Wow Great talk by Bishop Ough on the 7 spiritual pathways. This guy is an amazing innovative bishop. I think he may have made the tipping point speech which changed the denominations direction at his first Annual Conference as a bishop. He called for 2 new churches in every district every year to transform the conference. I think this is one of the key moments that set off the new movement toward church planting and renewal in the church. You will want to watch this as soon as they post it online here:

http://www.umc.org/site/c.lwL4KnN1LtH/b.3989531/k.6155/General_Conference_Sights_and_Sounds.htm

The General Secretaries are now extolling the virtues of the 7 spiritual pathways. Thats funny to me because except for Karen Greenwalt they all fought the idea at least in its early stages…I heard the debate first hand and many were very unhappy with it. Looks like they have come around – I hope so because the bishops are dead on the money and doing great things. They need the cooperation of the bureaucracy, however, to move things forward.

The address really has been good. “For God’s Sake we must threaten this world with Resurrection” great quote from bishop Christopher .  The main point has been basically the Radical Center ideas of Scott Jones.  A concerted effort has been made to move us away from hard left and hard right political thinking, towards a “different way” of conferencing.  Its been very profound.

I was a little sad to see one of the confessing movement or IRD flyers take a swipe at Bishop Huie’s sermon from yesterday.  I felt it was very good and fair.  Basically same theme as today – move to center focus on things we can agree are a crisis, etc.  I may not be in total theological agreement with Bishop Huie but clearly the bishops are making a concerted effort to be the bishops of the Whole Church and I just don’t think taking swipes at them in this environment will advance the cause of orthodoxy – in fact it may backfire.  Its crucial as the representatives of traditional authority come into power in the denomination, there is a change in the language and tone of approach.

Opening worship was well lets just say it wasn’t well produced – however Bishop Huie’s sermon was great.  Its clear that the theme from the Council of Bishops is a push towards the center.  The communion table was set up in the center of the delegates, and repeatedly they phrase “Turn toward the Center” was uttered.  In my opinion this is a vast improvement from previous General Conferences – especially from the Bishops.

The first order of business was to establish the rules – it actually went pretty smoothly and was done early if you can believe that.  I do sense that there is a spirit of consensus here that may not have been around in years past.

After that we got two lectures that dragged on from folks up front.  The first was a lecture about why we should reduce the number of delegates to GC to 600.  There were a number of red hearing arguments thrown up about the cost of having so many delegates, the importance of “holy conferencing” needing smaller numbers etc.  But there is no question this is aimed at reducing the impact of the Southeast, South Central, and African delegations – and giving more power to the Western, North Central, and Northeastern Jurisdictions.  I’m to tired to get into it here but basically the proposed formula for making the change would radically over-represent small annual conferences, and would be punative to large ones.  So basically – if you are successful in making disciples – you lose proportional representation.  To that I say – “No taxation without representation”  The amazing thing is that they were allowed to make speeches lecturing us on why this should be passed without any counter from those opposed to the idea.

The second lecture was from The Commission on the Status and Role of Women given by Garlinda Burton and some other person I did not know.  It was a patronizing lecture on how white men should basically sit down and shut up.  The interesting thing was that the whole focus was on inclusion and inclusiveness – yet they used 20 minutes of “The Office” video clips (I am sure in massive and clear violation of all known copyright rules) to talk about diversity.  Only thing is 35 or so percent of the Delegates are from Africa and likely have never seen an episode of the office, and many of the American delegates are not of the generation that is addicted to the Office as I am.  So they used a video that nobody understand, which alienated 80 percent of the conference, to talk about the importance of inclusion, diversity, and hearing peoples voices.  Good one guys – big flop.

One motion stood out.  It was a proposal to ban petitions that personally attack an individual.  There is a petition this GC that is basically a brutal diatribe against one of the most Godly people I personally know.  You can read it here.  I hope this one gets passed – General Conference legislation is no place to Slander people under the cover of a political process.  It would be great if the person or persons who submitted it were actually brought up on charges themselves in my mind.

Ok going to bed – it was a long day. You can watch the video of the worship/first plenary here (Cant find it yet)
And you can read the petition regarding Jim Holsinger here.

Ive been wandering the halls getting my bearings here in the convention center. Mostly I’ve been killing time by walking around talking to old friends and colleagues, its great to reconnect. I’ve seen Bill Medford – who is an Asbury Grad working at Church and Society (Yes and Pigs are not flying – nor is hell freezing over) We had a great talk about how to bring together evangelicals and liberals around common concerns. I saw a ton of my old friends from UMCOM – Danny Mai, Lane Denson, Sherri Thiel, Sheila Mayfield, Sean McAtee, and a host of others. Nothing big has happened yet – people are just settling in, but I can say that it seems that things are a little less contentious already – Just a different spirit in the air.  I plan to grab some video of the committee sessions if i don’t get the boot.  If i do ill get it up on youtube or somewhere for others to see.

Key issues I think this Gen Con revolve around restructuring the church (Proposals to make the US into a regional body along with others that could have long term implications on how we decide doctrinal issues)  and the question of whether we reduce the number of delegates – which would give severely unbalance representation to the Western and European delegations.  There is also the question of membership standards and whether a pastor will retain the historic role of making decisions on peoples qualification for membership.  In essence there are a number of proposals that would basically render of membership as a concept meaningless.  Finally, there are the Judicial Council Elections.  There are those that, having failed to advance a particular agenda through the legislative process – would like to find ways to circumvent the process by essentially legislating from the courts.  This is the thing I am spending the most time praying about.  Namely that we get very strong “Strict Constructionist” adjudicators who will not choose to overturn the will of the denomination “By order of the court”.  Judicial Elections are on Monday.

You might wonder why I don’t say that Homosexuality is one of the big issues.  While there will likely be lots of smoke and some fire around the issue, it has been debated and voted on for years with a consistent result 70-30 for retaining the denominations prohibitions against homosexual marriages, clergy, etc.  The matter is settled as far as I can see – and has been for years.  If anything margins may become greater.  I predict that we are likely to see a 75 – 25 margin this year as a result of the surge of African delegates into the process.  The only reason this wouldn’t happen would be if there are a significant number of Africans who could not obtain visas.  I would guess that in 12 years this issue – if current demographic trends continue – will be completely off the table.  So basically – its a non issue.  But ya I like others will be drawn to the fire and smoke and will likely sit in on the committee to hear it all hit the fan.  We all love a good train wreck I guess.

I am excited because tonight I am beginning to work with the Alpha program at our church. For those of you who don’t know, Alpha is a basic introduction to the Christian Faith. While it is basic, its content that probably 90 percent of most regular church attenders probably don’t know – especially in the mainline church. I have done alpha before back in Kentucky, and in that experiences several people came to Christ – a couple have gone on to be in full time ministry. I am both excited and nervous to lead at what can be such an amazing and important time in people’s spiritual awakening and growth.

Perhaps my Favorite Hymn is the inspiration for the name of this blog.  My favorite verse is below.

He left His Father’s throne above
So free, so infinite His grace—
Emptied Himself of all but love,
And bled for Adam’s helpless race:
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me!
’Tis mercy all, immense and free,
For O my God, it found out me

I don’t thing there is any better description of the prophetic fulfillment of Jesus’ Life, Death, and Resurrection