 5=I am in full support of becoming one conference; 4=I am supportive of becoming one conference, however I have a few questions; 3=I am supportive of becoming one conference, but I have many questions; 2=I am opposed to becoming one conference, but am not willing to halt the process; 1=I am opposed to becoming one conference as it is currently presented. The vote was by ballot: mark one of the 5 boxes, then have space to write questions/concerns/affirmations. The results of the ballot won't be announced until all 3 conferences have had a chance to do this; the Transition Team meets June 13th, and will learn the results then, and post the results on the umcneb.org website.
I pointed out that there really is no plan to vote on. The "plan" is to be "bold," to "thrive not survive," to be "spirit-led," and "risk-taking and creative"; not to be "timid." The Transition Team had zero details to offer. They say the bishop would be freed to be visionary, but there was no plan (such as 4 more district superintendents per region) for who would take on the extra administrative duties. There were no details offered about "technical details"--such as health care, retirement/pensions, and mission shares/apportionments being quite different among the 3 conferences. These technical details aren't as fun as dreaming, but they are critical to the success of a single conference.
It is a done deal that in September of 2012, 1 bishop will be assigned to the 3 conferences. It is likely inevitable that the 3 conferences merge to become one new conference. However, if it took the team 18 months to decide to merge, then it seems highly unlikely that they will produce a viable plan in the next 6-9 months and release it in time for discussion and suggestions prior to a vote June 6-9, 2012. The timeline as currently presented seems unrealistic.
After the table conferencing conversations, one retired pastor told me that the things I said convinced him to vote much lower than he had intended to vote initially. Jim McChesney, Lavina Schwaninger, and I sent a letter to all of the lay delegates prior to the conference urging a vote of "1" to say that this is not a viable plan right now, so we should not support it.
On a different topic, we raised money for UMCOR, after being told that UMCOR is completely out of disaster relief funds for this year--the number of disasters is unprecedented, and the needs greatly exceed the budget. Over $6000 was raised to send to the Alabama tornado victims, and 4000 UMCOR kits were donated.
**Please consider taking a special donation on Sunday June 4, 2011 to support UMCOR. 100% of money donated to UMCOR goes directly to disaster relief, providing food, shelter, and other necessary supplies to victims of tornadoes, fires, floods, hurricanes, and other natural disasters.**
One other task of the 2011 Annual Conference was to elect delegates to represent us at the 2012 General Conference and Jurisdictional Conference. Clergy elected clergy and laity elected laity.
General Conference delegates are: David Lux & Cindy Karges; Tom Watson & Lavina Schwaninger
Jurisdictional Conference delegates are: Charles Muritini & Nan Kaye-Skinner; Lisa Maupin & Katie Karges
Alternates are: Stephanie Ahlschwede & Galen Wray; Marilyn Zehring & Dave Mendyk
If you recognize the names, you can see that the clergy elected a far greater percentage of "progressive" people who will support causes that reconciling United Methodists believe in, than did the laity.
3 small churches are closing, and there are 3 new church starts. Churches are continued to be challenged to "rethink church" and devote more time to reaching out to the community (and have a broad vision of who "community" is).
Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts and reflections wendy! I am most excited about the Special offering taken for UM Global AIDS fund on Friday morning and the $900 spontaneous offering at the MFSA dinner May 31 with Dr Don Messer speaking! I just received a call that this totals $4005 for UM Global AIDS fund at Annual Conference.. now if we can double this the rest of the year with fundraising and offerings, we can get to $10,000.. our challenge is $1 per member per year which is $78,000 in NE and $20 a member is the new 20/20 Visioning an AIDS Free world Challenge! I like to think of it as giving $20 or more whenever you can for those battling HIV AIDS in NE and around the world!
ReplyDeleteI am wondering about the NE and KS merger proposal from a historical and personal point history - I grew up in the Dakota EUB Conference before the merger of EUB and Methodist denominations - my dad a Conference Superintendent - was for the Methodist and EUB merger but many were not and thought we would lose our identity, get swallowed up and some churches did not merge - I remember hearing him talk about it in pain for the divisions it caused - and my dad and grandpa argued about it endlessly / my dad was a Conference Supt at the time and went to many of the small German communities in Dakota that were against the merger so this was not an easy time - it was very painful and I remember this as a child growing up.
ReplyDeleteThere has been off and on a N Dakota Conference and S Dakota Conference in the years since the EUB and Methodist merger - and now it is the Dakota Conference again!
As I grew up in the EUB church our Bishop Heininger lived in Minneapolis and served a whole region of the Upper Midwest : Dakota, MN, Wisc etc. We saw our Bishop and he even stayed in our home on occasion as a Pastor's family and we visited in their home once I remember as a child as I remember the stacking dolls they had!
I can see some positives for Reconciling too with KS having EIGHT reconciling communities and we have FIVE so this would make 13 Reconciling communities and combine our leadership, our events, our support for local churches, resources and energies for many missional projects and missionary work, activism for justice. '
I see the church having more coming together through the years as we seek to affirm our commonalities rather than our differences with the ELCA communion now too - valuing our diversity!
Also for Global AIDS, we could combine efforts, resources, AIDS ambassadors, promotion, awareness - food for thought!
Why not combine our energies for missions and reaching out to the marginalized rather than spending our time fighting to come together as conferences?
We were with KS in the beginning in our history and we separated off eventually if you go to the Historical Center and history books - now we are just going back to our roots with KS to combine for ministries together again - for a more fully inclusive church - Wide is God's welcome!
I have seen lots of positive merging in my lifetime of growing up and as an adult in the church with ups and downs - but I would not be writing you all know if I was still in the EUB faith perhaps? I would not know some of you or Don Messer, others in Leadership in Global AIDS, Nigerian orphan we support, missions locally now with three churches in Grand island: one with EUB roots, one with Methodist and one as the first church at the Merging Conference!