Annual Conference Is Here!

“Let us consider how to provoke one another to love and good deeds, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another.” (Hebrews 10:24-25)

This week as you read this article, over 2800 delegates representing the 1000 churches and 364,000+ United Methodists in North Georgia will have gathered at the Classic Center in Athens, Georgia for the “North Georgia Annual Conference” with the theme “Bound for Greater Things.”  Linda Frano and myself are attending as our church’s delegates, and

others will be attending on behalf of our LaGrange District.

Each year's Annual Conference makes important decisions that affect every United Methodist church in our geographic area: approval and ordination of new clergy and retirement of older ones (on June 7^th we celebrated the commissioning of our own Blake Trent!); appointments of pastors to local churches are finalized (we celebrate that our Bishop - Michael Watson - has reassigned me to LaGrange First UMC as your Senior Pastor, and that Blake is being assigned to us for his first official year under appointment as our new “Associate Pastor”); adoption of the conference budget; support for and reports from conference missions and ministries; exciting worship and bible study opportunities to enrich our spiritual lives; present our “Bishop’s Offering” (to support the work of Action Ministry’s “Raise the Roof about Poverty” initiative); and more!

Upon our return, we’ll be available to report on important decisions that were made, and how these might affect us as a congregation.  In the meantime, you can find more information about Annual Conference (as well as “real time” updates) on our North Georgia Conference website (www.ngumc.org and click on the 2016 Annual Conference banner).  Also, thanks for your prayers, both for ourselves as your representatives, and for the Conference itself.  Always remember, God loves you and I do too!