Losing

We just lost funding for a bishop for the North Central Jurisdiction in 2012. I hope it's not our bishop that gets cut.

On the floor!

I was on the floor twice today, although I wish the circumstances were better. Harriet McCabe tripped and got a bloody nose during a recess, so they needed a reserve delegate on the fly, and also later at night since she needed to get some rest. She seemed to be doing well, just tired from all the commotion. I'm sure she will be fine tomorrow, which is good - Harriet is amazing, and I have really enjoyed our time together this last 10 months on the delegation.

I got up the nerve to speak twice tonight on the floor on two pieces of legislation: one that supported a study of Native American ministries, and one that would study the creation of a new United Methodist Hymnal. I was a little nervous, but I thought my points were OK. On the hymnal issue, three of the four speakers were my age or younger, which was great. Not that I am keeping score, but both of the petitions I supported with speeches passed. :)

Overall, my impression is that people like to offer amendments frivolously, and that Roberts Rules are far too forgiving for amendments, especially in a body of this side. It takes forever for someone to be recognized, walk to a microphone, state their name twice, offer an amendment, ask for a second, explain their amendment, ask for debate, hear two speeches for and against, unlimited questions, finally a vote, then the amendment passes and we still have to vote on the original thing.

Tomorrow, I may be on the floor again; one of our delegates had to go to a committee meeting that began after the 11:30 adjournment of the plenary. Lord have mercy.

Saving the best for last?

The Financial Administration committee is supposed to be finished with its work right now, but as of 5:00, it still hasn't gotten to the petitions dealing with the Middle East or sexuality. Not like there will be any debate on those!

Defeatist

The body voted to not use the word "defeat" in the plenary session because we are not here to "defeat" each other. My question is, should we still the use the word "adopt"?

Roberts Rules Rules

The conference voted to suspend the rules, in order to amend the rules, in order to determine if we will be voting to concur with the committees' reports, or to vote on adopting the petitions themselves. This took an hour.

Vote buying at GC

Wow, I had no idea this kind of thing was what good Christians did. Shocking.

Deep Thought

Only 5% of United Methodist Church members are under the age of 18.
In the U.S., 25.6% of people are under the age of 18.

One victory

Group B of the Funds Administration subcommittee of the Financial Administration committee voted to strike discriminatory language from Paragraph 806.9 of the Book of Discipline.

Cross your fingers that it sticks.

Roberts Rules Rules!

We just received a motion to correct a correction, which required that a vote that we suspend the rules.

Deep Thought

The average age in the United Methodist Church is 57.

Helpful: Reconciling Ministries

No real action shots from tonight. The first worship service was fine, and the first plenary session had to do mostly with the rules. I just got back to the hotel about 11:30 - MAN are these going to be late nights!

I will have more to write tomorrow, but in the meantime, I posted over at the Reconciling Ministries Network blog a post I wrote on the plane.

Oh, I should note that one delegate from South Carolina is in high school, and she was wearing UGGs on the floor of General Conference, which must be a first.

Helpful: On-time shuttle buses

After a delayed flight and two-hour shuttle experience from the airport, I'm waiting on another bus to take me to the convention center. I will probably miss my 5:15 meeting and may be late to the 6:00 worship. But I promised pictures so here you go!

I+H: General Conference 2008

I don't have much time before leaving for the airport, but I am heading for Fort Worth for 10 days for the United Methodist Church General Conference. Every four years, delegates from around the world meet in the US to rewrite the rule book of the church–the Book of Discipline–and approve the budget for the next four years.

I was elected as an alternate delegate for the delegation from Northern Illinois, and I think our church needs to be open to be people of all ages, races, classes, gender identities, and sexual orientations: every human category. We are all children of God. My experience in Chicago and at my church, Holy Covenant UMC, has taught me that if we're going to bother with church at all, we need to be open to everybody. Shutting anyone out from community, from the sacraments, or from the opportunity to serve and give is contrary to Biblical teaching. Open the doors!

I will be blogging and posting photos to this location, the Holy Covenant Facebook page, and to a blog for the Reconciling Ministries Network.

Helpful: OmniFocus and OmniPlan

If you like to Get Things Done and you have a Mac, it's time to fork over some money to the Omni Group for their fantastic personal organization software, OmniFocus. With the new job, I've been in need of a solid GTD tool that will help me track dozens of projects at home, at church, and at work. Since I use one laptop for everything, having my todo list in the computer has been great. It's worth the money to have something that works.

For big project planning, and I mean BIG PROJECTS, I am trying out OmniPlan, the Mac version of Microsoft Project.