Today during worship, and then again at lunch there was a high school group from 1st UMC Ann Arbor, MI called The Strangely Warmed Players. The significance of the title of the group is that John Wesley, felt “strangely warmed in his heart”, and that is generally considered the start of Methodism. He did not call it that, others did, and it was never his intent to form a new religion – the was a priest in the Church of England. The group is a theater troupe and they performed a skit called “Crossing to the Other Side”. “Captain Safety” was the leader of his group on a boat that had never left the dock – but it was very safe. Whenever his “crew” wanted to go to sea he said, “but it is very safe here.” They have other skits called, “MacJesus To Go” and “I heard it Through the Grapevine”, and some others. Overall, it was very creative, and very good.
Seeds of Hope
The opening worship sermon was good, by William Hutchinson – Louisiana titled “Of Water AND the Spirit” with the point being that getting baptized is does not end your journey, and you need to move on to do good things. After that was a Rural Life Celebration. It included messages that were read from Richard Petty, and Joycelyn Elders (former US Surgeon General), and several church leaders in person, all saying that they got their start in a small, rural Methodist Church. The message in that was from Bishop Ken Carder who talked about clearing space for a garden, carefully tilling the area for planting. When he had to go inside for a minute, his 3 year old daughter – wanting to help – grabbed handfuls of the Zinnia seeds and spread them all over the place. After some son, rain, and a little time, Zinnias started coming up everywhere – under trees, next to the house, even from cracks in the driveway. Some obviously did not grow, but a lot did. From a small start, lots of things can happen.
Funding Pensions in the Central Conferences
There was a presentation about the Central Conference Pension initiative. There currently is no pension system for pastors outside the US. They want to raise $20 million over 5 years. The history of the pension system in the Methodist Church in America is long. A couple of days ago I mentioned the Christmas Conference of December 1784 where Methodism in America started and Coke & Asbury were consecrated as Bishops. At that same session, the “Preacher’s Fund” was created, and in 1796 the Chartered Fund was created. This fund still exists today. The problem is that this is only in the US. They tell the stories like: Rev. Francis Marovia – served 58 years as a UM pastor in Sierra Leone. His pension is $12/month; Erna Kunstimees – widow of a retired pastor in Estonia. Church paid pensions in Estonia end with the death of the clergyperson, with no further benefits available for the surviving spouse; and Rev. Daniel Islam – served rural parishes in Liberia for 31 years, often unpaid, and occasionally receiving his salary in rice or other food leaving him unable to save for retirement. More info is available at www.ccpi-umc.org .
My tie today – Lighthouse.
Two more task forces reported – one about studying the Episcopacy and one about the UMC and relations with churches in Latin America & the Caribbean.
I may have mentioned that the alter, podium, and large round Communion table in the center of the large delegation assembly room are made from trees felled by the hurricanes that hit Gulfside Campgrounds.
A couple of items from yesterday:
- The DCA that was passed out this morning with judicial council nominees profiles had no pictures in it.
- The offering of money placed on the worship table for Nothing But Nets raised $13,530. If anyone wants to give to this, you can contribute to an "Advance Special" (Advanced Special #982015) which means you can give it to your church (1st UMC LaGrange for many of you), and it will be sent in to the Conference and will ultimately find its way to the right place - without any administrative costs being taken out. That is part of what the United Methodist connection is all about. When each church pays its apportionment, that covers the administrative costs for many things, so that when you give money to this special, or to UMCOR, all (100%) of what you give for that special goes to help where you intended. There was an opening night offering that raised money for a Fort Worth ministry to children and the impoverished - it raised $19,194.10.
I think that they might be getting home Saturday, but a group from LaGrange was going to the Midwest Distribution Center in Chatham, IL for a couple days at the end of this week. I picked up a free DVD about the Sager Brown Depot in Baldwin, LA which I think is like the big brother to Chatham. I will bring it home and give it to somebody that went and you can share as you want.
An Inside Look at the Work of Legislative Committees
Our committee quit at about 11:30 tonight. We met for a while this afternoon, and a little bit tonight as a group (50 people) and voted a bunch of petitions out of committee (37 by my very rough count). One that we approved 31-14 would create a home base for the Judicial Council - possibly in Nashville or in Washington DC. It would allow for a clerk at about 20 hours/week. Right now the JC meets twice a year in April and October, and never in the same place. If you have a case before them, and you want to appear for oral arguments, it could be anywhere - even in the Philippines (did that a couple of years ago). It can make it very cost prohibitive to pursue a case. This would also provide a central place for their records. It is easy to get copies of decisions right now, but if you want to see all of the briefs that were filed in an old case, it is difficult to track down the records.
Most of the documents that we dealt with were rejected.
Then we spent more time in our sub-committees. My group of 7 is still working on our 1 paragraph in the Discipline - 2701 - Fair Process in Judicial Proceedings. I should say that the paragraph is 2 1/2 pages long. What we are going to send to the whole committee, and hopefully to the plenary, a motion to delete the entire existing 2701 and replace it with a new one.What we need to explain to our committee is that it is probably 85% the exact same language, but all re-organized into a more logical order. This will now explain the rights of the complainant (new) and the rights of the respondent (existing) and the rights of the Church. We also moved a couple of sentences to the very beginning of the paragraph that say that these rights kick in when a complaint from counsel for the Church is sent to the committee on investigation.I thin we have about 70 more petitions to finish in our committee, but many will go very quickly. For example, from our sub-committee, we will be recommending one for passage with the total re-write noted above, and 5 for rejection. There are apparently a couple of others like that where 9 or 10 will go away as one is approved.
It is never over till it is over, and it is never passed until it is passed. The FA committee voted down the petition with the $150-250,000 cost in it, but it looks like they are dong that to approve the other petition.
I'm going to bed! It is 1:30 am and I will be up at 6:00 am.
Peace to all, Jack
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