God and conflict

This morning, I find myself gathering with brothers and sisters preparing for General and Jurisdictional conferences. We are retreating to get to know one another better and to prepare our hearts and minds for the journey.

The first thing we started with today was to ask about where God has been present in history.  Our first instinct was to think about times and acts of reconciliation, love, compassion, and growth in knowledge.

But then our leader asked: what about conflict? Does God only act to bring blessing, or does God also shake things up?

The scriptures are FULL of conflict and tension... Between siblings, internal wrestling, prophets vs kings, Jesus vs the pharisees, Jews vs Christians, insiders and outsiders, clean and unclean, power and poverty, old ways and new ways... Sometimes that conflict is a result of our fallen nature... But sometimes, God is the instigator. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is moving. Sometimes chaos is introduced into our feeble attempts at order in order to move us back to faithfulness.

The hardest question we are going to face as the people of God is discerning what conflicts are based in our failings/sins/brokenness and which ones are prompted by God calling us to different ways. When are we speaking a prophetic word, and when are we only justifying our preconceived notions. When is the Holy Spirit moving and when are we falling into the base ways of the world.

May God grant us wisdom... And may the Holy Spirit keep moving among us.

Idiotology

There has been a lot of talk on the airwaves lately about ideology.

Mostly regarding economics and politics and the way people played chicken with this debt ceiling question.

As I heard a debate a few weeks ago, I actually thought that someone had said "idiotology" and it got me thinking.

Are our attachments to certain beliefs just plain stupid?

One part of me wants to leave the post right there, with the question dangling.  But the other part of me wants to start making a list of all the beliefs we hold that classify as "idiotology."  My better instincts are prevailing...

Let me just say that a blind holding to a line of argument without regard to context, new information, audience, or actually listening to a differing viewpoint often leads us down the paths of "idiotology."

I'm not going to point fingers... but it is going to be a LONG election cycle.

And looking ahead to our own Christian conferencing in the United Methodist Church with General Conference in 2012, I pray that idiotology might stay far, far away from our deliberations. 

Survivor: GC Election Edition

How many ballots does it take to NOT elect a young adult clergy person as a delegate to General Conference in Iowa? 

12.



I shouldn't start that way. That's the tired exhaustion of a very long day.  I should start with the absolute excitement that our conference, today, on our 12th and final ballot, elected three young adult clergy persons as delegates to jurisdictional conference (and therefore as GC alternates) and has also elected two young adult laity as jurisdictional conference delegates and 1 youth and 1 young adult laity as general conference delegates. 

Yes, I'm harping on the young adults.  There aren't so many of us and we are the future of this church.  We are the ones who are going to have to figure out a way to be disciples of Jesus Christ in the next 10 - 20 years.  And we are ready and willing and able to start figuring this stuff out right now. 

For three days now, we have gone through ballots.  The laity had a much easier time of it, but with 42 clergy delegates and 7 spots, the journey was a bit slower for us clergy folk. 

At one point, a motion was made to eliminate any nominee who had less than 40 votes (will roughly 450 clergy voting, roughly 225 votes were needed for election).  Little by little, our options got fewer and fewer, solidifying our vote.

As a nominee, it was a very strange experience. 

I think I might have run for one elected position ever in high school. I don't think I won.  I was the president of the Religious Life Council at Simpson, but I can't remember if that was a peer-elected sort of thing or not.


Photo by: Hawkins



But to be on the ballot for 11 straight votes... and to see every single time your name up there on the projection screens with numbers behind it ... was nuts.  It felt like some strange, tamed down version of Survivor... 40 votes or less and you just don't make the cut. *piff* your candle is put out.

The thing that felt the most awkward about the whole thing is that there is no electioneering.  No campaigning aside from the bios. We couldn't throw our support behind other candidates or talk about why people would make excellent choices - except amongst the people you chatted with face to face. No comments about the slate as it came up.  No arguments were supposed to be made about the fact that the first three folks we elected were all middle aged white men (although someone slipped that one in... and although they will all be wonderful delegates) or that we elected absolutely no delegates under the age of 50 (at least as I have been told).  So I sat there, and people kept coming up and saying - I voted for you because you are a young adult!  and  I had enough votes most times to just keep pushing on... and by the end, although I felt like withdrawing my name so that we could at least reach a consensus on the final GC delegate, I couldn't because it felt like I was carrying all of our young clergy hopes and expectations on my shoulders. 

At the end of the night, I ended up being elected second as a jurisdictional delegate from Iowa.  I think that also means I will have the honor of serving as a general conference delegate and all of my nerdy, conference loving, legislative tweaking, holy conferencing excitement is peaked.  But it is also humbling and I feel blessed to have the opportunity to speak and to vote as a delegate from Iowa. 

Congratulations to everyone who was elected!!!

Ode to the Book of Discipline...

Oh Book of Discipline, how do I love thee...

Let me count the ways.

I love that when I am confused about how to proceed regarding a new parsonage purchase, you contain orderly directions.

I love that when I wrote my papers for ordination nearly every question could be found within your beautiful pages.

I love that as a new pastor I can use you to add weight to my words... because it says so in paragraph such and such of the Discipline.

I love that as I look through prior editions, I can see how our church has grown and changed.

I love that you contain, without apology, the history and tradition of our roots and that those pages cannot be changed.

I love that you hold the outcome of our shared wrestlings as the people called United Methodist about difficult issues and theological quandries.

I love that as much as I love you, we both know that you are never completely perfect and that each time our General Conference meets we can fix typos and make amendments and add clarifications.

I love that you are dynamic and changing and yet, at the same time the foundation for our shared ministry through time.

I love that in the words of the 2004 edition, you are "the most current statement of how United Methodists agree to live their lives together." 



I am running to be a delegate to our General Conference in 2012.  And this afternoon I recieved a phone call from a fellow pastor who had some questions for me.  I thought it was awesome that she has taken her own initiative and is doing more research on each person to make an informed decision.

One of the questions that I was asked was whether I will uphold the Book of Discipline as it stands... or something to that effect.

At first, I hesitated.  Because as an ordained elder, I am under this particular rule of law.  These are the agreements that we have made together about how we are going to live together.

So the first words out of my mouth were, "yes, as a pastor, I will work to uphold the Discpline." 

But immediately, I had to qualify that statement.

Because you see, every four years, the Book of Discipline is subject to change and scrutiny.  Every time our church meets together as the General Conference, we "amend, perfect, clarify, and add our own contribution to the Discipline." (tenses changed, again from the BOD2004)

The Book of Discipline is not holy or sacred.  It is a conversation through time.  It is the product of our connectional spirit.  And while we meet for fellowship and celebration of ministry and worship at General Conference... we also meet to speak on behalf of the church and to figure out how we are going to agree to live together for the next four years.

The United Methodist Church is diverse, global, changing, and - I pray - Spirit led.  As such, we adapt to new situations and ministry fields, we attempt to respond to the new problems the world throws at us, and we continue to try to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ in this place and time. 

So yes, I will work to uphold the Discipline that I love... but if the case is made, if it will further the work of God in this world, if we will make more disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world... I will vote to change it in a heartbeat.

some thoughts on amendment one

The first amendment that comes before our Annual Conferences from General Conference this year is to change the wording of paragraph 4 in our constitution.

There are a whole lot of youtube and blogposts and newsletter articles about this and suffice it to say - there are reasons to be in favor of it and to be against it. (not all of them might be rational, but...)

I ran across a post by John Meunier on the topic however that spoke to a lot of what I was feeling. Especially in regards to how similiar the first part of the amendment is to paragraph 214 in the Book of Discipline.

Here is my response to his blogpost:

I absolutely agree with you on the first part of the amendment. We already have the idea of "all persons" in our BOD - so it should be there in the constitution as well. I have especially noted that the amendment talks about eligibility - and I don't necessarily see that as denying the rights of pastors to determine readiness for membership, or the rights of BoOM to examine candidates for ministry. Just because you are eligible for something doesn't mean that you are going to automatically get it (see paragraph 215 in the Book of Discipline)

The wording of the last line of the amendment is unfortunate I believe.

I think the intent is to make it a consistent paragraph and it may have shot itself in the foot. I, too, am interested from a strictly procedural standpoint what the implications are. I don't have the fears that others do about it.

Here is the current last sentence of paragraph 4.
In the United Methodist Church no conference or other organizational unit of the the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member or any constiuent body of the Church because of race, color, national orign, status or economic condition.
Here is the sentence if amended.
In the United Methodist Church no conference or other organizational unit of the Church shall be structured so as to exclude any member or any constituent body.

As I would read it, just in a common sense sort of way, it makes me think that no conference or organizational unit can build discrimination into their structure. And to me, that doesn't mean that they can't have a process for readiness or standards for participation.

Who really should be up in arms about this (and I haven't seen any official word) is the United Methodist Men and Women's units...