By Nick Strobel
Annual Conference this year was held at the Sacramento Convention Center. Over a thousand delegates, half clergy & half lay, from the 363 local churches and extension ministries in the northern 2/3rds of California and most of Nevada plus many other visitors from across the nation and even some international visitors gathered to celebrate the Spirit of Christ at work through the United Methodist Church in our conference and in the larger world. This work includes the ministries of the local churches in their own communities, the ministries of the local churches working together in their cities, counties, and state, and the ministries of the annual conferences working together on national and international needs. We discussed and voted on 55 recommendations on policy and future directions for our annual conference in 1.5 days instead of the usual 2.5 days we have had in the past. I'll talk more about the recommendations later. Clergy from across the annual conference reconnected with each other, renewed their covenant relationship with each other, and welcomed new people to that covenant relationship. And, of course, we had great worship services with the theme of ``Passion for the Mind of Christ".
Susan Willm, the Advance Field Representative, Western Jurisdiction for the General Board of Global Ministries, gave the keynote address for the laity session at the start of Annual Conference Wednesday afternoon. She is a layperson who knows how to preach! She called for us to be the church which means letting go of our agendas and control and truly acting out of compassion with the heart of Christ and a passion for the mind of Christ to determine what Christ wants us to do. That evening the Silangan Dance Troupe from Pinole UMC wowed us with their dancing before and during the worship service. Children as young as kindergarten on up to adults are in the troupe.
The next morning was the reading of the appointments for Fresno District. David Scott and I represented Wesley Bakersfield in the laying on of hands of the body of Christ upon Kimberly as the Bishop prayed for all of the appointments in our district. After that we moved to the next exhibit hall for the Celebration of the 50th Anniversary of Full Clergy Right for Women. Huge 14-foot tall puppets led the procession of all of the women clergy in our conference. It took three people to work each puppet: one for the body, and one for each of the arms & hands. Before the 1956 General Conference, women could be preachers but the women preachers could not vote on the annual conference floor nor in the clergy session nor be guaranteed of an appointment. Thankfully, times have changed!
Thursday afternoon I pumped some money into the United Methodist economy by purchasing some books at the Cokesbury display including two copies of the 2004 Book of Discipline for our church library. The Discipline contains all of the organizational structure, doctrinal standards, principles, constitution, etc. of the UMC. (If you'd like to know more about the nuts and bolts of the United Methodist Church, then check out my notes on Bishop Jack Tuell's book The Organization of the United Methodist Church that are posted on our church's website.) I felt a little less guilty about spending money on books from the Cokesbury store because Cokesbury provides revenue for the support of the United Methodist Church's pension system. This year Cokesbury presented Bishop Shamana a check of $1 million for the Clergy Pension Fund and another check of $50,000 for the Central Conference's pension system.
Thursday afternoon, the Legislative Sections met to work on subsets of the
55 recommendations. In my section we discussed item 3 (change to the local
church apportionment formula), items 12, 13, 14 (standard annual setting
of pension rates + approvals), item 15 (change in the pension plan), and
item 49 (putting the entire Book of
Discipline on the web). There was a lot
of discussion on items 3 and 15. All but item 15 received 85% approvals and
were therefore put on the consent calendar. Item 3 was later petitioned to
be removed from the consent calendar so it and item 15 were both discussed
on the full plenary session floor. I will talk more about the recommendations
later.
Thursday evening the annual conference went to the Sacramento Zoo for the ``Mission Safari" dinner. Various agencies had displays set up at the zoo and we all dined at a traditional hamburger/hot dog picnic. Representatives from United Methodist Volunteers in Mission (UMVIM), United Committee on Relief (UMCOR), and the Louisiana and Mississippi annual conferences gave their profuse thanks for the great generosity of our annual conference in the clean-up after Katrina and they also told us that there is still more clean-up + rebuilding work to be done. One person echoed the shock and disappointment of the people of Louisiana and Mississippi at the lack of federal government help and the amazement of how the churches (especially the United Methodist Church) stepped in to take care of the people. Recognizing the superior work of UMCOR, the federal government awarded UMCOR the $66 million grant to handle the case management of the Hurricane Katrina relief effort last October.
On Friday, the consent calendar of recommendations was approved and the full annual conference delegation looked at the recommendations that did not receive enough votes to get on the consent calendar. Friday evening was the Memorials service. Lisa and the girls joined me at that service so they could give big hugs to both Marty Murdock and Kimberly before we headed off for our summer travels.
On Saturday before lunch the full annual conference delegation finished voting on the recommendations and the Ordination & Consecration Service was held that afternoon. I am now going to comment on some of the recommendation items. There were several recommendations related to the decisions of the Judicial Council (the highest court in the United Methodist Church analogous to the federal government's Supreme Court) about the pastor who refused church membership to a man who was a homosexual. Bishop Shamana preached on those decisions last November when she visited Wesley to join in our church's 50th birthday celebration. The recommendations related to the Judicial Council decisions were petitions to the 2008 General Conference for changes in the Social Principles, Discipline and the United Methodist Constitution that deal with the United Methodist Church's stance on homosexuality. The United Methodist Church is not of one mind on the issues surrounding homosexuality and our annual conference displays that division too, though a large majority of our annual conference is much more accepting of homosexuals as persons of equal, sacred worth as heterosexuals than other annual conferences. Arguments on both sides of the issues were heard from on the full plenary floor. What is hard for people on both sides of the debate is to see that the opposing side is also coming from a perspective based on a reading of the Bible. Both sides are genuine in their faith and their reading of the Bible and they are both trying to do what is right. However, it is hard to have dialogue when side A thinks those on side B are going to Hell because the side B is accepting of homosexuals or when side B thinks those on side A are ignorant, hate-mongering bigots because side A sees homosexuality as a sin. The past two or more General Conferences have been close to splitting the church over homosexuality but then the United Methodists have remembered that what holds us together is stronger than that that would divide us. We can agree to disagree and still be one in Christ. Ellsworth Kalas notes in the Christian Believer study series that despite the many conflicts the universal church has seen throughout history, the church has held together. He says, ``Not easily, not without pain, and not without occasional breaks in the fabric. But it continues to the present day. The secret in its survival is the community's ultimate allegiance to its Lord" (Kalas, p. 203). The woman sitting next to me in the plenary session was from El Camino UMC. We disagreed on many of the controversial issues but we could still joke about our votes canceling each other out and we could pray for safe travels home for the other.
Two other recommendations that generated much discussion on the full plenary floor were items 3 and 15 that had to do with church finances. Those two were first discussed in my legislative section and much of the same points made there were made again in the full plenary session. Item 3 was about a change in the formula used to calculate a local church's apportionment. Instead of using the last two years of a local church's finances to figure the apportionment, just the last (single) year is to be used. Also, the formula is simpler than what was used before. In the new apportionment formula, the measure of a local church's financial health is determined by adding up the amount of money a local church spends on staffing, operations, and programs and the amount it spends on non-United Methodist charities. This is the local church's ``net total paid". The local church's ``net total paid" is divided by the amount of money spent by all of the local churches in the annual conference on those areas to find out that local church's fraction of the total spent in the annual conference. The local church's apportionment for the coming year would be the total annual conference budget adopted for the coming year multiplied by that fraction. Since the all of the churches' ``net total paids" would have been calculated by the time next year's conference budget was up for vote, local churches would be able to see how any change in the proposed budget would affect their apportionment. For our church we would see a decrease of $2161 in our apportionment (from $38,647 to $36,486).
An amendment in the formula was approved that would leave out the amount a local church spends on non-United Methodist charities. The argument was that in our annual conference so many of our local churches are the sole United Methodist church in their town and for many miles around, and those local churches are surrounded by many unchurched people, most of whom live in poverty, so that much of the annual conference is a missional field. The local churches are supporting their community's charities because only by working together can the needs of their community be addressed. There is a concern though that that will mean decreased support of our Advance Specials and the United Methodist ministries in the state, nation, and world that local churches are not directly involved with. At Wesley Church, I'm not too concerned by that because of the generosity and open hearts of our people.
Item 15 about the change in the pension system funding generated a lot of emotional debate and fears by the smaller churches that it would force them to close because they would see an increase in their pension costs. In the old pension system, every United Methodist clergyperson in the entire church paid the same amount into the pension fund. Every clergyperson's ministry was considered equal to every other clergyperson's ministry in the entire General Conference. The 2004 General Conference adopted the more corporate, secular philosophy of the amount paid into the pension system being based on each pastor's actual compensation. Each annual conference receives a pension bill from the General Council on Finance and Administration (GCFA) using the new formula adopted by the 2004 General Conference. How the annual conferences choose to proportion out the pension costs to the local churches is up to the annual conference. The item 15 recommendation was to pass that pension contribution expense directly on to the local church with a corresponding drop in the local church's apportionment. This change would be phased in over a five-year period to give the local church time to adjust to the change. Wesley Church would see a decrease of $145 in our pension bill by 2012 compared to this year's pension contribution (from $8881 to $8736, assuming no change in the pastor's compensation). The recommendation would be essentially the same as is done for a clergyperson's health care costs. The health care funding system was changed in the same way back in the 1980s and much of the same arguments and fears were raised at the annual conference sessions then.
The item 15 recommendation was narrowly approved in my legislative section but was rejected by the full annual conference delegation, so at least for next year, every clergyperson's pension contribution in our annual conference will be equal to the pension bill from GCFA divided by the number of clergy in our annual conference. I think that the vote was unfortunately based primarily on being unaware of the financial data seen by the conference agencies and the numerous discussions that have taken place to figure out what to do and fear by the local churches that it would be impossible for them to carry out their ministry with the burden of the new pension costs.
While I think the unawareness can be dealt with by our annual conference Council on Finance and Administration members and people from the conference treasurer office visiting the smaller local churches in our annual conference, the fear factor is more disturbing to me because churches that base their decisions on fear do die. Churches that forget they are a community brought into existence by God will decline and die away just as a branch removed from the vine withers up and dies.
One epiphany I had in the Christian Believer study this past school year was the specialness of the church. What gives me hope for our church is that we are a community brought into existence by God. We are not alone. If there is ministry that needs to be done in our neighborhood, our part of the world, then God will see that it gets done in some way. If we stay tuned in to God, then we will take part in that way. When people participate in a local church, they are part of something that has lasted for over two thousand years and will continue far into the future. What secular group or agency or social club can claim that? Humans are truly human, more than animals, when they tap into the One who transcends them. In one passage of the Christian Believer study manual, Ellsworth Kalas writes about the church as the body of Christ. He writes ``The Founding of the Church was of God. No doubt as the participants in that day looked upon it later, they could only marvel at what happened and at how little they had to do with it.... We are more than a group of persons held together by common convictions or ethnic or historic connection; we are the physical presence of Christ in the world.... The Church is not an orphan or a self-propelling entity" (Kalas, p. 209).
I think it is that same sort of hope that kept Georgia Harkness striving for the full clergy rights of women in our denomination over 50 years ago. In the Christian Believer study, we read this excerpt of her book The Faith by Which the Church Lives: ``The church is more than a social group. Christ's true church, like Christ himself, exists in time yet beyond all time. Because it is more than a human institution, it cannot fail to resist the floods of evil from the gates of hell; because it is more than a human institution, it will continue to conserve our Christian heritage and point men forward toward new truth." We are a community brought into existence by God. We are not alone. If there is ministry that needs to be done in our neighborhood, our part of the world, then God will see that it gets done in some way. If we stay tuned in to God, then we will take part in that way. If we truly believe and live with that faith, we will not only survive whatever may befall us, we will grow.
But I have to confess that this faith is not just faith for things unseen, but also based on my experience with this local church. In the many months that our pastor has been recovering from her multiple surgeries, the laity have pulled together, led worship services and taken care of the things that needed to be taken care of. We responded to the devastation of Hurricane Katrina by raising over $13,000 and sending hundreds of health kits to the Gulf region. When the Vacaville UMC was flooded, we sent them church school supplies and later raised over $1400 to help them pay their rebuilding costs. I know that we will face serious problems in the future as we figure out ways to minister to the surrounding neighborhoods that are very different from the majority of the congregation but I have confidence that we will adapt in ways that reflect our faith in God who transforms lives. Most of the local churches in our annual conference will be facing the same sorts of problems and together as an annual conference acting out of compassion with the heart of Christ and a passion for the mind of Christ we will determine what Christ wants us to do.
The text of the resolutions and the results of the elections are available on our Annual Conference website at www.cnumc.org.
Faithfully,
Nick Strobel
Report put on website on June 20, 2006