Conference Updates

As some of you have probably already heard, General Conference, which is the world-wide gathering of The United Methodist Church, which was supposed to have happened in 2020, has now been postponed until 2022. There were simply too many unknowns and obstacles, including potential travel restrictions for people coming from all around the globe, for delegates to be able to gather this year. It is now scheduled to take place in Aug. 29-Sept. 6, 2022.

But, there will be a special one-day online gathering of General Conference in May to deal with 12 specific pieces of legislation that will be voted on by paper ballot. These legislative issues are specific changes to the Book of Discipline that allow the church to do specific things, like appoint bishops and other leadership, that are called to take place after a general conference session. It also makes changes that allow for more flexibility for holding General Conference, Jurisdictional Conference and Annual Conference in the event of things that don’t allow for these normal gatherings to happen. Something like a global pandemic. (Here are the 12 items)

What this postponement also means is that there is going to be no resolution around a new protocol of potentially dividing the church into two, or more, different denominations. The traditional plan, passed at the General Conference in 2016, around issues regarding the LGBTQ community remains church policy. Although the moratorium on the penalties as part of that plan called for by both sides still seem to be in place.

Regardless of this postponement, the Jurisdictional Conference is scheduled to take place this July online. The main task here is the retirement and election of new bishops, which will directly impact us. Our bishop will retire this year and we will be appointed a new bishop. In the past we have shared our bishop with the North West Texas Annual Conference, but the indications at the moment are that this will change and we will instead share with the Rio Texas Conference. It has also been recommended that these appointments be made on an interim basis so they could be changed after the 2022 General Conference if needed.

Our Annual Conference, which is the gathering of churches of New Mexico, is still scheduled for June 16-18, although the location has not yet been announced, or at least I haven’t seen any given. It’s still possible we might not be able to meet in person at that time, and if not, there are dates in October that are also selected. If we still can’t meet in person we will again hold annual conference online.

I know that this is disappointing to many people as it leaves everything in limbo for longer, but the church often does not operate on a time frame that works for us. Keep your faith. And if you have no idea what any of this means, and would like to know, of if you have more questions, please let me know.

What's The Purpose?

In a few hours I will be leaving to attend Annual Conference.  For the non-Methodists, this is the annual gathering of clergy and laity (equal representation of each) from each of the churches in the conference, which in this case is New Mexico and southern west Texas.

In the past, annual conference had several main reasons for its existence.  The first was that this was when appointments were announced.  United Methodist clergy serve on perpetual one-year appointments, and so you would find out at annual conference if you were moving or not, and where you would be going.  The second reason was to conduct the business of the annual conference, such as passing budgets, and voting on legislation, ordaining new clergy, etc.  The third reason was that it was the only time of the year that most clergy ever got together, and so it was a time of fellowship and catching up and remembering those who had left the ministry in the past year either by leaving or dying.

The problem with annual conference now is that none of those reasons really exist anymore. Appointments are announced well in advance of annual conference.  Except for ordination, all of the legislative work is either done differently than in the past, or could honestly be done online or in other forums.  And because of social media and other technology, those clergy who want to be in touch with each other outside of annual conference can be.  It's still nice to get together, but it does not serve the same purpose as it did in the past.

So that really leaves us going to gathering whose purpose has been eliminated with no new purpose having been put into place.  We keep doing things the same because "it's how we have always done it" and the result is it's just a three-to-four-day committee meeting.  I know of few people who actually look forward to attending Annual Conference, and the biggest reason is because it doesn't serve a purpose.  It's rare that people actually take something home, or learn something, which they can use or apply in the local church.

It's time for the UMC to totally rethink annual conference (and general conference and jurisdictional conference for that matter) and to begin that conversation we have to start with answering the question, "what is the purpose of annual conference"?  Once we answer that, then we can restructure everything and make it be something that is not only useful for churches, but that people would actually look forward to attending.