Barbara and I are here in Tampa, all checked in and registered, poring through pounds of paper, reviewing notes on legislation and slogging through piles of reports and recommendations. General Conference is a Dickensian metaphor — the best of times, the worst of times. Gearing up for this GC, I think back to previous experiences — Baltimore in 84, Denver in 96, Cleveland in 00, and Pittsburgh in 04. Tampa means I have attended one GC in each jurisdiction — a clean sweep.
I have a theory that the sophomore GC is the very best, with the delegate knowing the ropes but still fresh and excited. It is amazing the cynicism and snarkiness one encounters with GC veterans. When I first attended (as a lay person, young adult from Indiana) I figured that General Conference was the gathering of the brightest and best the church has to offer. It didn’t take long to realize that it isn’t the best and brightest who come to GC, but it is definitely the most passionate. Everyone at GC loves the church and wants it to be great. The problem is that our visions of greatness differ so widely. Some want a great big church. Others want a great servant church. Some want a great exclusive church, while others seek a great inclusive church. Some want a great nineteenth century church while others hope for a great twenty-first century church. Some want a great liberal church while others fight for a great conservative church. Some want a church great at making members while others want a church great at making disciples (and some misguided goofs want a great church that confuses members with disciples…).
What has been consistently absent in my experience of General Conference has been a true spirit of collaboration — a sense that we are all in this together to create something wonderful, powerful and beautiful. At the very best, we settle for uneasy and unsatisfying compromise and concession. There are moments of wonderful insight and deep spirituality, but not so much movement toward creativity, innovation, and conciliation. A few toxic souls even feel the family of God in Christ called United Methodist isn’t worth much of anything, so they throw out the least creative or spiritual idea of all, called “amicable separation” in its most recent iteration. The path of least resistance is to walk away from those who disagree with you — what a fabulous witness to the world of the healing and reconciling power of God’s love in Jesus Christ and the ongoing guidance of God’s Holy Spirit!
Well, anyway, I will be blogging daily throughout GC — either here or for MFSA or for Ministry Matters or on the Wisconsin AC website (or who knows where else. In the next eleven days I know I will see the very best of the church, and also, sadly, I will see the very worst. But I also know that I will be spending the better part of two weeks with people who passionately love God and the church — even when they can hardly tolerate each other. What a wonderful and fertile field. If we could find a way to create beloved community here, I believe we could provide a model for beloved community anywhere. God already loves us — we are already beloved. Now if we can only love one another as well. This would make everything here worthwhile.
Categories: General Conference, The United Methodist Church
United Methodeviations 
Bring all that it is for us, who cannot be there. What happens there, needs to be spread to all. Thank you for shining the Light!
Glad you will be here interacting and blogging. This is my sophomore GC… as worship team member. We will seek to provide a vision and experience of discipleship to Jesus morning, mid-day and night that I hope enables us all to remember whose we are in all tge work delegates do. We belong to God and to one another in this community called Church on mission with Jesus, even when the Spirit has to drag us into it.
Dan, There’s more than a little irony in your post. A lament about the “sophomore” experience from someone who’s attended 4 GCs. There are many of us out here who love the UMC, and have ideas for making it thrive, but who will never have the opportunity you have enjoyed. From this side of the fence, it looks an awful lot like an insiders club. Blessings on you at GC, and I’m looking forward to your posts.
So, responding to your title for the post, who are the Orcs?
Ain’t no way I am naming names…
brrrck brrrck brrrck
Chicken? re Orcs! lol j/k ………..
May your time @ GC be fruitful…………..
rather than vegetable……………………………….
and I say AMEN AND AMEN AND AMEN to Br. Rex’s “because” post — go get ’em Tiger!
Dan, I appreciate your candor on your experiences at GC. Especially the part of your “sophomore experience” being the best, and how cynicism develops to delegates who have been to several in row. However, I believe that this part of the problem we have in the church. You have been to six General Conferences, while many clergy and laity have never been to ONE. Often elections in our Annual Conference are mostly out of popularity or “who has been before”. Some of our clergy and lay delegates have been to 7 or 8 general conferences.
Do you have any ideas about the possibility of getting new leadership into General Conference? Term Limits?
I do think three GCs with any one conference should be the max. I went once from Indiana, once from New Jersey, and twice as an observer when I worked in Nashville. My election from Wisconsin was a bit of a surprise — I had only been in the conference two years and figured I didn’t stand much of a chance. Go figure.
Talking out of the other side of my mouth, I really wish we had a clearer picture of what GC can and cannot do, and that our election of delegates was a little less political and a little more practical. This is a legislative process of recontextualizing policy and polity. Many people are out of their element here because they aren’t really too interested or too adept at the vagaries of legislative process and the intensity of all the “jots and tittles” work that defines the process the way we do it. What I wish we had was a quadrennial gathering to explore vision, identity, and relevancy instead of legislative maneuvering.
I love being here, but I agree with you. I have had my “at bats,” and it is time to cultivate new talent and get them involved. It is very exciting to me to see the new young leadership here this year.
Go figure? Dan, you were elected by your Elder peers because they felt you have a view of the Promised Land and a clue as to how to reach it. Not to mention the ability to persuade and reconcile.
Could it be that you are the best Wisconsin had to send?
Our prayers are with you there…
I’m looking forward to your blog posts!