As Christians, we know that the gospel is literally the good news of what God has done in Jesus Christ. We know this cognitively and celebrate it weekly at church. But, it’s easy to be distracted by chores, career, family, health, everything — so much so that the gospel barely skirts the edge of our minds. God, in His mercy, knows life is hard and we are pulled in many directions, doing the best we can. But still, how can we live a more technicolor, high-def gospel life?
As much as we hate to acknowledge it, traumatic times in our lives can make God pop off the page, so to speak. In our pain and desperation, we may dive deep spiritually, reaching-out to God for divine help.
At the same time, it’s also easy to feel disconnected from God, questioning where He is when life goes sideways. We can be reassured, though, that God is always with us, even when we don’t feel it. The last sentence in the gospel of Matthew encourages us, “And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” Chew on that a bit: Jesus is ALWAYS with you. Always!
For me, I need to rehearse the awesome beauty of the gospel, over and over — tumbling it around in my mind, sifting out ever more gemstones from its message, savoring the amazing truth that Jesus is the lover of my soul, of everyone’s soul.
In my St. John UMC grief support group, Betty Hertz suggested that we journal our grief. Thank you, Betty, for helping me along my path of healing. I dedicate this poem to you.
Where are You?
By Karen Biggs
Jesus, where are You today
In my doomsday disarray?
Will You stay, I pray, or be away?
In the flurry, I hurry and worry,
My mouth turned down
In a heartache-heavy frown.
What do I do now
With that 1-2 punch-pow?
Jesus, where are You?
Getting ready for Your big debut
Seated in the heavenly-high
Like in another-dimensional sci-fi?
But I need You to meet me
Right here under the ash tree
Where I’m humbled in dust,
(A reminder to trust)
Sensibilities slipping into hoodoo,
Personal peace fluttering up the flue too.
I overhear that You aren’t here.
Will my Dear ever appear?
Jesus, I want to find You,
The Way, the Life, the True,
In my splatter-shot still-life
Dripping with distress and strife.
Come save me, away me
Cast me a glance at least
A dash of Your love unleashed.
Any favor for me to savor
To bless my worn soul,
To make my half whole.
Jesus, come quickly.
The brambles are thickly
Obscuring and blurring
The Life-Love You’re stirring.
Bring courage and repairing,
Your caring forbearing.
Elevate my spirit —
Jesus be near it.
Jesus, You are here.
Enduring every sneer-jeer,
Emptied entirely for all,
Lashes, nails, and bitter gall
You pick up my pain
And bear the dark stain.
Now let me weep at your feet,
With my hair wipe complete.
Forgiveness, wholeness,
Aware of Your holiness,
Ever-present in my aloneness.
Jesus, in the quiet I find You
When I’m catawampus askew
Crying, cat-calling, craving You
Only You, only You will do.
GBGM Reflection
Last week, I was blessed to travel to Nashville for the joint board meetings of the General Board of Global Ministries (GBGM) and the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry (GBHEM). Much of our time was spent orienting the new directors (two-thirds of us are new) to the work of both of these agencies of the United Methodist Church, and our responsibilities as directors. Over the coming quadrennium, it is my intention to write short blurbs periodically to share about the excellent work these two organizations are doing on our behalf throughout the world.
Roland Fernandes has served as the General Secretary for GBGM for a number of years, and this year GBHEM has elected him to serve as their General Secretary as well. This is a first in our denomination, with one person serving as the executive of two different agencies within the church.
With disaffiliations significantly impacting the budgets of all of our General Agencies, GBGM and GBHEM are leading the way in working together, finding efficiencies and alignments that will allow the global work of these agencies to continue well into the future. I am very impressed with the excellent work the staff have accomplished thus far, and excited for what is yet to come.
One funding source for each of these organizations, is through the six special Sunday offerings local churches receive each year: Human Relations Day, UMCOR Sunday, Native American (and Native Alaskan!) Ministries Sunday, Peace with Justice Sunday, World Communion Sunday, and United Methodist Student Sunday (coming up in just a few weeks).
If every United Methodist gave $1US to each of these special offerings ($6 per person annually), over thirty million US dollars would be generated annually for the work of our annual conferences and general agencies. Now I recognize $1US has a very different value in the states than it does in other parts of our connexion around the world, but even if only US members contributed in this manner, we would still exceed thirty million US dollars annually in generated revenue.
As many of our local churches are preparing budgets for 2025, I would encourage you to consider budgeting $1 for every church member in your local church for each of these Sundays. On the Sunday we receive the offering, if less is received, consider making up the difference from your budget. If more is received, send in all the receipts.
For example, if your church has 50 members, consider budgeting $50 for each Special Sunday for a total of $300 annually. If you receive only $45 on a given Sunday in Special Sunday envelopes, consider covering the final $5 from your general budget. If you receive $55, send all of it in, and there will be no impact to your budget. This is one small way for us to prioritize the connexional work of our beloved church.
Even if you choose to not use the above approach, it is my hope that each of our local churches will give their members the opportunity to participate in this second-mile giving through our six Special Sundays. You can read more about each of these Sundays here: https://www.resourceumc.org/en/churchwide/umcgiving/special-sundays.
I invite you to join me, in lifting in prayer all the staff members of GBGM and GBHEM in the coming weeks, asking God’s blessing upon their work and their families, for indeed as Heather McGhee said “We are greater than, and greater for, the sum of us.”
All grace and peace,
The Rev. Andy Bartel
GBGM Director 2024-2028
St. John UMC Anchorage AK, Lead Pastor
General Conference 20/24 Report 7
If you would like additional information about the General Conference, please click here.
By Lonnie Brooks
Long before the United Methodist General Conference convened in Charlotte, I went on record as suggesting that the three things it needed to get done to be considered to be successful were the following:
1) Regionalize the Church
2) Reform the episcopacy
3) Restructure the general agencies
I submitted or helped move forward the submission of petitions to do all those things. In fact, in furtherance of item 3 on the general agencies I submitted a whole package of petitions.
20675 would have moved GCORR and GCOSROW into GBCS
20674 would have moved UMCom into GCFA
20677 would have moved GCAH into GCFA
20676 would have moved GCUMM into GBOD
GCORR is the General Commission on Religion and Race
GCOSROW is the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women
GBCS is the General Board of Church and Society
GCFA is the General Council on Finance and Administration
GCUMM is the General Commission on United Methodist Men
GBOD is the General Board of Discipleship
GCAH is the General Commission on Archives and History
UMCom is the General Commission on Communication
All of the petitions, with the exception of 20674 were rejected in the assigned legislative committees by votes varying from 25-5 to 28-1. Petition 20674 was referred by the Legislative Committee on Financial Administration to GCFA and UMCom by a vote of 62-2. So, three of them are not calendared for consideration in plenary, and 20674 is calendared for referral.
Since there were no other petitions that I've found that deal with agency consolidations, that means there will be no mandated, mission based restructuring of the agencies at this General Conference. It is almost certain that, assuming some reasonable budget, such as GCFA is proposing, will be adopted, there will be some restructuring that will be resource based, which is to say when reality hits, based on how much money is available for operations, that things can't go forward as they have in the past.
My concern about eliminating duplication of effort apparently isn't the concern of this General Conference which is pursuing other matters. Let me give you one obvious example of what I'm talking about here. It's in your face at every session near the opening. Every agenda contains a "Monitoring Report." This is a report on just how inclusive the General Conference has been in its processes. And, without fail, we get the General Secretary of the General Commission on Religion and Race (GCORR) joined by the General Secretary of the General Commission on the Status and Role of Women (GCOSROW) together at the podium to present a single report on this topic. There is no possible justification for such duplication! These two agencies are doing the same job. In fact, those who support most vigorously the inclusiveness ministry of the Church with its rightful emphasis on our call to diversity always emphasize the importance of recognition of the intersectionality of the concerns with which these two agencies deal. GCOSROW rarely publishes a report that doesn't deal with racial and ethnic dimensions of its concerns right along with concerns directly related to gender.
According to Daily Christian Advocate, Volume 4, the GCFA report, on page 1843 we find that the General Secretary of GCORR receives a compensation package of $183,733.49 per year, which is $735,000 for the quadrennium. The GS of GCOSROW receives $220,200.72 per year which is $880,800 for the quadrennium. That's $1,615,800 for the quadrennium for the two leaders of two agencies that keep doing each other's work.
That's what the issue is.
General Conference 20/24 Report 6
If you would like additional information about the General Conference, please click here.
By Lonnie Brooks
I want to set the record straight on something; it's important.
On page 1243 of the Advance Edition of the Daily Christian Advocate a new resolution to go into the United Methodist Book of Resolutions is proposed. That resolution is attributed to me as its author who submitted it. I did submit it, but when I sent it to Abby Parker Herrera, the UM Petitions Secretary, I asked that she attribute authorship to Andy Bartel, the person for whom I was acting as mechanic to get the petition submitted. Andy Bartel is the lead pastor at my local church, St. John UMC of Anchorage, Alaska.
Andy approached me with the concept and asked if I'd be willing to get it into the proper format for petitioning the General Conference. I said an enthusiastic yes, did the work, and, with Andy's full support made the submission, promising to give him attribution of authorship.
Well, for whatever reason, it's there with my name, not Andy's. Now, mind you, unlike when sometimes I do this kind of work for people and don't support the idea or the intent, in this case, I fully support both, but it wasn't my idea. The idea? Well it's short, so I'll let you read it for yourself, if you like. You can find what we submitted by clicking here.
With three edits to make the resolution more general and not coming out of the COVID pandemic, the Church and Society Legislative Committee 2 voted 52 to 1 to approve the petition and thus put it on the Consent Calendar for submission to the plenary session. Here's how the petition will read as it will appear on the Calendar:
Add a new resolution to the Book of Resolutions as follows:
WHEREAS Vaccinations have been shown to be an effective means for limiting and in some instances eliminating the spread of infectious diseases among humans, and
WHEREAS some of the worst effects of communicable diseases are often experienced by the most vulnerable among us, including the elderly, immune compromised, and those historically disadvantaged by prejudice, racism, and poverty, and
WHEREAS The United Methodist Church does not teach or promulgate any doctrine that supports a religious objection to the use of vaccines that have been authorized for distribution by the appropriate governmental authorities,
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that The United Methodist Church encourages all its members, constituents, and other people around the world to take advantage of vaccination programs for communicable diseases when such programs have been authorized by the appropriate governmental authorities, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that The United Methodist Church does not support any claim of religious exemption from any person on the basis of membership or affiliation with The United Methodist Church, and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that The United Methodist Church encourages its local churches, conferences, and agencies wherever possible and practicable to host clinics for the distribution of authorized vaccines.
I don't think a Consent Calendar has ever been rejected by a UM General Conference. Now that's something to celebrate, I think.
General Conference 20/24 Report 5
If you would like additional information about the General Conference, please click here.
By Lonnie Brooks
If you are United Methodist and have been staying up even a little bit with events leading up to and during the General Conference now underway in Charlotte, you are probably aware that the General Board of Church and Society has proposed a total revision of the Church's Social Principles. This is a part of the Book of Discipline that is not Church law, but instead is a statement of positions the Church has taken on various social and political issues of our time. As would have to be true of any such set of policies and positions intended to represent consensus for a large group of people there is likely to be nobody, or very few people, if there are any, who would subscribe to the whole set of principles without reservation or objection.
Whereas I think those who worked on this project did a very good job, I am bothered by two things. I really don't like the manner in which the final proposal has been presented. For the whole time I've been aware of the way proposals are made to the General Conference when there already exists a product that is being changed, the practice has been to show the old and the new in such a manner that a reader can clearly and easily see what is being changed and how. In this case, no attempt whatsoever has been made to do that. The new is simply presented as a replacement for the existing Social Principles as a whole, and that document takes up 61 pages of the Book of Discipline. So, yeah, a dedicated individual can print out one of the documents and go through piece by piece and find the changes, but that's not going to be an easy task. So, this part has a bad odor, since it looks to be an effort to obscure what is being done, whether that is the truth, or not.
The second thing with which I have a problem is a matter of substance, not form. You see, I did do some line by line comparisons, and this one is troubling.
Here's the old:
QUOTE
G)Human Sexuality—We affirm that sexuality is God’s good gift to all persons. We call everyone to responsible stewardship of this sacred gift.
Although all persons are sexual beings whether or not they are married, sexual relations are affirmed only with the covenant of monogamous, heterosexual marriage.
END QUOTE
And here's what is proposed to replace that statement:
QUOTE
C. Human Sexuality
We affirm human sexuality as a sacred gift and acknowledge that sexual intimacy contributes to fostering the emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being of individuals and to nurturing healthy sexual relationships that are grounded in love, care, and respect.
Human sexuality is a healthy and natural part of life that is expressed in wonderfully diverse ways from birth to death. It is shaped by a combination of nature and nurture: heredity and genetic factors on the one hand and childhood development and environment on the other. We further honor the diversity of choices and vocations in relation to sexuality such as celibacy, marriage, and singleness.
We support the rights of all people to exercise personal consent in sexual relationships, to make decisions about their own bodies and be supported in those decisions, to receive comprehensive sexual education, to be free from sexual exploitation and violence, and to have access to adequate sexual health care.
END QUOTE
The position of The United Methodist Church, that is consistent with the position of the church through its entire 2,000 year history, that human sexual relationships are to be affirmed within a covenant of monogamy has been abandoned. Now mind you, this statement also abandons the commitment exclusively to heterosexual relationships, and I'm ok with that change. But I have to tell you that the abandonment of our commitment to monogamy is really troubling.
One of the reasons this is so highly significant is that whereas one could argue that the monogamy/polygamy debate is not getting much attention in the United States, this is a really big issue in Africa where the majority of United Methodists now live.
This part of the Revised Social Principles was presented for General Conference decision on Petition 20730 on page 208 of the ADCA, and it was considered by Church and Society Legislative Committee 2. The Committee approved it by a vote of 45 to 15, without amendment. Because there were more than 10 persons voting in opposition, the item will not be on a Consent Calendar. It will be individually calendared for presentation and debate in the full plenary, so it will be of great interest to me, and many others, I expect, to see how this fares. This will, perhaps, be even more of a bellwether of the nature of this General Conference than was the proposal for regionalization.