Day 7

My committee finally finished our work this afternoon. We all got lunch and brought it to the meeting room and worked from about 1 till 3 and finished all of the petitions. The plenary session started at 2:30, but we were close to finishing, so we just kept going. A real good group of people, and we got a lot done. Now we will see how our petitions do with the whole group.

Today was Ecumenical day and started with a sermon by Bishop Mark Hanson, ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church of America). The title was "Rooted" and he asked, "Are you rooted or rootless?" Jesus didn't say I am the vine, you may be the branches. He noted that the Root Command in a computer is the one that enables all other programs to run. Our root command should be "Love one another." He did note that the ELCA is 97% white.

Tie today - University of Chicago.

After we passed this morning's consent calendars we have dealt with 707 petitions.

By a vote of 776-102 we created a new mission statement for the UMC. It is now, "The mission of the Church is to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. Local churches provide the most significant arena through which disciple-making occurs."

We voted tonight to reduce the number of Bishops in the US in 2012 by 4 - one each in the North East, North Central, West, and South Central Jurisdictions. Vote was 457-401. This was very disappointing, but not unexpected. Actually the closeness of the vote was the surprising part. With declining enrolement, it was kind of inevitable, and was talked about 4 years ago. The only real question was when, now or in 4 years. All of the speakers for this are from the Southeast.

We were debating a petition about the General Board of Church & Society and the building that it is in in Washington DC. Apparently the building was donated many years ago and has some restrictions about the proceeds of the building being used (A building endowment trust fund) for temperance and other things. I don't know how specific it is, but some object to the proceeds being used for other than temperance. The Board went to DC Court a while ago to find out if it had been operating within the rules of the trust, and I believe there is a trial in a couple of weeks. The petition would have required a new committee to look into their finances - and all other General Boards. It was not well written and looked like a whitch hunt. Lots of debate for a while, then someone moved to table it indefinitely so the court case could play out. That passed overwhelmingly, and we were done for the night - and it was only about 10:30 pm. That was the right thing to do.

The highlight of the day was an address by Her Excellency, President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of the Republic of Liberia. She is a United Methodist who went to the College of West Africa - a United Methodist College founded in 1839 by Methodists. She also went to the JFK School of Government at Harvard. She noted the widening gap betwen the rich and poor - as the search for energy continues. She noted that the GDP of 41 nations with 567,000 people is less than the combined wealth of the world's 7 richest people. One billion people entered the 21st century without being able to sign their name or read a book. But all is not bleak - the bad news of Africa is beginning to change. The focus is on, and must be on, the young people of our land. We had to vacate the arena during lunch while they searched the room, and then sealed off certain areas. A few minutes before she started her speech the doors were closed and no one was allowed in till after she was out of the building.

The codifying petition was not on the consent calendar this morning - should be tomorrow, we will see. I am not worried though. It will be on a consent calendar, and the people that understand it will not remove it, and no one else knows enough to lift it.

Peace to all, Jack