Last Day of General Conference

Well, last day of General Conference.  Display tables are being taken down. The business left is to elect people to fill commissions.

The last thing we will do today is consecrate our bishops. I need to say a word about that.

There was some contention about how we would elect bishops; should we even do that this Conference or wait til 2026? How do we nominate candidates?

There was some contention around the way epsicopal candidates were put forth. The General Conference compromised by accepting the nominations put forth by the national leadership, while opening nominations back up to Annual Conferences. And the bishops will be part-time and cannot stand for re-election without 75% of the 2026 Conference voting for them.

That sounds confusing and I suppose it is. What it means, from my perspective, is that coming out of the United Methodist Church, we are very wary of the role of bishops; we are disinclined to trust high-level leadership; and we want to have more say in how things are done-- i.e., keep it local. So we created a plan whereby we will accept a sort of temporary bishop while we hammer out how we will nominate and elect bishops.

All that said, here is what is amazing. There was contention. Strong opinions. But when we got down to electing bishops, we were overjoyed!  Not simply because of who we elected (see my previous post); it is because there is trust between us. We may not always agree... but it is on details like how we will nominate and elect bishops... not whether the Bishops are believers or not, we know they are; not whether the Bishops stand on Scripture or not, we know they do; not whether the Bishops can be held accountable, we know they can be. Our disagreements are not about Scriptural commands. Our disagreements are not about the divinity of Christ, His bodily Resurrection.

I will repeat what my bud Daniel Fulton, presiding elder in West Virginia, said. If we have unity in worship and agreement on doctrine, we can live with whatever organizational structure we have.

May that spirit prevail.