“And 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)
June 11-14, over
2800 delegates representing the 1000 churches and 350,000+ United Methodists in
North Georgia will gather at the Classic Center in Athens, Georgia for the North
Georgia Annual Conference with the theme “One With Each Other.” Linda Kent, Danielle Neal, Ryan Miller, and
myself are all attending as our church’s delegates, and several other McKendree
members will also be attending as general delegates from our Atlanta-Emory 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 (we celebrate that a former Youth and Associate Minister,
Joe Palmer, will be commissioned this year!); appointments of pastors to local
churches are finalized (both Ryan and I celebrate that we will be re-appointed
as your Pastors here at McKendree UMC); 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” (this year, it will support the pastoral care program of Wesley Woods Senior Centers);
and more! And this year, we will also be electing clergy and laity delegates to
represent us all at the regular session of the United Methodist Church’s General
Conference in May 2020.
Upon our
return, we’ll give a 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 (HERE), Also, thank you
for your prayers, both for ourselves as your representatives, and for the
Conference itself. Always remember, God
loves you and I do too!
