United Methodist Called Special General Conference

“Surely I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord, plans...  to give you a future with hope.” (Jeremiah 29:11)

As many of you already know, our United Methodist Church’s top legislative body will be meet later this month (February 23-26) in St. Louis, Missouri for a called, special session of General Conference.  The purpose of this gathering will be specifically to address our denomination’s approach to the issue and experiences of human sexuality.

For those who may not be aware, General Conference (GC) is the only body that can speak for our entire United Methodist Church in matters of organization and belief, and is comprised of an equal number of both clergy and laity delegates.  As we are a representative system of church government, we at McKendree UMC are represented at GC through the 22 North Georgia Conference delegates that our local church helped to elect.

Regarding the content of this month’s GC, you may remember that this past Fall, we hosted
a series of “Finding Our Way Forward” sessions in which we shared and discussed the three major proposals that will be presented.  If you missed those, you can read a brief summary of these (plus several others) HERE or HERE, or you can also read the complete, detailed 99-page report that’s being presented HERE. All of these proposals are grounded in different interpretations of God’s holy scripture, and they each have their merits and challenges. However, since it’s unlikely that any one of them will be adopted unanimously by all delegates, there will probably be much discussion as delegates seek to prayerfully discern God’s wisdom regarding a possible decision to guide us in addressing these issues and experiences.

In the meantime, I invite you to join Pastor Ryan and myself in doing several things:

1) BECOME KNOWLEDGEABLE about the topics and proposals about human sexuality that are being voted on. You can find a variety of resources to help with this through our North Georgia Conference’s General Conference 2019 page HERE.

2) STAY INFORMED with correct information.  As with most gatherings of this kind, the controversial nature of the topics being discussed often cause debates and decisions to get mis-reported by the secular press.  So, please get correct information before you form personal opinions about what did or did not happen.  You can do this by subscribing to follow GC’s daily proceedings HERE (check “General Conference Updates” at bottom of page). You can also live stream General Conference sessions HERE.

3) Most importantly, please PRAY for the delegates and their work and deliberations... that God's will would be done through them in a spirit and way that both honors Him and draws others to Him.

When GC2019 is completed, I’ll share more about how their decisions may or may not affect us locally at McKendree. Meanwhile, always remember that God loves you and I do, too!