[RMC News] Countdown to General Conference 9

[Roe, Ben]

Contents
	Countdown to General Conference
	How to be in dialogue with the delegation

COUNTDOWN TO GENERAL CONFERENCE!

The Rocky Mountain Conference Delegation leaves for General Conference in Fort Worth, Texas on Wednesday, April 23.    As a delegation, we have been meeting monthly to build community, pray for each other, and learn together.   Each of the delegates has been assigned to a legislative committee.  Our alternates and guests will be monitoring the legislative processes as well.   In anticipation of our work, we want to share some of our learnings, passions, concerns, and prayers.  Here is the ninth in a series of pre-Conference reflections:

------------------------------------------

Countdown to General Conference
Steve Burnett

I look forward to attending the first full week of General Conference, at my own expense, as my primary week of continuing education for this appointment year.  A fourth alternate to the voting delegates, I will monitor, on behalf of the delegation, the Local Church Legislative Committee.  
While over a hundred petitions will be considered by this Committee, two of the most important groupings of petitions swirl around 1) church membership and pastoral authority, and 2) United Methodist Women's organizational relationship to the local church.  Regarding the first set of issues, a  pastor's denial  of church membership to an openly gay man, in the last couple of years, prompted a deluge of petitions, including one I support from our own Rocky Mountain Conference which amended Paragraph 214 by addition to state that "No person shall be excluded from the United Methodist Church for any reason that includes race, color, national origin, status, economic condition, gender, gender identity, marital status, sexual orientation or ability."  The issue raises questions about the inclusivity of our denomination and the authority of the pastor as gatekeeper to church membership.  

A smaller but important group of petitions propose that United Methodist Women and United Methodist Men be optional organizations in the local church, and seek to open the doorway for other women's and men's programs and organizations to form without accountability to a denominational UMW or UMM structure.  One UMW proposal also requires the local UMW to be accountable to the local church council rather than directly related to the district, conference or Women's Division.  While women and men in the local church are currently not restricted from organizing programs or groups beyond the oversight of the UMW or UMM, these petitions would seek to diminish the influence of connectional systems and resources, and undermine the effectiveness of these organizations.

In addition, some petition addresses nearly every local church committee or organization in the 200 paragraphs section of the Discipline, as well as Trustees and Church Property-related issues in the 2500 paragraphs.   Because our Conference places an emphasis on empowering and strengthening the local church for mission and ministry, I can't think of a better place to observe and report proposed actions.
May God guide our delegation and keep them well, alert and responsive to the Holy Spirit's leading.

------------------------------------------

Our communications team, Skip Strickland and Olon Lindemood, will be posting General Conference reports from April 23 to May 2.   One of the delegates will write a daily reflection as well.   You may access information during the General Conference at www.GC2008.umc.org    Worship, special addresses, and celebrations will be offered in live video streaming.   You may also track legislation.

We covet your prayers and traveling mercies!   

The Rocky Mountain Conference delegation invites your comments on their blog:  http://www.RMCDelegation.blogspot.com

Grace,
Janet Forbes and Josh Davies


How to be in dialogue with the delegation
There are several ways to be in dialogue with our delegation.

1.  E-mail:  to send to the entire delegation, use Delegation2008 at rmcumc.com.
2.  Their new Blog (short for "Web Log"):  http://www.RMCDelegation.blogspot.com
3.  The RMCUMC.org Bulletin Board:  http://rmcumc.org/Community/YaBB.pl?board=GCJC
4.  Phone:  Use this list of contact info: http://rmcumc.org/Community/YaBB.pl?num=1186779355/0#1

Keep up with General Conference on the GC2008 page on the RMCUMC.org web:  rmcumc.org, link at top of page!]

(via Ben Roe
Information Administrator
Rocky Mountain Conference, The United Methodist Church
ben at rmcumc.com  303-325-7046  800-536-3736x146)
---------------------------------------
RMC News is an electronic mail list for official news for clergy and elected lay leadership of the Rocky Mountain Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. If you are not clergy or elected lay leadership of the RMCUMC, you may request to be removed from the list by sending a note to ben at rmcumc.com. To join the list, send a note to ben at rmcumc.com. See rmcumc.org/News/Communications/rationale.htm for more information on our Communications policies.




-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.rmcumc.org/pipermail/rmcnews_rmcumc.org/attachments/20080417/e702440f/attachment.html