Annual Conference

I was not in church Sunday. I hope you were. I hope you are committed to being in church, even if I am not present. I was at the annual conference of the United Methodist Church in Springfield, MO.

Annual Conference is the yearly business meeting of the church. Delegates from all over Missouri attend the four day event. Half are laity, half are clergy. There are about 1200 delegates altogether.

The Conference consists of worship services, reports from ministry agencies, approval of new policies, workshops, petitions, elections and the all important setting of the budget.

I attended a workshop on church debt. The workshop told me that a church should have no more than 30% of its budget assigned to debt reduction. Currently WCC's debt reduction is 12% of its budget. So that was good news.

Delegates were elected to General Conference, which is a world wide meeting of Methodists that happens every four years. I never get elected to such things. I think it is because I dont know very many people, and I can be obnoxious. [imagine that] I'll just have to stay home and work at Woods Chapel.

The conference budget was reduced by about 7%. This is good and it needs to continue. I serve on the budget team and we are committed to reducing the required costs to the local church, allowing them more money for the work that they are called and committed to do.

One of the great joys of annual conference, maybe the only joy, is catching up with old friends and making new ones. It is a great opportunity to collect good ideas and to give and receive encouragement.

There are always things at annual conference that I do not agree with, but guess what? I choose to see the good. No church is perfect, but we have the opportunity as United Methodists to continue to work to connect people to Jesus Christ. There is no higher purpose than that.

Its a beautiful day in God's world, be sure to see the good.