What do they do with the extra pieces?

Saturday sessions are always a bit strange because they come after the end of a “normal” workweek for most of us. This day started with the worship and plenary session. Bishop Bill Hutchinson preached and pressed for involvement and moving beyond the expected and ordinary. The African Children’s choir closed out the worship service with gusto. We were busy doing support stuff in the Commission office; so, I had to watch on the large monitor.

Worship was followed by an order of the day. That simply means that it is a set slot on the agenda and involves folk that are there for that specific report or presentation. This particular presentation was lifting up the growth of selected rural churches; thus, it was called Rural Life Celebration. There were instances of churches around the world that are in rural settings and have very slow or no growth in area population. In spite of this, they have grown in size and ministry. The key appears to intentionality. They individually showed that a focus on hospitality, invitation (remember the Laity Address), and being open to change can bring a turn around in their fate. Some were in impossible situations (impossible without their trust in God) that were redirected into becoming the center of the community. I’m sure this report will be reprinted in UM publications—watch for it.

Today also marked the first day that the legislative committees had a large block of time to work on “their” petitions. The report from the petitions secretary at the morning’s plenary revealed that they had dealt with only 11% of the 1500 or so petitions. Their efforts had been in the selection of officers and setting the ground rules (in other words defining the turf issues, politically) up to this point. The ground rules are that no legislative committee can generate change in The Discipline unless that paragraph is opened by a petition. Once that paragraph is opened or amended b a petition, all is fair game. This allows for a lot of tinkering. Sometimes, they haven't gotten the horse back in front of the cart. The committees deal with every petition by either accepting it; amending it or rejecting it. The subcommittees work on a small group of petitions and then bring it back to the full committee for action. If the larger committee agrees with the action and has less than 10 dissenting votes, the calendar item goes on the Consent Calendar by #. If the petition is rejected by the same level, it goes on another consent calenday for all similarly rejected petitions. This allows the Conference to deal with a large number of petitions in plenary without discussion. All this is to explain the importance of our representation on the committees. Most of the legislation goes through on the Consent Calendar. This is an expeditious way to deal with a large volume of material in such a short time. It does concentrate the representation to a much smaller number of delegates. It may not be necessarily a bad thing or a good thing, but it does require that all involved pay attention. I have actually known some folks that came to General Conference with a specific and personal agenda. I don’t want you to be too concerned; just remember God is still in the house!