I have been in Charlotte for a week. It feels like 48 hours. One does not keep accurate time at General Conference. It’s been a really good week. I am also very much looking forward to tomorrow’s rest day and a different rhythm to next week when we are in plenary session all the time. I say that even though our plenary sessions have been a hot mess so far. But I think next week we will get down to business and get rolling. (Please, Holy Spirit).
Worship this morning was led by Bishop Nhiwatiwa from Zimbabwe. He is on the cusp of retirement and decided to say all there is to be said today. He came out strong against those working to separate churches from the UMC in African annual conferences. He talked about the history of United Methodism in Zimbabwe and said to African delegates, “Don’t be advised by people who don’t know your roots.” He wandered all over the stage and preached to the bishops as much as the plenary and I was worried he was going to preach for an hour. He didn’t. And hopefully it was a helpful and encouraging word for those fighting battles of division in various African annual conferences.
Speaking of bishops in Africa, I showed up today all ready to be on stage to help present the petitions about 2 new Bishops in Africa and where they should be placed. Did we get to these petitions? No. No, we did not accomplish a single calendar item in the plenary session. Why? The train wreck called, “University Senate Nominations.”
Today in the DCA (the print out of conference news and announcements we get each day) were lists of nominations for various denomination-wide groups and boards. These nominations are several days late appearing but here we are. The lists are nominations made by bishops and various agencies. But for several groups, nominations are also taken from the floor. We started with University Senate, a little known group that makes decisions about how we related to various colleges and universities. There was so much confusion, the chair was on the struggle bus, and it took us AN HOUR to finish. By contrast, we next did nominations from the floor for Judicial Council and it took 15 minutes. Both should have been that long. Sigh. The actual elections for those two groups will be later next week.
After the plenary mess, we went back to legislative communities to finish processing all our petitions. The deadline for voting on each petition assigned was 9:30 tonight. One committee finished Friday, another had a stack still to process after dinner on Saturday. The workload among various committees always ends up a little lopsided
For General Admin committee today, I decided to start with the hardest thing left, a petition about how we want our pension plan and other institutional investors to live out our social witness. For decades United Methodists Agencies (including Wespath, our pension org) has been instructed to be socially responsible by avoiding investment in companies whose core business activities,
“are not aligned with the Social Principles through their direct or indirect involvement with the production of anti-personnel weapons and armaments (both nuclear and conventional weapons), alcoholic beverages or tobacco; or that are involved in privately operated correctional facilities, gambling, pornography or other forms of exploitative adult entertainment.”
This year, like many GCs in the past, there are people who want to add fossil fuels to that list. Avoiding investment in fossil fuels companies feels to them like an important statement to make on climate change crises and protection of the planet. Wespath’s desire is instead, to stay as a shareholder and advocate for an equitable transition to clean energy. It’s an intense debate and difficult for me to know what would be best. I trust Wespath. I think both sides want to witness to this crucial social issue. The question is how best to do it. As we were getting started some texts must have been sent out from the gallery that we were getting ready to debate this petition and I soon looked up from my notes to see Bishop Schnase and Bishop Berlin walk into the room. Nothing like a little added pressure of episcopal observers while doing the hardest thing of the day!
The good news is the conversation proceeded very smoothly. People were passionate but cooperative. We had robust debate and the amendment to add in fossil fuels failed by one vote. The petition ultimately passed with only 8 no votes, so it would normally go on the consent calendar. But 6 of the people who voted against the petition have filed a “minority report.” This means it will not go on the consent calendar and instead will be presented to the plenary floor for debate. Watch for that next week! Or in June, considering the rate we are getting plenary business done.
That one petition took us until the lunch break. After lunch we finished our work in short order and adjourned by 2:45pm. It was really a great experience to be a chairperson and I am grateful the committee trusted me with it, I learned a lot. I had a tremendous team with Fred Brewington and Nitza Dovenspike as vice-chair and secretary.
We had to stick around until about 4pm to sign paperwork but I still had time to go back to the hotel for a nap (GLORY!) before an evening meeting related to the Interjurisdictional Committee on Episcopacy. That only took an hour and left me time for a run before bed. Even though I have some responsibilities to present a few petitions next week to the full plenary, the bulk of my leadership work is done. Whew! I pray the spirit of cooperation, respectful disagreement, and holding one another in love, carries on into next week. I suspect it just might.
Tomorrow is a rest day, zero general conference business! I hope for some outside time and some friend time. And some sleep time!
Thanks for taking time, at the end of a long day, to update! I feel hopeful, because you feel hopeful! Thanks for serving!
Wonderful update, again! Thanks for your leadership! And thank you for a wonderful prayer we all can join as well - for "a spirit of cooperation, respectful disagreement, and holding one another in love."