Day 2

News from the home front (half way around the world)
Deb arrived safely in Lagos this morning (our time). When I talked to her at about 12:45 p.m. (our time) she had unpacked and was probably quite exhausted. Barrett talked to me briefly on the phone, but I had trouble understanding him – he was talking into the ear-hole. He will be 3 next week, and in addition to presents, Deb was able to get the 40 Fire Chief hats in her luggage, so Barrett can take them to school for his classmates on his big day. Ainsley was trying to eat one of the luggage locks that Deb had, so she was a little distracted during the call.

Opening Worship
Today started early with getting on the bus at about 6:50 a.m. After finishing last night’s email at 1:15, it was a rather short night. The first thing today was the Episcopal address, given by the retiring Bishop from the Illinois Great Rivers Conference, Sharon Brown Christopher. It was very good and started a theme that lasted all morning around 4 areas of focus that are to be our focus for the future. She mixed in the communion liturgy with the sermon. All of the other Bishops joined her in reciting the liturgy and they were seated around the outside of the main floor of the conference.

Big Theme for the Future of the Church - Four Areas of Focus
The 4 above are "four areas of focus" are related to the budget of the church:
1. Developing Leadership - $96,396,111.
2. New places for new people & renewing existing congregations - $66,732,527.
3. Engaging in ministry with the poor - $54,457,252.
4. Stamping out killer diseases of poverty by improving health globally - $39,425,768.

My tie today – White Sox tie with the Sears Tower in the background and a baseball substituting for the moon. I keep running into people I know, and that know me - Rev. Slim Coleman from the Adalberto UMC in Chicago is here for an immigration rally later today.

Young People's Address
The first ever Young Peoples Address at a General Conference was given by 6 young (under 30) from Russia, West Michigan, Colorado, Nebraska, and a couple of other places that I don’t remember. It was excellent. They spoke from several places around the hall, and it was effective and kept our attention.

Laity Address
This afternoon we heard the laity address, and it didn’t start out very good from my view – kind of boring. But it got better and turned out to be quite good. The speaker was from North Georgia and told about the man in his car that came to a Kool-Aid stand – 10¢ (it must have been a few years ago). He decided to stop and gave the two kids a quarter, and after some effort at making change they came to the car with his cup of Kool-Aid and his change. While he started drinking and was enjoying it, one of the kids stayed by the car window, and kept staying there. Finally the man asked the kid why he was standing there, and the reply was – “You have our only cup.” She then went on to say that an empty cup only has one purpose – to be filled, and a full cup only has one purpose – to be emptied. We as laity need to keep filling the cup by inviting people into the church and then sending our membership out into the world.

Status of Legislation
As to my effort to codify the Discipline: Retired Bishop Ott greeted me today with – “what a great idea!” When I mentioned that I had been trying to get this passed for 8 years, he seemed surprised because it is such a good idea. The Rules committee reported back that since there was legislation in the Financial Administration Committee that they recommended rejecting my motion. Then somebody moved to refer it, and that was defeated. So then my motion was voted on, and it lost. We will see what happens in the committee, but the good news is that I got the issue before the entire General Conference and people are talking about it. When it comes up in committee, it should click in their heads that this is what we have talked about and it sounds like a good idea. If you are trying to follow along at all with the progress of General Conference at www.umc.org (that is where my blog with these emails is located, as well as a petition tracking system) the petition #s are 80162-FA-NonDis-!, and 80795-FA-NonDis. The first one has an estimated cost of $150,000 - $250,000 which is what the (!) at the end of the petition number means. If it has the (!) then there are financial implications and GCFA must be involved in the approval process. We will see what happens.

After the Rules were finally adopted, without my amendment, we went to our legislative committees. I had been approached a few weeks ago by the Common Cause Group about being slated for Vice Chair of the Judicial Administration committee, and I said OK. I had the name of a person for Chair, and Secretary as well. When we went into the room there were people outside asking us to vote for that slate, so I thought there was a chance. When they opened the nominations for Chair, nobody nominated the name that I had, and I did not know who she was, and nobody told me to nominate her. Three others were quickly nominated, so I was a little surprised. Then after one was elected we moved to Vice Chair. Nobody nominated me, and I wasn’t going to nominate myself, so that did not happen. Then we got to Secretary and finally the name that I had was nominated (I was going to if nobody else did), and he declined saying that he did not think he would be a good secretary.

I met the two delegates from Nigeria that are in my committee - Hananiya Hamma and Ayuba Abdallah Ndule. I told them that my wife had arrived in their country a few hours ago for a 1 week visit. They said that they hope she has a good time as it is a nice place.After dinner we met again, introduced ourselves (lots of lawyers, and a few judges) and broke into 7 sub-committees. My group will be focusing only on paragraph 2701 of the Book of Discipline and all of the petitions that are for that one paragraph. Lots of nice people - we will see how effective and productive we are.It's early - only 12:45. Later today I will be nominated for the Judicial Council, and we will see what happens.

Peace to all, Jack