Apparently our future with hope stays in the past... for now

This morning, the day of Beth's birthday, started off wonderfully with Bishop Fisher's sermon... but I should have known that it wouldn't last. Right now, I can't even remember what we did before lunch. I do remember that a few of us went out together to lunch. But after lunch, it all began...

All of a sudden the petition came up. Do we accept the petition to say that we as United Methodists understand that we are divided on an issue? Or do we condone homosexuality and say that it is "incompatible with Christian teaching"? This phrase now makes me sick.

A quick explaination: when a petition has a minority report, that is, when 10% of a committee chooses to rewrite a petition within 2 hours of the petition's adoption or rejection, the plenary first perfects the majority report (the initial petition coming from the committee) without debate, then perfects the minority report, votes on the minority report, and then there are two options. If the minority reports passes, it replaces the majority report and it has to be voted on again as the main report. If passed, it replaces the old language. If it does not pass, the original language remains. If the minority reports does not pass, the majority report is then voted on, and either passes or fails.

After much debate, the majority report about accepting that we are divided was perfected. Then we moved onto the minority report. I will type in full text what that says in another post. To make it short, we voted on the minority report, and it passed, but then someone called a point of order because we never actually suspended the rules to be able to vote on it. After that was taken care of, I mentioned to Kurt that if the minority report does pass, I would probably be out of there because I would be crying. Well, the minority report did pass, about 40% against it and 60% for it. I waited for it to be adopted again as the majority report, which it was. I had already started crying, and after the final report I left the room.

I felt, and still feel, betrayed by the church. We are called as United Methodists to have open hearts, open minds, and open doors. Today, in not just this instance but in others as well, we have shut the doors on homosexual people. Today, the United Methodist Church ruled that pastors still have the final decision over the membership of their church and that homosexual people cannot be ordained.

I am greatly upset. I felt bad for the people in the stands who were wearing their rainbow stoles and singing "Jesus Loves Us". They would stand before we voted, and they continued to sing even while we continued with other matters. They left at one point, and I wondered why.

After I ran out of the plenary room, I questioned how anyone who is homosexual or an ally can remain with the church. I just did not understand. Pastor Heather came out to talk with me. She said something very wise, something that I will remember probably for the rest of my life. She said that she had fallen in love with this Church, and that if she left, there would be no hope for the ones she leaves behind. If she left then there would be no change. That is why I am still here. I love God, and I love this Church. I was not able to say this earlier, but I have hope for the future. Sadly and tearfully, the future must come in four years, but I can have hope that one day it will come...

Praise for Bishop Fisher!

This morning during worship Bishop Fisher gave a sermon about taking the more difficult path in life. She preached about the necessity of the call to make inclusive the church and the world. I admit that toward the end of her sermon, I began to cry. Bishop Fisher is retiring this year, and I will greatly miss her. I have looked up to her throughout these years, and I have grown to greatly respect and learn from her strength. I know that she will enter the circuit and will continue to preach, but I am going off to Boston, and I admit that I will miss her greatly. I give many thanks to Bishop Fisher, and I am very happy that I have been able to have her as my bishop in these important years of my life.

If we care so much about our money, why not about our time?

Today we learned that to finish on time on Friday at 11pm, we have only 10 minutes for each petition since we have 120 left. 8 of those have minority reports, and of course other petition can be pulled off the consent calendar. I have heard that in past years, people take their time debating, oh pardon me "holy conferencing", the first few days, and then twist the rules to drastically cut down the number of speeches and the amount of time allowed for each petition. I think that this is ridiculous! If we are smart and apportion our time like we debate so often about apportioning our money, then each petition will get an equal amount of time given to it. I think I am about to move to reduce the amount of time from 3 minutes to 2 minutes for each speech so that we have a chance of finishing...

Roberts Rules are ridiculous...

So, I have been sitting in the plenary room for 50 minutes now. We are still on the very first item that we started those 50 minutes ago. Roberts Rules allows for three speeches for and three speeches against each motion (except motions to table). Right now the speeches are capped at 3 minutes, but I pray that someone moves to reduce them to 2 minutes for the evening some time soon.

Also, someone earlier brought up a good point. Why have we, as a church, lost a sense of our mission to go out and make disciples of Jesus and are in place just concentrating on the bottom line? I have lost track of the countless number of minutes we have spent debating money. This meeting costs $6.4 million dollars, and yet we still spend our time talking about money.

One thing I gladly will say is that I have been pleasantly surprised of the number of parents reconciling ministry stoles being worn. I was nervous of coming to GC because I thought that there would be many people against total inclusiveness. I have noticed that there is not a great number of people who are against it. Actually, in committee a petition was passed that will greatly affect the inclusiveness of the church. I will let you know how it goes in plenary... if we ever get there :-/

General Conference 2008, reflections on days 1 and 2

So, I started writing this note, and I began to realize that I could probably write a novel on just the first two days alone. There has been so much to see and experience! So instead of writing down everything, I will try to cut it down and just describe the absolutely awesome things...

The first thing is what you could call the "Southern hospitality". There are banners along the streets of Fort Worth saying "welcome" in all different languages with the United Methodist Church (UMC) logo of "open hearts open minds open doors" on them. Everyone is friendly, and I just love saying "hello" to everyone I pass. Also, there are so many volunteers around to help you out if you need.

Second could be the worship. Opening worship last night was just awesome. The Bishops all processed in, and we had Communion. There is singing, dancing, clapping, and colorful lights lol The integration of songs and prayers and sermons is wonderful and astounding. I have not given how great the worship has been enough attention, but I am trying to keep moving.

Thirdly, I must describe the first ever Young People's Address today. Six youth and young adults gave a speech in front of the entire body including press and visitors about their concerns and hopes for the Church. It was absolutely amazing. I noticed that the entire room was attentive, listening to what the young people had to say (yay!) It was not just one speaker giving a boring speech, but they rotated speaking in different places in the room and on the stage. I, again, cannot describe it completely to you, but I would definitely recommend finding the stream online and watching it!

Fourth, I am truly astounded at the ability of translators to listen, translate the language in their minds, and then repeat it in a new language, all pretty much at the same time. I cannot imagine trying to do that. I am also very glad to see the abundance of diversity from all over the world here! There are delegates from Finland, Germany, Austria, Angola, Liberia, Britain, Congo, and a few more places in my committee! We also have a 16, 17, 18, 19, and 21 year old delegate :-)

There is so much more, but I will stop now. I welcome you to watch just a little bit when you have the time of the live stream that is online here: http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.3989537/k.3B6D/Live_Streaming_Coverage_of_General_Conference.htm

Good night, and God bless!

General Conference reflections on days 2 and 3

As I am sitting here in plenary (very cold might I add because they for some reason like to have the air on full blast) I look back on the past few days. I am trying to bring myself to this place. For some reason, there are times when I look back on things, and realize that I wasn't completely there. I realize that this doesn't make much sense, but I'm just trying to remember everything that happens here and to make sure that I am fully here.

Yesterday morning, we had opening worship, heard the nominations for the University Senate and Judicial Council, introduced the affliated autonomous methodist church, affliated united church, and concordat church delegates, and BISHOP TOM gave a speech for NOTHING BUT NETS. (we raised $13,530 that morning!) Then we broke and got into legislative committees.

In committee we first attempted to tackle the petitions with financial implications because other bodies need to deal with them. My committee is pretty friendly, and it is very accepting of the youth and young adults! However, you definitely begin to see the people who want to hold things up or who form little groups to try and sway certain petitions. Overall, we have been fairly successful.

When we broke for lunch yesterday, Kurt and I went to a lunch for transgender people. It was pretty cool, and then we went across the street to join the Mosaic people in their drumming. They were going to be drumming for 24 hours until this afternoon into their rally.

After lunch, it was back to committee. I am beginning to realize that I really like to be in committee. I enjoy wording petitions and discussing their purposes. Nothing too exciting happened. For dinner the delegation plus Heather went out to dinner for Bruce's birthday!

After dinner, back to committee again, but this time we broke up into sub-committees. I am on the sub-committee dealing with racial and ethnic petitions. Last night we got through 6 petitions, and we have 7 left to cover today. Sub-committees are a lot less formal than the main committee and definitely more than plenary. I like being able to talk with one another (there are 11 of us in my sub-committee) and to discuss what we truly understand from the petition.

We got out around 10:30pm. I met up with Heather, and we went out to rejoin the Mosaic people drumming. I went back to my hotel, organized my papers and read over a few things, and went to bed.

This morning, I went to breakfast and ended up talking with a woman, Sandy, from Ohio. I walked to the convention center (passing Mosaic once again), went into worship, and am sitting here now while some are giving short presentations. Later this morning, we will return to committees and try to finish up our petitions, especially the financial ones.

It is evident that people are beginning to push more for their beliefs, espeically the people against LGBT people. I pray that we can be an accepting church. We shall see what happens today and the next.