Lakeside Again.... Yea?

Hello Emmanuel,

As I prepare for another West Ohio Annual Conference at Lakeside, my feelings are mixed as usual.  Certainly, from a personal standpoint, there are the traditional family things that we do:  ice cream, shuffleboard, ice  cream, kite flying, ice cream, throwing rock in Lake Erie and the ever-popular ice cream. 

However, conference is more than that.  It is meeting together as 1,100 churches and deciding on what God wants us to do.  And if history is any indication, we will agree some and disagree a lot.  Yes, we will worship and, yes, we will pray together.  And, yes, we will debate.  It’s the latter that I often do not look forward.

It isn’t that I don’t like to debate.  Indeed, I really like to debate…. But only when it is for constructive reasons.  Most of the reasons to debate don’t necessarily entail construction.  People sometimes debate because they want to be right or want to gain influence/power or just like the rush of winning an argument.  These things don’t excite me.

It’s no huge secret that my attendance at legislative session is… ummm… inconsistent.  This isn’t an arbitrative decision on my part.  After about 10 years of my 20 years of conferencing, I decided that I was doing to spend my time debating things that directly impact what God wants me to do.  If the session isn’t going to impact how I am a leader in the Church, then what other constructive reasons are there to sit for 5 hours listening and considering?

I invite you to pray for conference this year.  Pray that our time is wisely spent.  This does not include spending 45 minutes figuring out what kind of letter to send our congressman or spending an hour debating who we should love or thinking over the difference of a 17 million dollar budget versus a 16.8 million dollar budget.  Constructive conferencing should include how to create and sustain a process/organization that is called to help people follow Jesus more closely and make more disciples that follow Jesus more closely.  Constructive conferencing should entail how to enliven a Church that has been dying for the last 40 years.  How do we stay culturally relevant?  How do we rid the gap between apathetic agnostics and faithful believers? 

When I call a meeting at church, I don’t do it lightly.  People are busy doing important things.  So the meeting better be important.  Likewise, I hope that this 4 day meeting is important.  I will gladly sit and listen.  Otherwise, I just might go fly a kite.

Be in prayer for West Ohio and the United Methodist Church

God is Good,

Pastor Joe