Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Through Dim and Bright: New England Annual Conference, Part 2

Circle of hope, circle of light
Guiding our days, guarding our nights
Sustaining love, through dim and bright
Circle of hope

Friday was, for me, the most meaningful day of Annual Conference. The day started off with an incredible Bible study with Bishop Gregory Palmer, and there were three really powerful worship services, one of which I'll talk about in this point. However, there was also a lot of frustration and pain, particularly around the conversation about camping ministry.


Bible study was at 7 AM, and I am so glad I went even though it was early. Bishop Palmer focused on witness, one of the themes of the conference. He talked about how witness and testimony are tied together and that witness by its very nature points to something beyond ourselves. A lot of what he said was really in line with Bishop Devadhar's Episcopal Address the night before in terms of not trying to save the church and instead "joining God in saving the world."

"A survival mentality will undermine witness."
"I bear witness when I stand against evil, when I raise my voice and put my own life on the line."
"Jesus invites us to stand in the muck and the mire until evil has no place to stand."
-- Bishop Palmer

One of my favorite parts of the study was when Bishop Palmer pointed out that we can't talk about membership vows without going back to baptismal vows, and thus our vows to uphold the church by our prayers, presence, gifts, service, and witness rest on the Lordship of Christ and how we have vowed to live based on the fact that Christ is Lord.

Bishop Palmer also preached at opening worship, and the main text was the road to Emmaus story with a focus on how despair moves to hope. Grief, doubt, and despair hide the good news possibilities from our eyes; in the midst of despair the two disciples did not recognize Jesus. They used hope in the past tense, as if it were no longer part of their lives, but in fact what was occurring around them was the "unfolding of an ancient story made new." When the disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, their response was to move urgently back to Jerusalem.

"What if the church in our age were to run toward the world with urgency?"
"We are determined in this moment to not let it completely overtake us and to not narrate the rest of our lives as if it were the only news."
"Stand in the face of the evil of crucifixion and say that the last word is resurrection."
-- Bishop Palmer

The Bishop ended by saying that Jesus re-narrates the story for us, and that the only question for us every day is whether we will be witnesses and for whom and what. After the sermon, we were asked to tell each other in small groups how we had seen despair turn to hope in our lives or churches or cities, and Rev. LaTrelle Easterling offered the prayer here (though I think there was a little more at the end, maybe ""With that power, what has changed? Through that power, how have we changed?"), which I really liked.

And then we started business for the day.

I know there was something before the camping and retreat ministries report, but I think we spent two and a half hours that morning on that report and the two resolutions from the CRM committee, so it really dominates the morning (and honestly all the business that day) in my mind. The part of the report that led to most of the conversation was the recommendation to close Covenant Hills camp in Vermont. Because most of the debate seemed to focus on that, there was a motion that was approved to separate that bit from the rest of the report, and then we voted in favor of the rest of the report. I actually think that caused some of the problems later because the issues of funding for the other camps and the closure of Covenant Hills are really tied together.

The committee said that they were going to explore options for other kinds of ministries in Vermont, and from all the mix of things said by the committee and by other conference members, I think that's a good idea. But a lot of people wanted to have more of a plan before closing a camp, and I understand that and think it's reasonable. (It's an instinct I'm a little wary of, though, because I think we can almost always say that we want more of a plan or a better defined idea of what comes next, and that can prevent change from ever happening.) That led to a motion to table discussion of closing Covenant Hills for a year, and that motion passed. Someone then asked the committee what effect this had on them, and they said they didn't know, that it made things difficult for them, and then they provided more information about why they had recommended Covenant Hills for closure.

With that additional information, we voted to suspend the rules so that we could vote to untable the discussion, and then we eventually approved the closure of Covenant Hills and both of the resolutions, one of which related to sale of camping and retreat property. It definitely feels like information came up all in the wrong order, and some of the numbers that various people were citing disagreed, so a matter that would have been emotional no matter what was also made really confusing. The idea that closure can be the faithful thing came up the next day when we approved church discontinuations, but I think it applies to camps, too. I think the questions in this case come more from process than the result. I have a lot of hope for that the new ministries that are expected to come out of this, but it was easy for that to get lost in the process.

Circle of hope, circle of light
Guiding our days, guarding our nights
Sustaining love, through dim and bright
Circle of hope

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