General Conference shows Holy Spirit working in us

General Conference is upon us. Last Saturday our Southwest Texas delegation gathered to review the proposals that will be considered by 13 legislative committees. We spent time reviewing what we believe will be the most important legislation before us as we will be making decisions that will impact our mission and ministry as a denomination for the next four years.
The legislative committee on which I serve, the Higher Education and Ministry Committee, will be considering proposals from across the church to streamline the candidacy for ministry process to make it less convoluted and more attractive to young people. We will consider the Judicial Council Ruling 1032, which finds that pastors have the authority to decide a person’s readiness for membership.
Four priorities proposed by the Council of Bishops are to recruit more young people for leadership for both lay and clergy, start more new churches, be intentional in our support for the poor across the world, and to fight poverty’s diseases, like malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDs.
If anyone asks you what United Methodists think is important, that would be a good place to start. Another great question we will consider is how we can be most effective in ministry as a worldwide church. We know that The United Methodist Church is growing more rapidly in the third world countries than here in the United States. How must our structure change to help our brothers and sisters in Africa in their context of making disciples for Jesus Christ, while at the same time giving them the opportunity to become increasingly self-supporting and less financially dependent  on a slowly declining and aging church in the United States?
The genius of our church is that the General Conference makes the decisions that order our common life. We belong to a living, vital church. That means that we believe that the Holy Spirit is alive and well and working among us. NOW. That is why we gather every four years to make decisions about what we do in the name of God, what we teach, and who is our neighbor. That is why our symbol, the cross and flame, is so appropriate. We trust the Holy Spirit to lead us. We know that what we do together is so much more powerful that what we could do alone.
I don’t know what will happen at General Conference. I don’t know what we, as about 1,000 delegates from across the world, will decide about anything. But that is OK with me. I know that the worship and music will be transcendent. I know that some of our debates will swing from the sublime to the ridiculous in 20 minutes. We will meet 12 hours a day for 10 days. But it will be worth it, every dime we spend, every hour we meet. Because who we are together is so much greater than who we are separately.    Because in spite of ourselves, Christ will be glorified, served and celebrated. And that will suffice.
Come to Fort Worth. Watch your church work. There is no other meeting like this in the world. The Lord will redeem it. And we can watch.