I’ve been collecting General-Conference-isms, things I’ve overheard that could only be said here and in some way encapsulate the weirdness of this meeting. Here are a few I’ve heard (or said) so far:
“It was a well intentioned, terrible amendment, and we passed it.”
“Besides irrationally tired, I’m great!”
“We are going to amend it in case it accidentally passes it will be okay. And then we will ask you to vote it down.”
“We’ve done stranger things.”
Yesterday was a long day. Some good things happened. Some really good things happened. Nothing terrible happened. That has not been the story for a long time at General Conference. It continues to be amazing to realize. If you are watching the livestream, don’t be confused by the clumsiness of the legislative process. We are changing our church. We are removing harmful language and rolling back the 2019 Traditional Plan (for instance, bishops no longer will be punished for ordaining queer clergy). We are reorganizing our regional structure. We are listening to one another and compromising. It is beautiful.
We spent a lot of time yesterday talking about money, especially the “base rate” which is the percentage of a local church’s expenditures they are asked to contribute to the General Church. If the base rate is 2.6%, and your church’s budget is 500,000, you are asked to pay $13,000 to the General Church per year. The proposed base rate is lower than it was in 2016, which provides some relief for churches. But some delegates came wanting to raise it to 2.9% adding about $10 million a year to the General Church budget. We landed on a compromise of sorts, it will be 2.6% for the next two years and then increase 2.9% for the last two years of the quadrennium if all together we pay 90% of what is apportioned to us. I have no idea how likely it is we will pay 90%. Time will tell.
In my conference, the change in the base rate actually affects the annual conference budget not the local church. Since the start of the Great Plains we have asked churches to pay 10% of their income to the annual conference. That won’t change. General Church apportionments are then payed by the AC. If the GC base rate goes up, more money comes from the AC budget, and there is less to spend at the annual conference.
In other ways yesterday, we refused to raise the budget, meaning this conference came with frugality in mind. It is also a sign that though we have some very conservative and some very progressive voices, the majority of the UMC is still moderate. Please don’t believe anyone who wants to tell you how radical we’ve become. We are still walking down the middle of the road.
My personal hero of the day was Bishop John Schol. I had a very frustrating moment at the morning calendar meeting when I asked what to do about a petition my committee passed that conflicts with something that we had also passed which went on the consent calendar. We tried to figure this out during legislative committee and couldn’t. So we just passed both. I was worried if we did that on the plenary floor, there would be unintended consequences. I asked what to do. The answer was basically, “Amy, figure it out.” I needed help to figure it out. No one in the room could help. I asked who else I could ask. “I don’t know,” I was told, “we are moving on.”
I was hot. I left the room worried how to avoid 1. screwing up the Book of Discipline, 2. looking like an idiot on stage. I ran into Bishop Schol. “How are you?” he asked. “Not good,” I said. He then talked me through my options and helped me realize who I needed to consult. As I ran off he said, “It will be fine, Amy, I’ll help you get it done.”
And he did. I had to wait until the last business item of the day! But we voted the petition down and avoided any conflict with the other petition about membership in the Connectional Table. I’m grateful for his calm, his confidence, his reassurance.
I spent lunch at a meeting of the Interjurisdictional Episcopacy Committee and it was a bit of a mess because the conversation is complicated and we are 100 people. Which meant I earned a meeting at 7:30pm with a much smaller group to try and come up with a proposal about the number and deployment of bishops in the US. This is a problem we have long seen coming, and folks have been working on, but we are far from an agreed on solution. We will meet as a small group today, and then the full committee again this evening. I believe I am going to get another 14+ hour day inside the conference center. Please pray for us to find a way through the maze on this. We want more bishops than we can afford. We need some holy spirit help.
At the end of the day we witnessed the passing of the gavel as Bishop Tracy Smith Malone took over the presidency of the Council of Bishops from Bishop Bickerton. It was cool to see. I am a big fan of Bishop Malone. Excited for her leadership!
I actually left my evening meeting at 9pm, a touch early, because I had lost the ability to have any civil conversation. Today I woke resolved to focus on the scripture I wear around my neck everyday, Philippians 4:8, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.”
It’s only 9:20am, but so far so good!
Thank you Amy! We're lucky to have you.
Sending prayers your way. You are doing a great Job!!