Specific Conference April 30, 2012
Posted by Dan R. Dick in General Conference, Personal Reflection, The United Methodist Church.Tags: General Conference, The United Methodist Church
14 comments
What would it take to move us from the “general” to the “specific?” We have been told by our bishops that this General Conference is not about preserving the institution — but if not, what is it about? We are here, primarily, to plow through literally hundreds of legislative petitions to change our Book of Discipline and other key non-disciplinary articles of polity and doctrine. We are talking about credentialing, orders, structure, complaint processes, insurance, pensions, who to allow into leadership and who to get out of leadership. We are setting numeric goals for numbers of pastors and number of churches and numbers of dollars. Are we talking about prayer? Are we talking about fasting? Are we talking about a more rigorous and intentional study of scripture? No, we don’t have time to talk about content and context, just structure and polity. We do talk about “discipleship,” but the definition by which we mean it still isn’t clear. We keep being promised celebrations, but many of them are infomercials instead. There is much to celebrate at General Conference, and I do not offer anything but praise for the excellent work we do, but these celebrations of our faithful witness are such a small percentage of our time and energy here.
General Conference: Bicycles for Fish April 29, 2012
Posted by Dan R. Dick in General Conference, Personal Reflection, The United Methodist Church.Tags: General Conference, The United Methodist Church
6 comments
Let me share a frustration. Our church needs radical change. Our church needs new structures and processes. Our church needs time to focus on identity, purpose, and priorities. Our church needs a serious focus on leadership effectiveness and incisive processes for evaluation and accountability… and General Conference is poorly designed to accomplish any of these critical objectives. What is General Conference good for? Rules, guidelines, policies, resource allocation decisions, goal setting, and the establishment of programs and initiatives for the denomination. It is a management vehicle expected to fill leadership needs. Vision, values, missional identity, and spiritual ethos are not best served by legislative process. Voting on God’s will and the movement of the Holy Spirit is just wrong. Our General Conference is about governing our very human institution and the corporate structure we call The United Methodist Church. It deals with the administration and management of the monolith. Yet, we try to use it to legislate spirituality, morality, ethics, relationships, and integrity. It often feels as if our task is to compose a beautiful symphony using the equipment from an automobile factory or use a chainsaw to prepare a gourmet meal. Bicycles for fish…the wrong tools and processes to address the real issues.
Wheelie Bags on Parade April 29, 2012
Posted by Dan R. Dick in General Conference, Personal Reflection, The United Methodist Church, U.S. Culture.Tags: General Conference
7 comments
Many things have changed at General Conference — electronic voting, high-tech projection and sound, texting/tweeting/instant messaging, etc., but the greatest mixed blessing I have encountered this GC is the proliferation of wheeled luggage that accompanies delegates wherever they go. You have probably seen these long-handled brief-case/computer bags/backpacks with wheels that make lugging a ton of paper and equipment a breeze — for the person doing the lugging. What these bags create for everyone else is a hazard and an obstacle. I’ve watched over a dozen people tripped — one actually knocked down — by trailing bags extending an individual’s personal space a good three feet to the rear. This would be problem enough, but wheelie bags tend to travel in packs. Wheelie baggers fly in formation — a straight phalanx of three to four can block off an entire sidewalk. The flying V is a rumbling juggernaut dislodging all in its path. The picket fence is an irregular spacing that creates a moving gauntlet through which defenseless non-baggers try to scamper and dodge.
Stand AND Deliver April 28, 2012
Posted by Dan R. Dick in General Conference, Personal Reflection, The United Methodist Church.Tags: General Conference, The United Methodist Church, Trust, Unity, Values
10 comments
At General Conference Friday evening, we celebrated (if celebrate is an even moderately appropriate word…) “An Act of Repentance toward Healing Relationships with Indigenous Peoples.” The people I’ve spoken with about the service (before it began) were of three minds: 1) what was done to Native Americans was horrendous, but thankfully I had nothing to do with it and I love all people, 2) that was then, this is now — what do “they” expect us to do about it now? and, 3) I am so tired of this bleeding heart $#!/ aimed at making me/us feel guilty. In almost all cases — from sympathetic to hostile — the common feeling is “I didn’t do it.” Many people wondered why do “we” have to repent — and what exactly does this mean anyway?
Same Language, Different Meanings April 27, 2012
Posted by Dan R. Dick in General Conference, Personal Reflection, The United Methodist Church.Tags: General Conference, The United Methodist Church
9 comments
We all want to be a vital, growing, spiritually focused, Biblically based church, right? The consensus is strong. Yes, this is exactly what we want — we just disagree on the definition of practically every term we share in common. Vitality is the current buzzword in the church. I take pride in the fact that my book Vital Signs came out six years ago and was ahead of the current wave. But how I defined vitality and the way many in my denomination are defining it are very different. I offered a combination of qualitative and quantitative metrics, while most of what is described today focuses on the numbers. Sean McRoberts offered a list of quantitative metrics based on trends (which I think is a step in the right direction) in a comment here yesterday. But the problem isn’t essentially the metrics. The problem is agreement on the outcomes we want to measure. Growth in size is measurable in numbers. Growth in development and maturity is primarily measured qualitatively, as is growth in impact and relevancy. If we want to be big, then we track the numbers. If we want to be good, we track progress and quality.
Hitting the Hard Stuff April 27, 2012
Posted by Dan R. Dick in Core Values, General Conference, Personal Reflection, The United Methodist Church.Tags: General Conference, Mission & Purpose, The United Methodist Church, Values
12 comments
It is interesting to watch the tensions mount and see a large gathering of competent, mostly-professional, self-possessed people get all flustered and fall all over themselves when someone raises an uncomfortable issue. It won’t be surprising to anyone to know that the gay/lesbian/bi-sexual/transgender relationship to the church was raised — and ruled “out of order.” Whether it was a good or appropriate time or not is a secondary issue to the root problem we have. We don’t know how to deal with this! It is about relationships with God and one another, and we are looking to books (pick the Bible, the Book of Discipline, or both) and legislative process to tell us what to do. Oh, heaven help us if we didn’t have our books (add Roberts’ Rules of Order to the list, can I hear an “Amen?”) or our cheat-sheets for parliamentary procedure. We might actually have to deal with each other as human beings, and then where would we be?
Microcosmic Odyssey April 26, 2012
Posted by Dan R. Dick in General Conference, Personal Reflection, The United Methodist Church.Tags: General Conference, The United Methodist Church
3 comments
General Conference is amazing. I wish everyone could experience the best of conference — without necessarily sitting through the tedious and trying parts. But it is glorious to work side-by-side with men and women from around the globe. Even though we may not all agree (on much of anything) we are all brothers and sisters bound together in the love of God. This is a graphic microcosm of what we could be if we would only love each other a little bit more like God loves us. Oh, sure, there are some pushy people, some short-sightedness, and some uneasy tensions here, but these things pale when compared with the focus on God’s Spirit and power to unite us. There is a sense of possibility here — not so much on the plenary floor, but in the relationships and community encounters. We are here praying and singing and reflecting and — at this point — bringing out the best in one another.
April 25th Reflections April 26, 2012
Posted by Dan R. Dick in General Conference, Personal Reflection, The United Methodist Church.Tags: General Conference, The United Methodist Church
14 comments
I’m too tired to come up with a title for tonight’s blog. It is getting harder and harder to keep up with everything that is going on. Let me just say, in my opinion Bishop James King is one of the great treasures of The United Methodist Church. He preached our closing worship service this evening — which was a nice upbeat focus on invitation — and he nailed a key concept missing from the contemporary church: actually taking the task of discipleship seriously. Our task is to make disciples for the transformation of the world, but HOW do we do this? We do it by taking our own lazy tails out of the church into the world and invite others into a relationship with Christ, and to enjoy fellowship with us. We can invest all we want in a new generation of clergy, but if the leadership of the church isn’t committed to equipping laity to be ministers in the world, it won’t make a bit of difference. Bishop King was brilliant.
A Call to Compliance April 25, 2012
Posted by Dan R. Dick in General Conference, Personal Reflection, The United Methodist Church.Tags: General Conference, The United Methodist Church
22 comments
Greeting me this morning at my assembly table was a slick, polished piece of propaganda for A Call to Action. Signed by 80 pastors of our largest churches — note no endorsements from laity or congregations, just senior pastors of big number churches — it regurgitates the rhetoric of why this is a good thing, but with a few added treats. Now, if you question the Call to Action, your motivation is fear. If you are proposing changes, it is because you don’t understand the wisdom of the Call. And as long as we define the key considerations in terms of clergy leadership — the church being about a narrow segment of “us” — we will turn our decline around! Yikes!
Getting Down to Business April 25, 2012
Posted by Dan R. Dick in General Conference, Personal Reflection, The United Methodist Church.Tags: General Conference, The United Methodist Church
7 comments
We are about to launch into our opening plenary session to be instructed and guided and oriented and introduced and all the wonderful things that have to be put in place to get us started. There is a LOT of getting started at GC. We moved through an opening worship time, and it was a wonderful reality check on how many opinions, preferences, tastes and styles we bring to GC. I spoke with some older delegates (older than me) who thought the opening worship was fantastic. Then I spoke to younger delegates (MUCH younger than me) who were extremely critical and thought it was lame at best. Now, I am also certain that some younger people loved it and some older people did not. This, alas, is the driving diversity in our church — the diversity of personal satisfaction.
