Annual Conference Recap: The Long Form

As always, I thoroughly enjoyed Annual Conference this year. I couldn’t sleep the night before, and now that it’s over I am sad that I have to wait an entire year before we come together again for holy conferencing. Overall, AC was good, but it had its ups, its downs, and its strange moments. This may have been the strangest Annual Conference I’ve ever attended, and I’ve been going for 11 years.

Day 1: Opening Day

The first day of Annual Conference began with an informal opening worship, followed by clergy session. During clergy session this year, we elected 21 provisional members into our Annual Conference. They will be on the new two year track to ordination, meaning most of them will be ordained with my class of 10 from last year. That will be a long ordination service in 2011.

Following that, we had opening worship, where the bishop encouraged us to “Burn, Baby, Burn.” He implored us to be motorcycle churches rather than lawnmower churches: getting out and taking risks rather than playing it safe. He charged us with this task: “Take the church out on the open road, give it the gas, and see what the old baby will do!” It was a good sermon to kick off our theme for the week, which centered on our mission as the Western PA Annual Conference of the UMC. Our vision is “to ignite and sustain a passionate spiritual connection with Christ among all people in Western Pennsylvania.”

Immediately following worship was strange moment #1 of 2009 AC. The first order of business every year is simple administrative tasks: filling out attendance cards, setting the bar, approving the agenda, etc. Well, when we got to approving the agenda, someone made a motion to amend the agenda. We were scheduled to vote on the very important constitutional amendments on Saturday afternoon, but many clergy leave early each year for a variety of reasons: golfing, officiating weddings, camping, preaching on Sunday – all those things that do NOT trump our obligation to attend all of Annual Conference. Well, the amendment proposed that we move the constitutional amendments up to Friday afternoon so that those who wish to skip out early can do so.

In an extremely rare moment, the vote on amending the agenda was so close that the bishop had to call a division of the house. Tellers who hadn’t organized themselves had to haphazardly count votes, and 30 minutes after we started looking at the agenda, we finally passed it as amended. I doubt I will ever see a division of the house on the agenda again in my lifetime.

The rest of Thursday was pretty boring, all things considered. We had our legislative section meetings, then dinner, then a memorial service.

Day 2: Inappropriateness, Inexplicable Voting Rules, Ironic Pizza, and Hoisting the Cup

Friday began harmless enough, with Bible study followed by reports from various people: the conference lay leader, the cabinet, etc. But strange moment #2 of 2009 AC came just before lunch, when a woman came to the podium and announced she would lead us in a time of stretching and meditation as part of our new “Health as Wholeness”* focus. We realized she wasn’t kidding when she asked us to stand and give our neighbor a shoulder massage. Now, for me, it would mean turning and giving my secretary a massage, which I considered awkward, uncomfortable, inappropriate, and probably a violation of our denomination’s Safe Sanctuaries policy. So we went to lunch instead. Whoever came up with the idea of asking me to give a massage to my secretary in the middle of holy conferencing needs to rethink some things.

Friday afternoon, we voted on the constitutional amendments. By “we” I mean everyone around me. As a provisional clergy member, I was not allowed to vote. Our congregation’s lay delegate, who was at Annual Conference for the first time ever, was allowed to vote. One of the interesting things about the UMC is that when you become a local pastor or provisional clergy member, you actually lose the power to vote on certain things, including constitutional amendments. It appears that some of that may be corrected in the near future, but for the time being, my M. Div. and license for pastoral ministry means I’m less qualified to weigh in on important denominational decisions than laity. For the record, most lay delegates I talked with agreed that this is silly.

Strange moment #3 came on Friday evening. Well, actually, all of Friday night was strange. It was Mission Night, but it was also the night of Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals, in which our beloved Penguins were attempting to capture the crown for the first time in 17 years. We heard a great sermon by a pastor from Mozambique in celebration of Mission Night, including stories about how parents in his country can barely feed their children one cup of tea for dinner. This heartbreaking story of widespread poverty was immediately followed by our bishop announcing he had ordered 80 large pizzas so we could all watch the rest of the hockey game together in the plenary room. On top of that, the pizzas were placed directly in front of the Health as Wholeness information table. It was the most irony-laced pizza party I’ve ever attended.

But it was fun. By the end of the game, many people had left, but there were still several hundred of us there when the final seconds drained off the clock. It was fun to watch the Pens win the cup while at Annual Conference, and it was the first time I’ve seen us take time at AC to be in fellowship with each other outside of our hurried meals at the college’s dining halls.

*In light of the rampant obesity plaguing our clergy, our conference is promoting “Health as Wholeness” in an attempt to make us better pastors, as well as cheaper employees to insure.

Day 3: Legislating, Reporting, and Questioning

I know the reports on pensions and health benefits are necessary, but to echo Lance’s assertion, “heavens, they’re boring.” At least that boredom was countered by the enthusiasm and excitement our youth always bring in their youth moment. We have weird, crazy, spunky youth, and every year they get the biggest applause of the entire week. I love our youth and the commitment we make to including them in our Annual Conference.

Lisa came up for the day. We also had one of the young adults in our congregation spend the day with us, as he wanted to see what AC was all about. Well, they got to see the boring BOPHB reports, but they also got to see us debate some legislation. I will share some of the more interesting legislation here, without opinion – but many of you can probably guess where I stand on these.

RS 103 and RS 104 – Immigration Reform
Both these resolutions suggested we encourage the government to make immigration reform. Some thought it would be going too “soft” on illegal immigrants, others thought the current immigration laws and actions are inhumane. We passed them both.

RS 702 – Studying Homosexuality
To paraphrase this resolution, we affirm that there are a lot of United Methodist resources congregations can use to study homosexuality, and we encourage churches to study this important issue as a means of opening dialogue. We voted it down, meaning we are against encouraging churches to use the plethora of denominational resources to study an uncomfortable issue.

P 74 – On Evolution and Intelligent Design
Just a few quotes from this petition, since I wouldn’t know where to begin paraphrasing it:
“WHEREAS, the theory of evolution has not been proven as factual truth.”
“WHEREAS…the theory of evolution carries with it an attendant philosophy and set of applied social principles that teach moral relativism, self determinism, and the ultimate resignation to meaninglessness and death that are incompatible with Christian theology and the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”
“WHEREAS, [accepting the United Methodist stance that affirms evolution is a foundational scientific truth means] implicitly rejecting the authenticity and authority of Holy Scripture, declaring the Bible fundamentally in error, proclaiming God and Christ liars, making salvation in Christ meaningless and robbing the church of its foundation for evangelism and discipleship.”
“THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the Western PA Conference of the United Methodist Church petitions the General Conference of The United Methodist Church in 2012 to:
1) Reject the theory of evolution and affirm both Creationism and Intelligent Design as both Biblical and truthful.”
2) Reject the notion that cosmological, geological, and biological evolution is ‘foundational scientific truth that has stood up to rigorous scrutiny and upon which much of human knowledge and achievement rests.’”
There was more to this petition, but these were the foundational elements of the document. We very narrowly voted it down, meaning we want to keep the current UM stance on science and evolution as is.

RS 1002 – Clergy Housing Study
We finally updated our “Living and Working Conditions of the Pastor” standards for the first time since 1991. We added internet and a basic cell phone plan to the list of utilities to be provided at the parsonage, and recommended air conditioning. We also formed more stringent standards on making the parsonage handicap accessible. An amendment was proposed by one pastor to remove cell phone and cable TV from the list of basic utilities, as these are luxuries. It was defeated. Another amendment was proposed to give recommend 2 days off per week for pastors (it had been one day). It passed pretty easily.

Saturday evening was Ministry Night, where we celebrated the ministry of the laity, of the local pastors, and of the clergy. We again recognized the years of service given by our retirees, and the historical questions were asked to the incoming class of ordinands and the incoming class of provisional members. The mantle was passed from the retiring class to the incoming class. Bishop Will Willimon preached a wonderful sermon.

Day 4: Ordination and Returining Home

Sunday morning was the ordination service. Many people I know were ordained or commissioned, including a long time close friend, Matt Johnson. We were groomsmen in each other’s weddings, and we both love United Methodist polity and legislation more than almost anyone else. I’m glad that we are now officially colleagues in ministry, and look forward to being ordained in the same class in 2011.

As always, Annual Conference was many things. It was a time of joy and celebration, and a time of heartbreak over some of the decisions made. It was a church family reunion with hundreds of people I know. It was a tiring week, magnified by sleeping in a non-air conditioned college dormitory. We worshiped, sang, celebrated our common ministry, heard excellent preachers, debated difficult issues, and debated not-so-difficult issues. We shared in the excitement of a championship hockey team over stacks of pizza. We prayed together and played together. We became one body for just a few days, then dispersed again for another year of connectional ministry throughout the mountains and valleys of Western Pennsylvania, where we will ignite and sustain a passion for Christ among all people. May it be so.