Conference Day 3

An extremely early day today - woke at 4:45 am to make it through the tunnel for the UMW Prayer Breakfast by 6:30. The breakfast was quite nice and the company at my table was delightful. I heard a couple of horror stories of hotels that were overbooked and shuttles that were delayed or lacking as well as concerns over the CF&A Blackstone Recommendation. Then I was off to the Scope for days festivities.
The title of the opening Bible study was Does Your Church Have a Prayer and the opening theme was from the famous story of the Prodigal Son with the emphasis on transformation which was defined by the three speakers as "a movement of hope into a future that is different from the past." The focus of the story was not on the relationship between the father and the younger son (though the transformation of both was mentioned) ... no, the focus was on the relationship between the father and the disgruntled older son who could not rejoice and respond to the present joy of his father because he was lingering in the past. The real test of transformation is not when we are comfortable (as the older son) but when there is risk (as the younger). Then the three speakers spoke of leadership - transformation leaders who shape present and future conditions in alignment with a desired outcome; leaders who respond to present conditions; and Christian transformational leaders who shape present and future conditions in alignment with Jesus' call to follow Him. By accepting Christ's invitation to follow we are agreeing to participate in God's faithful remembering through the means of grace; it is about knowing where we are going and what we are doing, living and leading toward the vision that God has already cast through Jesus Christ.
By the time the business session ended we had already packaged 100,000 meals for Stop Hunger Now (I ducked out during the recognitions of the retirees to package more meals and got back just in time for the worship service).
The worship service, with the Reverend Ross, included The Voices of Youth who were celebrating 25 years of mission and included singers past and present. The  Biblical text was Acts 2:43-47 and Reverend Ross focused on the fact that after that first sermon by the disciples, 3,000 people were filled with awe and joined the church and they gathered together, they were all there together - they ALL built a movement. He continued by asking, When was it that we have been to church and have been filled with awe? It seems there is too little awe any more, it seems that we no longer tip toe into church filled with awe.
We have forgotten how we (as a church) started. It began with a sermon and the people were filled with awe. That's what happened with John Wesley - he was filled with awe and began a movement of social justice. We started out building, building up! There was a nurturing effect that built community. 
Reverend Ross then segued by quoting Robert F. Kennedy who quoted George Bernard Shaw saying 

"some men see things as they are and ask why? I dream things that never are and ask why not?" 

Do we dare to see some signs and wonders, asked Reverend Ross. Let's stop acting like God aint movin'! Share the goodness of God and celebrate the wonders of God with another.
The consecration of the kits followed the message - there were a total of 43,443 kits and $75,520.00 collected for a total value of $600,465.00. Then the Holy Rollers rolled into the Scope and the conference offering was collected. Our church donated $347.00 this year, a marked increase over last year (thank you everyone!). Saw Jeff and snapped some shots of him. The number of meals packaged for Stop Hunger Now was updated (102,000) and then we broke for lunch.
After lunch we had a plenary teaching session which was a continuation of the morning Bible study. The theme was Leading Through Relationship and taught us how to ask a question the correct way to promote dialogue. The three leaders answered one difficult question for the assembly, how do we promote involvement in our church? Relationships come first followed by the task which leads to transformation; asking someone to do the task before building a relationship with the person only leads to a temporary change however merely focusing on  relationship without involvement in a task leads to wandering and being task oriented without relationships created irrelevance.
As we moved into the business of the afternoon we were introduced to Uni who is from the GBGM Advance who presented the conference with two awards: greatest amount of designated giving in the Southeast Jurisdiction and greatest amount of mission support in the whole of the United Methodist Church. Then she talked about becoming a covenant relation church -- basically the church enters a covenant relationship with a missionary by providing $5.00 per church member to the support of one missionary. Denise Honeycutt was honored for her work over the past 10 years on the board of missions.
The assembly approved the recommendation to reduce the number of districts from 18 to 16 which went relatively smoothly. The big surprise of the afternoon came from a big debate that ensued over the report of the sites selection committee and in fact we had to continue the discussions after dinner! The committee wanted to have the conference permanently hosted in Hampton and the Roanoke District Superintendent (as well as others) objected rather firmly over that recommendation. Both resolutions three and four passed without much discussion.  As we adjourned the business we were told that the conference offering was tallied at $180,500.00.
I stayed for the evening program which was the Reverend James Gulley from UMCOR. Before beginning his survival story he thanked the Virginia Conference for their extreme generosity toward Haiti - $1, 513, 220.72 given to emergency relief. United Methodists world wide gave over $37.2 million dollars and sent over 700,000 relief kits as of a few weeks ago. I wrote out his entire telling of the events the day of the earthquake but I won't include them here - I'll make that a different blog. I'll only say here that the lesson Reverend Gulley learned was that 

"God cares for every creature, for all of creation. The rain falls on the just and the unjust and Jesus calls us all equally to repent. We all need to repent because of Haiti. My personal story is only important as it is the story of the condition of the people in Haiti. Tonight let us commit to take Haiti out of the rubble into a resurrected people."