…WHOOOOAAAAA…we’re halfway there…

Yes, it is our 4^th of 7 days of General Conference 2024. We have made it to the halfway point. We are tired but our spirits are high. We finished the last of the committee work tonight and will now spend the next 2½ – 3 days in plenary work. There is still much work to be done, but it will now take place with the full body.

This morning, we heard reports from all of our committees. They presented several items for our consent calendar. Most of these were approved or rejected as recommended by the committee. We did debate a few petitions that were not put on the consent calendar, but these mostly had questions and went through fairly smoothly.

We spent the afternoon electing persons to our various general councils, commissions, and committees. This is important work because these groups will help to move our church forward between General Conferences. They don’t make policy, but they help enact the policies we pass at General Conference. For example, there is a commission on Discipleship, Doctrine, and Just Ministry that helps us look at how we teach and train disciples. We also have other groups that look at finance, the episcopacy, and a group that helps to plan our next General Conference. (…keep reading to hear an exciting announcement!!!) Anyway, this work is slow with a lot of wait time…even more so because we were using new software and had several issues as we did our work. But near the end, it started going faster and I think we got most of the kinks worked out. Crazy story, at one point during the afternoon, we were informed that we needed to stay in the room we were in because a swarm of bees had come into the lobby and the fire department (?) had been called in to deal with them. It was dealt with before we adjourned.

After dinner, my committee Ministry and Local Church met to finish our work. It was such an amazing group to serve with and I am very proud of the work we accomplished. It is not perfect, but I think what we did will serve us well. Plus, we can always make adjustments if our policies and procedures don’t work as well as we hoped when we put them into practice.

Tomorrow is going to be quite interesting. While we will have a few committee elections to complete, we are going to begin hearing from some of our committees about some interesting work that has been done. One of these will be the constitution. I have seen a few drafts about what they are proposing, but I am not yet sure what will come up on the floor, or how it might get amended. This is an important document because creates a structure for our connection and sets a high bar for how our foundational principles can be changed. There are also quite a few petitions about the nature and structure of our episcopacy, especially over the next two years. I anticipate this will come early so that we can set aside time to elect interim bishops (we feel elections will happen, but we don’t yet know what these elections will look like). Most of the stuff coming out of our committee is on the consent calendar, but I think some of it could be pulled so that it can be discussed on the floor. There are going to be quite a few things happening tomorrow and Wednesday. I may even do two blogs tomorrow if it looks like we have major happenings.

That’s about all for tonight. I’m ready for bed…OH WAIT…I almost forgot. We were told yesterday that potential plans are underway for our next General Conference. The main plan going forward is to host General Conference every six years. However, since this is the convening General Conference, we are going to host our first “FULL” General Conference in 2026. We were told that the commission is going to recommend that our 2026 General Conference be held in Africa!!! This will ultimately be up to the body to confirm, but I am excited to think that the Global Methodist Church might actually meet in the place where the church is experiencing the most growth and revival. So, there is the big news! More news tomorrow!

On a side note, please be in prayer for something for us in the next few days. Most of us will return home on Friday. It looks like a significant system will be making its way through Florida and Alabama on Thursday and Friday. Please pray that we are able to get home safely with minimal disruptions. Also, pray that the storm won’t do significant damage to the people and places in its wake.