This Life

Goodbye Portland…Hello Minneapolis

I am at the airport as I write this.  I will not be there for day 10 of General Conference but I do want to offer some reflections as I prepare to leave and head home.

1) I loved Portland.  Their mass transit is great…it was frequent, easy to navigate and got you most any place you wanted to go.  It is a walkable city.   I got over 10,000 steps everyday which is a good thing because the food was pretty amazing as well.  I ate my fair share of desserts, donuts and ice cream!  People were so friendly.  I am glad I had the chance to visit what is fast becoming a mecca for young adults which is causing some consternation among the locals because housing prices are shooting up, homelessness is on the rise and the city has growing pains…so they have their own challenges, but overall a very livable city.

2) Minnesota was well represented here…from the strong, steady leadership of Bishop Ough as the President of the Council, to an engaged, informed delegation who took their responsibilities very seriously.  We had people leading through offering interpretation services, serving as marshal and recorder, chairing committees, on the Judicial Council, being host team volunteers, speaking in videos,  working the political processes, reporting the news and being commissioned and consecrated as missionaries and deaconesses.  You can be proud of the people you sent here.  They showcased who we are in Minnesota.  Passionate, caring , thoughtful leaders.  We may be a small conference, but we are making an impact!

3) We continue to deepen our relationships across the Episcopal Area.  Our commununications team consisted of Doreen and Dave from the Dakotas and Christa from Minnesota.  They were phenomenonal and putting out some of the best stuff that I saw during my time here.  They embodied collaboration and team work…and what a work ethic….they put in some very long hours to bring you fresh and interesting coverage from a DAK/MN perpsective.  It happened that the Dakotas and Minnesota delegation were seated at the same tables, so friendships grew (and dancing if you saw my Facebook pic) and we held a joint area dinner.  It is great to have partners in ministry!

4) Our host team is off to a great start.  Jim and Carol Haun got here before it all began and are staying through the weekend to see it all wrap up.  Gail Johnson and Kent Peterson and Sheilah Kyburz worked multiple shifts as volunteers and took copious notes of what worked and what we need to figure out and how to make it even better.  The word on the street from the General Confernece staff is that they have never seen a future host team that was there to learn to dive in so completely and made themselves so available to work and help.  They are excited to come to Minneapolis and work with us.  We will need 1200 volunteers to be great hosts (Portland set the bar high!) so put May 5-15, 2020 on your calendar and come help us demonstrate Minnnesota and Dakotas hospitality and our desire to create a sanctuary where the whole church can come together to be the church and pay attention to God’s leading.

5) Yesterday, as we ended, we celebrated the 60th Anniversary of the Full Rights of Clergy Women.  That historic action occurred the last time General Conference was held in Minnapolis.  1956.  It took 20 years for women to be seated as delegates to General Conference.  That occurred in 1976 in Portland.  Breakthrough moments.  So no coincidence I think that we had a breakthrough moment here in Portland again this year when the church agreed to talk, really talk about how we might find a way forward as a diverse, world-wide church, and we empowered our bishops, our spiritual leaders, to lead us as a church on this matter.  I fully expect something as radical and significant to happen in Minneapolis in 2020.  We are not just a flyover zone!  The Spirit is moving here and we will be ready to welcome all the people called United Methodist in 2020 for another historic gathering, and in the meantime we will continue our ministry of offering Christ in all ways to all people, showing the world what it means to be a people of open hearts, engaged minds and dismantled doors (to quote Bishop Yambasu.)

Thank you for giving me the privilege to bear witness to the events of this week and to offer you my insights and perspeective.  It was a great learning experience.  Yesterday, the two rows behind my seat during the morning worship were filled with Global Mission Fellows…all young people, all wearing t-shirts proclaiming Generation Transformation.  Becuase of them, and the many others I met like them here in Portland, I leave with hope!  God is clearly calling new leaders for a new time, and I am so blessed to be a part of the new thing God is doing.

The Hard Work of Diversity

This is my third General Conference.  It has been the most international in its worship, it’s makeup, and in its functioning. One sign of our diversity is that there has been simultaneous translation for all participants, so not presuming English is the primary language.  We have all been using our headsets to listen to one another.  Our music and scripture readings have been in multiple languages.  It is a beautiful church.  

Today we blessed and commissioned 29 missionaries that will be deployed all over the world to offer Christ.  We heard about the work we are doing to address global AIDS, ending malaria and starting new churches in places like Germany.  This is what I love about being United Methodist..that in fact we are a world-wide church, and I can be a part of changing and saving lives of people I will never meet and places I will never go, yet I am there because I am part of a global movement.

And yet, these past 10 days have also highlighted the challenges that diversity bring.  I was talking to one person from another part of the world, and he was asking how the US understands the issues before us.  I shared my perspective, and then asked him what he thought the US ought to do.  And he said with all humility that he believes it should be left to the US to determine that since he did not have enough understanding of our context to make an informed decision.  I know I felt that very same way when some delegates from Africa were speaking about a situation in their home conference, and I was glad I was not in a position to vote on the issue since I was clueless about the dynamics he was raising.  

We bring 864 delegates from around the world together for 10 days who name themselves as United Methodist, and presume that means we have enough shared identity and shared purpose that we can just show up and do good work together.   We underestimate the shaping power of culture, and how much we see and act through our worldview.  Many have reported that the fault line in the United Methodist Church is around human sexuality.  If we were only a US church, then I would say that might be true.   I think the deeper challenge is will we be a world wide church in more than name only.  It is easy to say we will when it does not cost us much or fundamentally change our practice.  But right now, the structure and polity of the United Methodist Chuch is clearly predicated on a US culture and context.  That is not surprising since it was birthed as an Amercian movement.  And we have been with all good intention trying to accommodate our increasingly international context, but that is the key word, accommodate.  We have not fundamentally changed how we live and work in light of this new reality, and it is time.  

43% of the delegates came from outside the US this year.  Since it is proportional, that shows the growth of the UMC beyond the US so what I have observed at General Conference this year is a creaking and moaning of an antiquated US political process that is not responsive to our global reality.  Our fault line is whether we are willing and committed to do the hard work of becoming a truly diverse church, and that means going back and examining all of our operating assumptions and ask if they are serving us well in this new time, and what would be a better way.  It is always easier to keep doing what you know, to hang with people who are like you, or thinking because we are nice and polite, we are truly welcoming.  I dare say it will be uncomfortable and even more, for some whose power is rooted in the way things are now, threatening, to truly embrace becoming a world wide church.  But I hope that does not stop us or we give up trying to live in into this possibility God has placed before us when it becomes too hard, because we have a great opportunity to be a witness to our global world that people from different places, histories and cultures can come together and be one in heart, and ministry, even as we are unique and beautiful in our diversity.  John Wesley, who proclaimed the world is my parish, would ask no less of us as the people called Methodist.

Telling Our Story Before Taking a Stand

Today’s Inward/Outward devotional offers this quote from Thomas Ogletree in Hospitality to the Stranger:

To offer hospitality to a stranger is to welcome something new, unfamiliar and unknown into our life-world…Strangers have stories to tell which we have never heard before, stories which can redirect our seeing and stimulate our imaginations.  The stories invite us to view the world from a novel perspective.

The Council of Bishops just brought a response to the General Conference about a way forward.  They have asked the body to engage in a season of prayer.  To defer any legislation at this General Conference around human sexuality.  To authorize them to form a commission that would be representative of the whole church to take a holistic approach to the Book of Discipline around how we become a world wide church and be an inclusive church and that when the work is completed to bring it back a special session of General inference in 2018 or 2019.  And then, they asked before we enter into debate, we spend time at our tables, telling our story before we start taking a stand.

I applaud the Council of Bishops in this action.  I know some are looking for the immediate solution.  What is the answer now, and let’s vote it up or down.  But what I love about this proposal is that bishops are inviting us to be the church! So here comes my rant about the “business” of the church.  Whenever I work with a local church, one of my challenges is that the leadership team should be spending way more time in prayer, bible study, community building and discerning the leading of God, and a lot less time in reports, action items and the minutiae of running the church.  The push back I get is we don’t have time because we have so much “business” to do, and my reply is always that the business of the church is to listen to the heart of God and then to go and do what we discern is the leading of God.  We need to spend as much time as we need on that business otherwise everything else is just our good idea and may or may not be rooted in the heart of God.  And surprisingly, when we take the time we need to listen to God, it makes the other decisions and actions we need to talk so much more clear.

So what if God is the stranger in our midst?  One who is holy other than us, and longs to bring something new, unfamiliar and unknown in our world.  How will we listen and open ourselves to that voice and story?  The Council of Bishops is inviting us to a season of listening to God and one another, to tell our story, to listen to new stories, and perhaps that will stimulate our imagination and find a novel perspective that will allow us to move forward.  I think that indeed is the business of the church.  The most sacred task before us is to be the church God calls us to be, and how we live and work together is the mark of what kind of church we will be.  

So , of course, because this is General Conference, a legislative body, we are now debating through the labyrinth called Robert’s Rules of Order whether we will accept this invitation to be the church.  I remember a story about Moses and the burning bush, and God remarked how unusual it was that Moses stopped because most walk by.  Seriously, people don’t notice burning bushes?  How is that possible…you just don’t see that everyday, do you? For me today, we have a burning bush moment offered to us through our Council of Bishops.  What will it take for us to stop and let God…the I am who I am, the I will be who I will be, speak into our life and world?  

What Is Giving Me Hope Today

I spent the morning at the Oregon Food Bank packing apples and potatoes.  I was with a group of 12 modern day disciples from the Philippines, Hungary, Illinois, Alaska and me from Minnesota, as well as our host from Portland.  We worked side by side to accomplish a common goal.  It did not matter our politics, our gender, our age, our history.  We were all people who wanted to do something to meet a real need in the world.   

I am convinced more and more that relationship is our way forward as a church and world.  We got talking on the shuttle on the way home about what was happening on the floor of General Conference and the rumors of separation.  We had four very different perspectives about what could or should be done, all arising from our context and how we have been shaped and formed.  But the conversation was respectful and we asked each other how we understood the situation.  But even more, we have a shared experience that will always be a bond between us, and when we see each other in the hallways of the convention center, we will acknowledge each other as partners in seeking to do good in spite of our differences.

The service projects that have been offered have not had a strong response, and in fact, they cancelled some shifts.  On one hand, I get it.  People came to be delegates or observe what is going on here in the convention center.  And the sessions go from morning to night.  People are here to “do the business” of General Conference.  (I will save that rant about what is the business of the church for another blog!).  I also see how United Methodist Communications have put billboards up all over town letting Portland know we are here.  I have not seen the news much, so I don’t know what if anything is being reported on the United Methodists being in Portland, but if they are covering the conference, I am not sure how positive the press would be.  

General Conference with all its related activities is pretty close to a three week event.  So what if the first day of General Conference each week was about the United Methodists fanning out in the community to do good, to share grace, to offer hope?  And what if we did it in small groups so we were working side by side with not just the people we came with, but with folks from all over the world?  Would that frame our conversation differently?  Would that go beyond the slogans on the billboard to be a real witness to Portland as to what kind of church we are?

What is giving me hope today is the power of a small group to change the world.  One in five children in Oregon face food insecurity on a daily basis.  The Oregon Food Bank has four branches, 17 independent regional food banks and approximately 960 partner agencies.  It serves an average of 900,000 people a year.  Today, I was a part of that, and met some dedicated staff and volunteers who are committed to feeding hungry people.  The food bank was started because a few people had an idea and said we need to do something about it.  They raised the money, found the partners, and created a structure and system to make things happen.  We know how to do that  as United Methodists.   Witness all the schools, clinics and hospitals we started around the world.  Our disaster relief work is exceptional.  And as the Oregon Food Bank states on their website: it takes cooperation, efficiency, and strong partnerships to fight hunger.  We United Methodists know that, have done that, and my hope today is we will remember that as we seek to find our way forward as a church.

Leadership and Legislation

We are in gridlock.  I see it in our government and it frustrates me no end. Partisan politics, lobbyists, and getting re-elected trumps working across the aisles to solve some of the most critical problems of our day. Maybe it has always been that way, but it seems so much worse these days.  I am desperately looking for courageous leadership, and I define that in a way that might surprise you.  To break out of gridlock, we need leaders who are willing to risk re-election by being willing to compromise and collaborate in order to make progress on the pressing issues.  It feels like we have way too much high minded rhetoric and too little pragmatic action.  More self-preservation that striving after a common purpose.   And who is paying the price: the people.  The frustration is building.

I have also been known to disparagingly compare the structure of the United Methodist Church to the US Government.  It is patterned on that model…we have a legislative branch which I am experiencing at General Conference this week.  And it feels eerily similar to congress.  We are in gridlock.  But we have an added complication which makes it even more challenging.  Many of the delegates, up to 40%, come from other countries.  They bring different world views, unfamiliarity with legislative processes and Robert’s Rules let alone the issues of language and interpretation.  I love the beauty and idea of being a world wide church,  and because of that I just don’t know if our legislative model can work for us anymore.  When you bring people from all our the world, who do not have shared experiences and understandings, and virtually no time to build relationships, how can they be  expected to exhibit the courageous leadership of collaboration and compromise which is the premise of a democratic, legislative process.  Our loyalty will be to those “back home”, wherever home is, instead of being willing to risk those relationships and commitments for the sake of doing something new.

We have pressing issues as the church, and those issues are very different in the US and in places like Africa, Russia or Vietnam.  Editing and modifying a Book of Discipline is not going to get us closer to resolving them.  We saw that at General Conference 2012 and we are getting a repeat at 2016.  When something is not working, trying harder at the same thing is not the answer.  So what is my brilliant suggestion for breaking the gridlock we find ourselves in?

I  know it might be a crazy idea but I think it starts with the Council of Bishops.  This is a smaller group of people, who come from all over the world, who meet together, worship together and work together.  I would charge them not simply to manage, to not only give spiritual and temporal oversight, but to lead and lead collectively.   I would even go so far as to say they need to go to some place, and meet together for as long as it takes….and I really mean as long as it takes even if it is weeks or months…to build the relationship and trust required, to seek a vision from God, to come to a shared understanding and agreement to the pragmatic action we need to take as church to move forward, and then they need to go, and lead: lead with one voice and a common purpose, in their individual annual conferences and through the boards of the general agencies which they chair.   If not them, then who?  They have the power of agenda and influence in every part of our church and if they can show us how to collaborate and compromise, and I know I am idealistic here but I think we are hungry for a way forward, and if they can develop one, agree on it, and work together to help us claim and live into it, then I believe we will follow.   We are ready.

We are in a sea tide of change, and I am convinced that what we need in this time is more leadership and less legislation.

Portland…keep it weird

I have been out exploring Portland.  Gotta enjoy the sunshine before it starts raining.  It is an interesting city of constrasts.  I have happened upon public squares with fountains filled with small children splashing around  while parents look on. I have walked by homeless upon homeless persons who have setting up sleeping bags for the night, or simply walking the streets asking for change.  I have been passed by countless bikers, the pedaling kind.  I have been helped by Trimet (the public transit) staff, friendly locals, and seen every kind of fashion, tattoo and piercing, and enjoyed the coffee and food truck scene.  It is a city that embraces weird…being unique, individual and something of an iconoclast.  And they all get along and co-exist.  It seems like an easy-going, friendly kind of place.  I am not a big fan of the word tolerance, because it has a sense that I put up with something distasteful instead of actively loving someone, but there is an aspect of “live and let live” in this city that I find appealing.   

Bishop Sally Dyck preached a powerful sermon this morning with a charge to go, learn mercy.  She aimed at the heart of the divide in the United Methodist Church about how we name homosexuality as incompatible with Christian teaching in our Book of Discipline, and that is the only category of person with whom we do that.  She was preaching on Jesus eating with the tax collectors and how in Jewish law, that tax collector, to collect taxes from the Jews and giving them to the Roman oppressors…well, according the Pharisees, was completely incompatible with Jewish law, and Jesus should have no business with him.  Jesus’ response: go, learn mercy.  Why is not our response to whomever we meet the same as Christ: go, learn mercy.  There is no person outside of God’s love.  No person incompatible with Jesus Christ.  Bishop Dyck lifted up Pope Francis who declared this a year of mercy for the Catholic Church.  Bishop Dyck said she would love for the United Methodist Church to have a year of mercy, a decade of mercy!

We live in close quarters.  Our world is bigger and yet smaller all the time.  We have never been more interdependent on one another for our very survival….whether it be not shooting one another, not hacking one another’s identity, not using up the created resources so the next generation can breathe, and drink clean water and species don’t die off.   We will not have a future unless we can embrace our diversity and the very sacredness of human life.   

One of my explorations took me to the Holocaust Memorial in Washington Park.  There was a quote on the granite wall describing the events that led up to the Holocaust.  As the war progressed, Hitler was emboldened to turn his attention to the most helpless of victims: “those deemed unworthy of life…the handicapped, deformed infants, the chronically ill and people in nursing homes.”  They were killed with a form of euthenasia.  There were protests.  But not enough.  And so began the gas chambers where at Auschwitz alone, 10,000 Jews a day were killed.  This is what happens when we do not learn mercy.  We begin to believe we have the right to choose who lives and dies.  Who is in or out.  Who is worthy of love and respect.  That is a world based on fear.

I am sure Portland is not a perfect city.  But in this, I think they are on to something.  Keep it weird.  Appreciate the differences, the quirkiness and for goodness sake, practice a little mercy and grace.  It makes life so much more interesting and fun!

What Are We Doing Here?

So how do you feel about technology?  Most days I am a fan.  Love my smartphone.  Texting is a great invention to stay connected with people.  Using images and videos and screens can add a lot to worship.  So this year at General Conference, they are trying to use technology to manage the debate and conversation at General Conference.  If someone wants to speak to an item, they enter their name into the iPad on the table, and they go into an electronic queue for the presiding bishop to call on.  The problem is the technology is not flexible enough to keep up with moves of the debate.  People entered their name to speak on a item and all of a sudden the you have an amendment, and now you need a new queue but there is no way to do that without clearing out the old queue.  And that is presuming that the iPad at your table is working!  So dealing with the technology has actually clogged the process, to the point where one delegate stood and simply asked, “what are we doing here?”

I keep wondering what John Wesley would be thinking about all this.  I doubt he ever envisioned the legislative process in the way it is unfolding.  And yet, John was an early adopter of technology.  He was willing to use whatever means possible to spread the word about Jesus Christ.  Whether it was having his brother Charles writing new words to current music to teach the theology, to the creating of a publishing house to fund his ministry as well as publish his writings, and going to the masses to preach in the field, if it could help him reach one more, he was not afraid to try it.

I am glad we are willing to be technologically innovative, but sometimes the simple way works a whole lot better.  Instead of emailing, step away from your desk and walk down the hall and have that conversation with a coworker.  Instead of seeing the world through the camera of your smartphone, and posts on Facebook, put it down and just soak in the beauty of nature.  Technology should serve us and not the other way around.  I applaude the effort at the General Conference but it might be time to let people simply line up at a microphone and get called on there instead of managing the conversation through an electronic list.  

When you can answer well the question, what are we doing here, then you are better able to discern what means will most help us accomplish that, and know when something is working or not, and it is time to find a better way.  That could well be a metaphor for this entire General Conference.  Do we have a clear and shared understanding of what we are doing here?  I am not so sure about that.  We have many agendas.  And that is what is making this General Conference so muddy and clogged in its process.  Make it so simple and clear, O God, that we cannot mistake your word and desire for us, and may we abandon anything and everything that does not lead to life and your purposes for us!

What Kind of Church Will We Be For This One?

It was just after the stirring episcopal address given by Bishop Greg Palmer that I saw her walk by.  It was a mother carrying a young boy.  I had Bishop Palmer’s words echoing in my ears, stating what we need to be doing here at General Conference is listening to God for the next faithful step we are to take as the United Methodist Church in our mission and ministry, when I saw that mother and child.  And I thought, what kind of church will be for this child?  Twenty years from now, when this child is a young adult, will they claim the name Christian?  Will they tell stories of how they were shaped by the United Methodist Church, and will this United Methodist Church still be a vibrant force for Jesus Christ?  Will they talk about how they were at that historic General Conference where the Holy Spirit moved and we got over ourselves and our debates over Rule 44, and simply embraced being the church.  When Therefore Go…wasn’t just a conference theme but our practice and commitment?

That afternoon I decided to escape the convention center for some Portland sunshine.  I am sitting on a bench outside of VooDoo donuts indulging in an afternoon treat.  Two young women ask if they can share the shade of our table.  Absolutely…there is room at the table for everyone.  Since I don’t need a Rule 44 to have permission to engage in holy conferencing, I strike up a conversation.  Turns out they are recent college graduates giving themselves a celebration trip before graduation.  I ask them their plans for the next year.  One wants to work on bat research…did you know that there are 12 species of bats but you only find a couple of them anymore?  There is trouble in the bat world.  Anyway, she is off to Kentucky to pursue her work of making the world a better place for the created order.  The other is going to graduate school.  Wants to work in the area of public policy around energy.  Two people, who paths I crossed, who have a commitment to do good in the world.  It was a good reminder to me that ministry most always happens out there, and there are lots of people who care about the world and making a difference.  So what kind of church will we be for these two young adults who are clearly on a mission?

What gives me hope is that God is so much bigger than General Conference, and our legislative maneuvering.  God is showing up, doing stuff in people like the ones I met today.  We just need to get out there and see what is possible.  Therefore Go!

What Would John Wesley Think?

They are working on the “rules” to govern the conversation at General Conference. It is taking forever and we are going deep into the weeds. So you have to wonder if John would think this was trifling away time and he did not have patience for trifling away time. Of course, back in John’s time, he just made the rules, so no need for laborious debate on a particular rule. And isn’t it ironic that the rule being most debated is whether to allow for “holy conversation” which allows for the setting aside of Robert’s Rules so people can share and listen in a different way. I am not a historian, but I do believe that the original purpose of the Conference was for the clergy to conference, to confer where and how they saw God at work and how God was leading the church forward and then to receive their assignment to go back out to the mission field. The theme of this year’s General Conference is Therefore, Go…but it is hard to see that spirit evident in the debate so far.