[RMC News] [2008 General Conference News] Delegate Reflection April 27th Josh Davies

[Strickland, Skip]

[2008 General Conference News] Delegate Reflection April 27.  Josh Davies
 
The first elected lay delegate, Josh Davies, writes the following remarks.  Josh is a young layman from Denver, Trinity UMC.  Josh reflects from Forth Worth, Texas as he is attending the 2008 General Conference:
 
April 28th, 2008 – General Conference Report
 
Livin’ On A Prayer
 
Today was a big day for us – both as the entire body, and for the Rocky Mountain delegation.  Monday marks the official half-way point of the conference – as (not so) noted theologian John Bon Jovi would say, “We’re half way there, livin’ on a prayer.”  From this point on, every day of General Conference will be nothing but plenary sessions where we make final decisions on resolutions and petitions presented from the various committees.  While the format changes, the hours don’t – again we started this morning with a worship service at 8am and didn’t finish until 11pm.  It is a schedule that is as demanding physically as it is mentally.  It also means that everything we do from here until Friday is final.  The decisions we make here impact the future of everything we do as a church.
 
I am proud to say that not only was today a turning point for the conference, it was a good day for the Rocky Mountain Conference and the Western Jurisdiction.  Bishop Brown presided over both the afternoon and evening sessions, doing an exceptional job of dealing with some challenging issues and delegates.  Youngsook Kang once again played a prominent role as chair of the Agenda Committee, and Janet Forbes presented several resolutions as Sub-committee Chair of the Superintendency Committee.  In addition to having an exceptional presence in leadership roles, the results of our actions today were also very positive.  We were able to elect a slate of Judicial Council members that is diverse, moderate, and includes a member from the Western Jurisdiction.  Given the recent actions of the previous Judicial Council, this complete change of the body is a positive sign for the future of the church.  In addition, we passed legislation that reinforced our world-wide mission work, including town and country ministry, our global AIDS fund, Darfur awareness, and both Hispanic and Native American ministries.  Additionally, we established task forces to encourage our agencies to invest money in a socially responsible way and to look at the global nature of the church. 
 
The most important resolution I believed we passed tonight though was the authorization to allocate funds to assist in the creation of a national memorial for the Sand Creek Massacre.  This event, and its ties to our denomination, conference, and to my local church are a dark cloud over us all.  I hope that this will help us continue to grow and reach a deeper understanding of the relationship we have to our Native American brothers and sisters.  Speaking on the floor of the General Conference in support of this resolution was one of my personal highlights so far.
 
As we look back on the past week, it is clear that we have laid a solid foundation for positive change within the church.  It is also clear that we have a lot of work to do, and only four more days to make it happen.  Keep us in your thoughts and prayers as we continue to do God’s work here in Ft. Worth.
 
 
 
Josh Davies,
 
April 28, 2008, General Conference Report

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://mail.rmcumc.org/pipermail/rmcnews_rmcumc.org/attachments/20080429/828c0a48/attachment.html