An Exercise in Missing the Point

Last week was a crazy week in the United Methodist world.  It was the week in which legislation moved from committees to the whole body  of the General Conference, which was being held in Tampa.  As usual, there were some hot topics that caused a fair amount of debate and consternation, and tempers flared on both sides.  When it was all said and done, a lot was said, and not a whole lot seemed like it got done.

As usual, one of the big conversations had to do with the wording in the Book of Discipline that the UMC “does not condone the practice of homosexuality and consider[s] this practice incompatible with Christian teaching” (¶161.f).  Two of the more influential pastors in larger United Methodist churches tried to pass through a change in the paragraph that would acknowledge the deep division of thought amongst United Methodists; however, it, and a similarly worded proposed change did not pass, much to the consternation of several delegates and observers.

As I was watching the proceedings via live streaming on the internet, I was slightly confused on a parliamentary point, so I tweeted the following: “What’s the point of taking something to a committee, having it voted down, and then bringing it up again? #gc2012 #seriousquestion”  I didn’t think the question was out of line.  I wasn’t intending on making a stand on the issue.  I was simply asking a question about why something that didn’t get passed through its committee was now being taken before the entire body.  It feels as though doing that neglects the work of the committee, and, quite frankly, causes a lot of redundant discussion.

In response to my question, somebody who I don’t know responded: “Justice is the point. When the comm. fails to hear God’s voice, we have to bring it to the whole body #gc2012 #gc12love.”  Clearly, this person and I are talking about two different things.  I was asking a simple procedural question; he took it to a whole different level.  Now, I will say that a friend of mine also responded and explained why this is done in a way that actually made sense (it’s a safeguard to ensure that there isn’t a committee stacked against a particular type of legislation – that makes sense).

Now, of course, when I get an answer like that out of left field, I’m not apt to just ignore it.  I’m one who is going to ask some questions in order to get some clarification – both of what I was originally intending, as well as the response that I received. So, here’s my response: “Why is the minority view God’s voice? (I’m not just speaking of the current discussion, but in all matters.)”  Now, keep in mind, I was asking a procedural question.  I wasn’t asking why this particular piece was coming before the General Conference.  So, given the response that this person originally gave me, I’m thinking that the minority view is somehow being equated with the voice of God in each instance. (SIDEBAR: I was truly amazed how often the Holy Spirit was prompting people on both sides of several different debates to spout their particular point of view as the correct point of view.  It’s almost as if the Holy Spirit was a divided on these issues as the body of General Confernce.  Go figure.)

Now, as if the conversation wasn’t weird enough already, here is the response that I received: “not the minority… The oppressed, excluded, and invisible #Iamnotincompatible #gc2012 #gc12love #donoharm”  So, apparently the numerically smaller point of view is the point of view of the oppressed, excluded and invisible.  As you can imagine, this is slightly confusing given my original question, but it is very insightful regarding my respondents perspective.  Clearly, this is a person who is taking the legislation that is being discussed very personally (notice the hashtag: I am not incompatible).

So, now I’m getting a clearer sense of where this person is coming from.  For me, it’s a legislative issue, for him it’s a personal issue.  So, in order to help clear the air and get him to understand my initial question, I extend a bit of an olive branch and respond: “I meant minority in a mathematical sense.”  Because, here’s the thing, I’m not going to get dragged into a Twitter fight with somebody I don’t know about something that I wasn’t even talking about in the first place.  So, I clarified my initial query.  To which he responds, “I don’t see a difference.”

Okay, seriously?  Apparently, he still doesn’t realize that I’m not talking about the petition at hand, but I’m talking about the legislative procedures that are taking place.  I’m a patient person, but I might also be a little stubborn.  So, to make perfectly clear the point that I was trying to make in the first place, I give it one last shot: “If I move to make Weds 4 blue shirts & it doesn’t pass 14-12, the 12 who agree w/ me are minority; why are they God’s voice?”  Now, I’m taking a completely mundane, non-controversial topic to get back to the original question that I had in the first place.  And, in the back of my mind, I’m hoping to help this person realize that he’s getting a little self-righteous in claiming to know the voice of God, especially in response to what I was trying to get at in the first place.  Of course, it was to no avail.  He simply replied with a curt “that’s not an accurate comparison and you know it. Thanks for the chat.”  Suddenly, I’m comparing blue shirt Wednesday to homosexuality, and it is inadequate.  Now, if I was talking about homosexuality in the first place, I would agree with him.  It’s a much more complex issue than whether or not we should wear blue shirts on Wednesdays.  But the whole time, he is assuming that I’m spouting off one ideological point of view, when I never even hint at where I stand.  I really was asking a procedural question.

But, in reality, that Twitter conversation shows a lot of the problems that rose during General Conference.  One group is saying something, another is responding by saying something completely different.  When we talk past one another like this, nothing gets solved.  All we show is that we are unwilling to address the differences in our views.  At the very least, I understood where this person was coming from, but that was not what I was talking about, and all attempts to bring him back to what I was talking about proved fruitless.

In order for the United Methodist Church to thrive as a denomination that truly focuses on making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world, we are going to have to stop pushing our agendas and really begin to understand where the “other” side is coming from.  Arguments are never resolved when both sides stubbornly stick to their point of view without even being willing to listen to where the other is coming from.  And, yes, I know that I just ended two sentences with prepositions and that’s not good writing, but, really, if that’s what you are focusing on, then you just missed the point.

Ash Wednesday on a Tuesday

Back during Advent, I started a Tuesday evening prayer service, and have kept it up ever since.  It’s been a good service.  It gives some time in the middle of the week to have some quiet and hear from God.  If nothing else, it has been a great time for me, not just the people who attended.  Let me give you an idea of what happens during a typical service.

A large part of the service is the atmosphere.  The lights are turned down low, and there are several candles set up all over the sanctuary.  The idea is to have a peaceful, quiet place.

The service itself is simple.  There’s a key verse each week, and the first part of the service involves a lectio divina exercise.  There are four readings of the key verse.  In the first reading, the idea is to just listen and create a quiet space.  For the second reading, the participants are listening for a particular word, phrase or theme that jumps out at them.  In the third reading, the question that they are supposed to meditate on is: what is going on in my life that points to a need to hear this from the Lord?  Finally, on the fourth reading, the quiet time is dedicated to considering application.  Between each reading, there is a few minutes of quiet to reflect and meditate.  This week, the key verse was Psalm 51:1-12, David’s confession of his adulterous relationship.

The second part of the service is some kind of guided prayer exercise, and that’s where I want to spend some time.  Prior to the start of the service, I handed out two index cards (colored and white) and a pencil to each person.  During the second exercise, I gave them some time to write out who they were before they knew Christ on the colored index card.  Then we used the white index cards to write out some of the sins with which we are currently struggling.

Each service closes with communion, but this week, I took a TV tray, and placed a cooking pot on it.  Before they received communion, they folded up their index cards and tossed them in the pot.  Symbolically, they were letting go of their past and current struggles, and then taking part in the grace of God.  After everybody returned to their seats, I took the pot, placed it in the center of aisle and said, “Who you were is not who you are.  Who you are is not who you have to be.  Just as silver is refined in fire, we are refined by the fire of the Holy Spirit.”  Then, I pulled out a lighter and set the index cards on fire, turning them to ashes.

It was a different approach to Ash Wednesday… you know, apart from the fact that it took place on a Tuesday night instead.  But I felt like it was a great service, and I know the Spirit was working in some great ways in the lives of others.

Hopefully, for my friends who are in ministry, you can use this idea and tailor it  to your context.  And, if you are in the area, feel free to join us some Tuesday evening.

The More I Pray…

I heard a saying once, “The more I pray, the more coincidences seem to happen.”  Incredible… and true.

Last September or October, I thought it might be nice to start a prayer service in the two-point charge where I serve.  At some point during the month of October, I sat down with a devotional book that had some suggested readings from the lectionary, and planned out five months worth of key verses for this prayer service that was going to start in Advent.

The service is pretty simple.  It starts off with a call and response, and then we go into a lectio divina reading of the key verse.  There are four readings of the passage, and after each reading, there are a couple of minutes of silence to meditate on the verse.  The second part has been a variety of guided prayer exercises that I have come across.  I hoping to add more of these to my repertoire, but I have four right now that I’m rotating through.  Finally, we close the evening with communion.  From start to finish, it typically lasts 35-40 minutes.

I’ve enjoyed leading this service almost more than anything else that I am doing as a pastor right now.  It’s nice to carve out some time for silence and reflection, and it’s great that other people want to be a part of it.  To use a current buzz word, this is how Veedersburg and Hillsboro are doing Intentional Faith Development right now.  However, I’m not writing this morning to just put in a plug for the prayer service.  I want to share a personal testimony about how God is working on me through the service.

A couple weeks ago, I lost my notebook where I had put all the verses.  I was afraid that I was going to have to plan it all out once again.  However, last Monday, I found the notebook and the passage that I had scheduled for last week was Matthew 6:25-34.

25 “That is why I tell you not to worry about everyday life—whether you have enough food and drink, or enough clothes to wear. Isn’t life more than food, and your body more than clothing? 26 Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? 27 Can all your worries add a single moment to your life?

28 “And why worry about your clothing? Look at the lilies of the field and how they grow. They don’t work or make their clothing, 29 yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are. 30 And if God cares so wonderfully for wildflowers that are here today and thrown into the fire tomorrow, he will certainly care for you. Why do you have so little faith?

31 “So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What will we wear?’ 32 These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, but your heavenly Father already knows all your needs. 33 Seek the Kingdom of Godt above all else, and live righteously, and he will give you everything you need. 34 “So don’t worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring its own worries. Today’s trouble is enough for today. (Matthew 6:25-34, NLT)

Now, first off, I realize that may be a little long for a lectio reading, but it worked out well.  Secondly, I’ve had a lot on my mind lately.  The Friday before, I went to see the doctor because my heel has been hurting and getting progressively worse.  I found out that I either have a partially torn Achilles or it’s tendonitis.  Either way it’s pretty painful to walk for any length of time.  In fact, sometimes it even hurts when I’ve been sitting for too long.  I’ve been worried about it because there is a possibility that I may need to have surgery if it doesn’t get any better.  Additionally, I have to be careful about the physical activity that I do or else I run the risk of tearing it completely, which will be incredibly painful, and require surgery and a long recovery time.  I was talking to Katie that Monday morning about how I was worried about it, and then, in the afternoon, I sit down to plan out the prayer service, and I find that this was the passage of the night.

I’m trying to worry less.  I’m not much of a worrier anyway, but this has been weighing heavy on my mind… as well as a couple other things.  It helps to know that God cares and is speaking to me even in the midst of all this worry.  It’s amazing how God can speak to us when we least expect it.

Reading Through the Bible

A couple years ago, I challenged the members of my congregation to read through the Bible in a year.  At that point in my life, I had never done it before, and I thought a good way to work through it would be to offer it up for everybody so I wouldn’t do it alone.  I did fairly well that year until about October, when I got way behind.  I think I ended up reading just about the entire New Testament in the month of December just to catch up.

Last year, I wanted to do it again, only this time I decided to use the Bible App on my phone.  It is put out by the folks at YouVersion.com, and one of the great features is that you can sign up for a number of different plans.  Reading straight through was difficult the year before, so I ended up doing an Old Testament plan and a New Testament plan.  They helped to mix up the readings enough so that I was reading different parts of Scripture every day.  In the OT plan, I also ended up reading through Psalms two times, instead of just once.  I never had to read more than four chapters in a day, which made it much more manageable.  Additionally, having it on my iPhone made it super easy to do my reading every day.  In fact, the only day that I missed was Wednesday, December 28th.  I quickly made that up on the 29th, and then finished out the year on the 30th.  It was so easy that just about every day, I did my reading right after I woke up, and before I even got out of bed.

This year, I decided that I wanted to do something a little different.  I want to push myself just a little.  So, I’m going to be reading through the Bible again… twice.  It may sound a little excessive; however, as a person who is in charge of the spiritual lives of other people, who is given responsibility to grow a church and make disciples of Jesus Christ, is taking 30-45 minutes in the morning to read through Scripture really all that excessive?  I don’t think so.  In fact, it’s probably not enough.  The funny thing is, as daunting as it sounds, it is less reading than going through the newspaper on a daily basis, and there are people who have done that for years, but don’t think that they have the time to read the Bible.  As I was putting together my reading plan, I realize that I only really need to read about 7 pages out of my Bible every day.  Now, depending on your Bible, that may be different, but you get the point.

The biggest hurdle that I’m going to have to overcome is that the Bible App doesn’t have any six month plans, so I’m going to have to get out of bed to do my reading.  It’s a small sacrifice, and it is totally worth it.

So, what about you?  Are you being shaped and challenged by spending time in the Word?  I certainly hope so.  Who knows, maybe next year, we’ll talk about reading through the Bible four times.

Not So Common Sense

Earlier this week, I spent two morning doing some training that is mandated by the Conference.  Every four years, I have to go through Boundaries and Diversity training, and now was the time.  So, I drove up to the big city of Kokomo, IN.

The first day was Boundaries Training.  We talked a lot about what you should and should not do in given situations.  Unfortunately, like with most things, there’s not a set list of “Do’s and Do Not’s” for clergy to follow.  So, some things that some pastors wouldn’t think twice about are things that other pastors wouldn’t have a problem doing in the context of ministry.  As you can imagine, this leads to a lot of ambiguity in some situations.  One thing that was point out, and really stuck with me, is that the majority of the boundaries violations are not intentional, just a result of cluelessness.  More on that in a minute.

The second day was Diversity Training.  The purpose of this training is to get us to think about the fact that not everybody is “like me.”  We talked a lot about different groups of individuals: males, females, white, black, Asian, LBGT, Native American, those affected by disabilities, etc.  We talked about perceptions that we have heard, and how to engage people in dialog.

First off, let me say, I’m not a fan of mandatory training.  You stick the word “mandatory” in there, and I’m immediately turned off and look for something else to be excited about… which usually isn’t difficult.  Now, with that said, these training sessions were not as horrible as I was expecting.  Don’t read that to say, “I really enjoyed them and they were well worth two days of my week.”  Because that’s not what I’m saying.  I’m also not complaining about it.  I understand that this training is necessary from a liability standpoint for the Conference.  But, what I am saying, is that if it has to be mandatory, it could have been a lot worse.

But here’s the thing.  So much of what we heard sounds like common sense to me.  You mean, as a married male pastor, I shouldn’t put myself in a situation with a female that could be perceived improperly?  No kidding.  You mean, I shouldn’t go inside the house of a woman whose husband is not home?  Really.  You mean, I shouldn’t discriminate against somebody because of their color, ethnicity, economic status or other factor?  Gee, I never would have thought of that.

But, here’s the kicker: if this wasn’t an issue in the past, it wouldn’t be an issue now.  You don’t try to prevent something that has never happened.  And that’s the sad thing.  We talk about these issues because there are things going on that shouldn’t be going on in society in general, but particularly when it comes to the clergy.  Unfortunately, that’s just not the case.  Common sense is not as common as people would like to think.

A Busy Month

I’ve been looking ahead at my calendar for September, and it’s going to be a busy one.  It’s getting to be that time again in the United Methodist Church – charge conference time.  Meetings, meetings, meetings.  Getting things ready for charge conference takes several weeks.  Figuring out leadership, setting goals, getting the paperwork done… ugh… paperwork.

On top of that, I have a mandatory training that needs to be done.  I’ll be taking a couple of days to stay in Kokomo (no, not where you want to go to get away from it all – a different Kokomo) for these training events.  I’m also going to start meeting regularly with a couple of new groups, as well as a couple of groups with whom I’ve been meeting for a while.

It’s going to be a crazy season in ministry, that is for sure.

Long Week

Sometimes, in ministry, you just have one of those weeks.  This was one of those weeks.

I found out on Monday morning that a friend and husband of a person in my covenant group had unexpectedly passed away (not two different people, he’s the same guy).  He was a great guy and a pastor in the conference.  He was only 46, and had just celebrated his birthday.  It was a major blow to the many people that got the chance to meet him through the Residents in Ministry program in the Indiana Conference.

On Tuesday, I was asked to do a funeral for a 1 year old little girl who had also unexpectedly passed away.  The final word on cause of death was SIDS… in other words, they really have no idea what happened.  That service was on Thursday.  I had never performed a service for an infant.  It was definitely an experience that I would rather not repeat.  The service went fine.  I seriously doubt anybody heard the message, but that’s all right, I wouldn’t have heard it either.

In the midst of all this, and on a much less consequential level, I realized that I haven’t been updating my blog at all this week.  Ever since I made the commitment to blog 3x’s a week, I had not missed, but this week was just an exception.  Next week, Katie and I will be going on vacation, and I haven’t decided if I’m going to have a couple of posts ready to go or if I’m just going to take the week off.  We’ll see how that pans out.

All in all, this has been a tough week, but sometimes that’s what life is like in ministry… actually, sometimes, that’s just what life is like in general.

You Can’t Get There From Here

I had a couple of interesting conversations this week.  They were interesting because they were about the same subject, and in two completely different places with completely different…. conversation partners?  I’m not really sure what to say there… anyhoo!

The conversation was about air travel.  The basic point is that it is really weird how people have to fly all over the place to get somewhere.  I remember a few years back when my dad had to go to Romania for work.  On his way back, the flight went from Paris to Houston to Indianapolis.  Now, I’m not expert on travel, but I would think that flying into Atlanta, one of the New York airports, or even Chicago would make more sense… you know, besides flying directly to the Indianapolis INTERNATIONAL Airport.

We talked about flights from California to Atlanta to Indy.  A flight from Indy to Tucson that had about four stops along the way.  I remember in my own days of travel with patterns like Evansville-Chicago-Dallas, or Indy-Tampa Bay-New Orleans, or an upcoming trip that is going to have us going from Las Vegas to Cleveland before coming home to Indianapolis.  I don’t understand air travel.  It doesn’t seem to make any sense, but then I got to thinking… as I sometimes do.  Isn’t this kind of what our spiritual lives look like as well?

You would think that the most direct way would be the easiest, but every person has a story about how they came to faith, or where they’ve been on their spiritual journey so far.  Over the last month, I’ve been preaching on Jonah.  Talk about a guy who had a tough journey!

Then I started wondering, do we make it too difficult?  With our hundreds of denominations, with our particular  theological slants, with our differing beliefs even within the same denomination, have we (we meaning Christians) made it too hard for people to come to faith?  Have we been faithful representatives of Christ, or are we more concerned with championing our particular point of view?  Just some things to think about…

In the News

The United Methodist Church is in the news again, and you know what that means… something related to homosexuality has come up… again…

Rev. Amy DeLong in Wisconsin will undergo United Methodist Church trial to respond to the charge that she has violated church law be being a “self-avowed practicing homosexual” and officiating a same-sex union.  As this is getting ready to start, 70 members of the Minnesota Annual Conference and 166 members of the Northern Illinois Annual Conference has signed pledges stating that they would “joyfully” give the Church’s blessing in civil unions for same-sex couples.

Now, I bet that this is the point where you expect me to state my position on these issues, but that’s not going to happen.  The real underlying issue that I have with these situations is the fact that Rev. DeLong and the members of these two Annual Conferences are clearly in violation of the United Methodist Book of Discipline.

For those that don’t know, the Book of Discipline is the law for the United Methodist Church.  In it are detailed the “ins and outs” of ministry in the United Methodist Church.  As a newly ordained member of the Indiana Annual Conference, I recently stood up on stage, in front of the entire Annual Conference (at least those who weren’t out playing golf at the time…) and answered in the affirmative to the following questions (and a few others, but these are the ones I want to focus on for now):

1. Have you studied the doctrines of the United Methodist Church?
2. After full examination, do you believe that our doctrines are in harmony with the Holy Scriptures?
3. Will you preach and maintain them?
4. Have you studied our form of Church discipline and polity?
5. Do you approve of our Church government and polity?
6. Will you support and maintain them?

And here’s the thing, if Rev. DeLong or these 236 other deacons, elders and licensed local pastors cannot answer these questions in the affirmative, then they need to step away and seriously reconsider their choice to enter into ministry in the United Methodist Church instead of blatantly defying the system.  At this point, you may want to argue with me that it is a justice issue.  I beg to differ.  As I see it, it is a matter of integrity, and I’ll get to that in just a minute.  There are multiple options for people who find themselves in positions similar to DeLong and these other ordained/licensed persons.

First, they can still respond to their call to ministry, but do so in a denomination that is more in line with their political and theological point of view.  Nobody is forcing DeLong or anybody else to be a United Methodist.  It is a long and difficult process.  Why go through it if you disagree with the Church?  There are several other denominations that will allow their clergy to bless same-sex unions, and will gladly ordain “self-avowed practicing homosexuals”.  Right now, the United Methodist Church isn’t one of them.  Try the Unitarians, or, more recently, the PC(USA).

Second, enter the system with the intention of changing it.  The United Methodist Book of Discipline has a peculiar feature – it’s not etched in stone.  It changes.  Every four years there is the General Conference, and every four years at General Conference, the Book of Discipline gets changed.  If you don’t like the system, work to change it.  But… and here’s where I get back to the integrity issue… do it the right way.

Don’t stand in front of your Annual Conference, pledging to uphold the doctrines, polity and discipline of the Church with the intention of openly defying it to suit your personal agenda.  That’s where it is an integrity issue.  If you honestly cannot answer in the affirmative to those questions above, then don’t.  Walk away, and fulfill your ministry by other means.  Have the personal integrity to do things the right way, and keep your word, even if you don’t agree with the way things are.

A quick story to illustrate my point: when I attended seminary at Asbury, every person had to sign an agreement (the Ethos statement) that he/she would abstain from tobacco and alcohol during his/her time at the school.  At the time, I didn’t drink or smoke, so it wasn’t that big of a deal; however, I was 22 when I entered seminary.  Legally, I could drink and smoke.  However, I signed an agreement that I would not, and that is what mattered.  Could I have argued that I was legally able to drink and done so?  Sure.  I could have.  I also could have gone to a different seminary where I didn’t have to sign that agreement.  I could have worked to get the Ethos statement changed (which, by the way, it is now different than when I attended because people did work to change it).  I didn’t do either of those.  I stood by my word.

Are the way things are the way they should be?  I’m not here to answer that question today.  If you don’t like the way things are, go through the appropriate processes to change it.  In the meantime, stay true to your word.  If you can’t stay true to your word in this situation, how can people trust you to stay true to it in any situation?  It really is a matter of integrity.

Annual Conference Time

It’s that time of the year again when United Methodist churches all over the country are gathering for Annual Conference.  For those who aren’t familiar with the United Methodist system, I’ll give you a brief and horribly simplistic idea of what this means.  Churches within a certain geographic area are all part of an Annual Conference.  Where I live, it’s the Indiana Conference, and encompasses the entire state of Indiana.

Every year, the Annual Conference meets to discuss some of the business of the church, and to also take care of a few other things… like remembering those who have passed, commissioning new ministers, and ordaining those who have made it through the commissioning process (that’s me this year).  Every four years, we have to vote on representatives to go to General Conference, which is when United Methodists from all over the world gather to meet and speak for the United Methodist Church as a whole.  We get to do that this year.

Last week, a friend from seminary, Matt Judkins who serves a church in Oklahoma, posted a couple of thoughts on Twitter that I found very interesting, and thought I’d share.  He said (and I’m cleaning it up a little bit from tweet form… and his language, he has quite the foul mouth…. I’m kidding!!!!):

[It's] interesting to follow hashtags from UM Annual Conferences and compare the activity to that of non-denominational conferences like Catalyst…

[There are] far fewer participants and tweets in the UMC for one.  Representative of the demographics, I suppose.

Also, broadly speaking, more wrestling with systems (dashboards, etc.) and not ideas (mission, theology, Scripture) in the UMC conferences.

I know some will say the purposes are different, but should they be?  Also, I think the sheer [number] of tweets reflect relative comfort with new technology.

Matt brings up some great points.  I know through the years, I have heard a lot of people complain about Annual Conference being pointless, and perhaps Matt has really hit the nail on the head.

First off, the demographics of the denominational conferences are significantly different than the non-denominational conferences.  There aren’t a lot of younger people at the Annual Conferences.  If there were, the average age of clergy in the UMC wouldn’t be 51.5 (the most recent number I could find, and it’s 6 years old – these same people aren’t getting younger).  In fact, in that same report that came out in 2005, only 5% of UMC clergy were under 35.

I remember two years ago when Adam Hamilton was at our Annual Conference for a pre-conference teaching time.  He had everybody under 35 stand up, and there couldn’t have been more than 50 people who stood up, and there are over 1000 churches in the Indiana Conference.  We are an aging clergy, and we need to be intentional about helping young people respond to the call to ministry.  Certainly, God is not calling fewer people into ministry.  But people aren’t interested in the systems of denominationalism as much as they are interested in doing ministry.

I think if the United Methodist Church is going to move forward and make a significant impact for the future religious landscape of America, then it needs to address these issues of reaching younger generations, and encouraging them to hear and respond to God’s call.

Second, how much of our time at Annual Conference is spent discussing things like budget, rules and regulations, Trustee issues, and not discussing how we can be about the mission of the United Methodist Church – to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world?  I will give some credit where it is due.  Each of the last two years, there has been a teaching time at our Annual Conference.  One year, as mentioned above, Adam Hamilton came, and another  time, Bishop Schnase came to discuss the Five Practices.  Now, certainly, you could argue that the administrative things that we discuss are things that are mandated by the Book of Discipline to be approved by the Annual Conference.  And, without a doubt, administration is the skeleton and structure upon which we can do ministry; but what if we came to an Annual Conference that was designed with the intention of a non-denominational conference like Catalyst?

Those types of conferences are conferences that engage people on many different levels to rethink how they do ministry.  Certainly there can be time in the Annual Conference schedule to make this happen as well as accomplishing the necessary (and required) administrative tasks.  One thing I know for sure, there would be fewer people skipping out on Conference and calling it a waste of time if we could do this.

So, what are we to do about it?  What would this kind of Annual Conference look like?  To be honest, I’m not really sure how the schedule would work itself out, but I think we could do it, and it would be a welcome change in how we approach the Annual Conference sessions.  If the Annual Conference is, as the Book of Discipline describes it, the basic unit of the United Methodist Church, then it should be the perfect forum for such discussion on the ministry of the United Methodist Church.  I don’t know how prevalent an idea this is though.  My impression of most Annual Conferences is that they are all about the administration, which, again, is important, but let’s also get the ideas on our theology, our ministry and our mission highlighted.