Welcome to my UM Baggage, Part 2

While present on the floor of the General Conference, I was seated between two clergy members of my Annual Conference near the center aisle of the hall. I never once attempted to get the attention of the bishops presiding over the conference because I simply had no idea what I would say or do once at the microphone. For me, most of my experiences at the conference (the ones that I remember) happened outside of the convention hall. Part of the decision making process at General Conference is a series of committees that help to shape policy in assigned areas. At the time, I was interested in becoming a missionary so I was asked to work on the Global Missions policy section. This section at the 2000 iteration of General Conference was not nearly as political as some other sections such as Social Concerns or Faith & Order. In this much smaller forum, I was able to interact with persons from a wide variety of contexts on a much more civil level than was experienced in the full gathered conference.

Even further off the floor of the conference were the gatherings of the young adults who had been selected by various conferences as part of a campaign to have 20% of the delegations be under 30 years of age. This largely did not happen but there were a significant number of us all the same, mostly from the US context. These gatherings gave me hope that I could not find on the floor of the conference. The individuals who gathered for these events represented what the Church could look like in another twenty years when the warring factions on the floor had since retired. With time, cooler heads could possibly prevail. Patience is key when waiting for change.

For those of you reading this who were at General Conference 2000 or were following it at home, you know that there was a protest action that was enacted on the floor of the General Conference. This action, by far, gave me the most hope and the most sadness that I experienced during this entire event. The progressive folks with whom I’d aligned myself knew that this action was coming and encouraged me to participate, which I did. After it became clear that the assembled body would not approve any legislative changes to the church’s stand on the sacred worth of persons who identify as homosexual, same gender loving humans, those who chose to engage in direct action went to the front of the auditorium and actively disrupted the session by locking arms in front of the bishops. These individuals began to sing while wearing stoles representing various colors in the rainbow. Among those who took direct action were many clergy members and even some bishops. I did not choose to engage in the direct action but instead stood in solidarity with those who did at my seat as did many others. We wore stoles of the rainbow colors and sang with those at the front. Some of them were arrested because they broke the invisible line that the conference organizers had designated at the edge of the stage. While a significant contingent representing a majority did leave the floor of the conference so they weren’t seen as being part of this protest, those who remained gave me hope. The fact that there were people who were willing to stand up for those who were silenced or at least not listened to by the General Conference helped me to see what a version of the future of the church could look like.

I could go on about General Conference but a) I’m not sure that path would be healthy for me and b) I’ve another seven years of the period I planned to write about in this series. See you next time.

Welcome to my UM baggage - Part 1

My story begins with an election in a church. I was somehow chosen to serve as the president of the West Ohio Conference Council on Youth Ministries in 1999. I quietly served this position from then until graduating from high school. Towards the end of my term, I chose to put my name in a pool of individuals from which the delegation for West Ohio to General Conference 2000 would be selected. At the time, I had only a vague idea of what it was that I was getting myself into.

Throughout the fall of 1999 and the spring of 2000, I attended several gatherings of the delegation after being elected to the group that would represent West Ohio at General Conference. I began to get a clearer perspective on what was going on as tensions between members of the delegation began to factionalize more and more along the lines of what I now know as Progressive and Evangelical perspectives on theology. Men and women who were very polite over breakfast muffins and coffee could turn into passionate enemies when certain topics were raised or certain legislation was discussed.

As general conference approached, the division in our 30 person delegation became even more apparent and appalling to me. I did what I could to be civil to everyone in the delegation which often threw everyone for a loop. Those on the left thought they knew where I stood on the issues that were to be discussed but those on the right weren’t quite sure.

There is nothing in this world that can prepare a small church, county seat town dwelling teenager for the experience that is General Conference. While there were fewer people at the conference than attended my high school, hardly ever were all of those students in one place all trying to be heard at the same time. My annual conference meeting often would be larger than the meeting at General Conference but there was something intangible, something heavier in the room at GC that can’t really be explained. I would call it tension but that word only begins to approach the angsty mess that floated in the air of the conference center.

I feel like one of those red dot people

For some reason, I want to start this post with "Have you ever...?" So here goes:
Have you ever been listening to an album and remembered who you were with when you first heard it and it put you in a funk? Or been driving down a road and remembered a conversation you had with someone while driving and it ticked your brain back to that person? That is exactly where I'm at. It used to be that I would call my parents on the way back from church functions (Atlanta traffic gives ample opportunity for long but not too long conversations like these). As I drove away from one such function this evening, it hit me. If I called now, Dad would be the only one picking up and wouldn't appreciate the meeting I had just had as much as Mom would have. He would listen, sure, but Mom knows the nuts bolts gears stuff that goes into planning VBS type event sand would love to know that I'm doing that sort of thing now too. But she's not on the other end of any phone line I can dial now. And yet, I know she knows but that doesn't make it any easier to not hear her voice. Everyone said it would hit me at some point. Hello ton of bricks, I was waiting for you. Now if the tears would just stop, I'll open my eyes and click the post button.

Lenten sabbath keeping

This Lent, I've covenanted with myself to spend at least one full evening a week at home doing absolutely nothing productive. This is more difficult than it may sound for me, unfortunately enough. My own penchant for overcommitment to organizations and church means that I'm often at one meeting or another, often taking notes, often multitasking to the point of oversillifying myself. This has been especially the case in the last two months as I have begun to come to terms with my own grieving process. So this Lent, I am both taking time for myself and taking time to grieve. It will likely be a long, but needed, 40 days.

Ministry of the Unseen

I decided it might be time to update again. As my facebook friends list continues to grow on towards 1000, I continue to be blown away by the number of people in my life that I either know directly or know indirectly. I've never been one to actively make friends in a large social setting with real human interaction.

I listened to a sermon this past Sunday that, among other things, talked about the importance of the ministry of the unseen - the person behind the scenes who keeps things moving and doesn't really talk about it. For many years, that has been my ministry. I don't mean to sound self promoting or anything like that, it's just how I work and move in communities of faith. If there's something that's within my skillset and doesn't require public recognition, I'm usually the guy who steps up and does it. I guess this ministry behind the scenes is how I've gotten to know so many people.

And then, last night, in a conversation with my good friend Mark, we began hatching a plan or at least talking about yet another ministry of the unseen - pastoral care of pastors. In societies where little old ladies leagues and gossip trains run rampant, is it really possible for pastors to seek out counselors that they can go to in true confidence? Even if confidentiality exists within the practice, every last person who saw the pastor go into the counseling center or out of it will wonder "why did the pastor need counseling? is s/he still our strong pillar?" Or on an even deeper level, what level of confidentiality can pastors in hierarchical structures believe in when the counselor to whom they are sent is either recommended or directly employed by the structure through which the pastor is employed? From this conversation, Mark and I began to consider a plan to create a pastoral care service for pastors that is not affiliated with any faith body but yet still holds onto faith itself.

Music Association (Or Why I can't listen to MWS Worship)

I've been contemplating over the past several weeks as I've gotten involved in a worship/praise music team at my church why it is that I can't listen to or sing some music without remembering specific events or locations where these songs were sung. In some cases, the associations I have made with some songs are so strongly negative that I began to wonder why this was. Specifically, the dulcet tones of Michael W. Smith's first Worship disc really just get under my skin and rile me. And then I remembered why this was. One summer, while working in a Christian bookstore, I decided to attempt to read Atlas Shrugged to apply for an essay contest/scholarship that the Ayn Rand Foundation puts on every year. Most of the time that I was reading this book, the Worship disc was playing in the background. To this day, I have vivid visual memories of scenes from this book flash back when I hear tracks from this album. Not being one who resonates well with Ayn Rand, these memories aren't always welcome.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has these cross bred memory associations. Or am I?

Naming A Blog

How do you choose a name for a blog? So many words in so many languages and yet no single word or group of words really get at what I may write here.

I have yet to decide what I will do with this. I've tried to start blogs before and they died out long before the second or even first post.

About the name: I've been developing a social network that has gone beyond my wildest dreams and I'll be sharing stories from this network here. The more I reach out into and past my network, the more I realize that there are very few limits to what a mobilized body of Christ can really do.