wfn.org | Prayer, discernment intended to set tone for General Conference

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.UMC.ORG>]

June 15, 1999  News media contact: Thomas S.
McAnally*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.   10-21-71BP{331}

NOTE:  Editors may wish to use a copy of the General Conference logo with
this report, and a sidebar, UMNS story #332, is also available. The full
text of the preamble to the General Conference Plan of Organization is at
the end of this report.

By United Methodist News Service

Times of prayer and discernment are being proposed to set the tone for what
threatens to be a tension-filled, even acrimonious General Conference for
the United Methodist Church May 2-12 in Cleveland.

The recommendation is in the preface to a proposal developed by the
nine-member Committee on Plan of Organization and Rules of General
Conference. It will be among the first  items considered by nearly 1,000
delegates as they gather for the church's top legislative assembly, which is
held every four years. 

While an "orderly, rational and fair process for making majority decisions"
is important in the practical affairs of the church, the committee notes in
the preamble that "the spiritual affairs of the church and its mission are
always before the body, whether or not they are apparent in the passions of
debate on temporal affairs."

Homosexuality has been a volatile issue at every General Conference meeting
since 1972 and is expected to be a lightning rod for conflict at the
Cleveland meeting. Several aspects of the issue have received attention
through the years, but in recent months, same-sex unions have become a
source of controversy. Several clergy have defied a statement adopted by the
1996 General Conference that said "ceremonies that celebrate homosexual
unions shall not be conducted by our ministers and shall not be conducted in
our churches." 

The United Methodist Church acknowledges homosexuals as "people of sacred
worth" and does not prohibit them from church membership. However, the
practice of homosexuality is considered "incompatible with Christian
teaching." The General Conference is the only body that can speak officially
for the church.

The Committee on Plan of Organization and Rules calls on delegates to honor
the plan of organization for the 2000 conference while at the same time
being open to "prayerful discernment of God's will for us."

"There will be times, in the midst of deliberation, when we will need to
stop, pray together, listen in silence together, and refocus our common
vision of where the spirit is leading the church," the preamble continues.  

While times of prayer and discernment "do not substitute for decent and
orderly debate, they do serve to hold our temporal affairs up to the light
of the larger, common vision for the 'people called Methodist.'"

The committee notes that for Methodists, "conferencing -- the coming
together to be of one mind and to know the mind of Christ for the church --
is our legacy."

Throughout the church's history, powerful and committed groups have been in
tension with each other to win majority position, according to the preamble.
These included tensions between "experiential" and "confessional" Wesleyans
in the early days of the Methodist movement in 18th century England.  The
preamble also notes that social forces have produced tension, the most
significant being slavery, which split the denomination in the United
States.

The 1996 General Conference adopted a petition from Susan Hassinger, now
bishop of the Boston Area, calling for future general conferences to be more
aware of the need for  reflection and decision making. 

The Committee on Plan of Organization and Rules has struggled with
Hassinger's recommendation for several years, according to the Rev. Jerome
K. Del Pino of Boston, chairman. "I think fundamentally it raised in a very
sharp relief the fact that our life together is not always fully and most
appropriately defined in juridical terms," he said.

Del Pino said the committee's recommendation for the life of the conference
is not merely to reduce tension. "It is intended to call us to a higher
plane of understanding of our responsibility as a legislative body," he
said.  

"Organization and rules are merely tools and not ends in themselves," Del
Pino continued. "Hence, as we took up the Hassinger motion from the General
Conference of 1996, we ourselves entered into prayerful discernment about
how we might recover an important part of our tradition and Wesleyan
heritage.  

"We reflected in a very intensive and focused way on what is at the heart of
what it means to engage in holy conferencing. With a profound respect for
the need for organization and for order, we also believe that it is
imperative that we reclaim that dimension of our covenantal life together
that makes us distinctive among the people of God called Christian."

# # #

The full text of the preamble to the Plan of Organization for the General
Conference follows.  A text of the entire report will eventually be on the
General Conference World Wide Web page, at http://www.umc/GC2000.

PREAMBLE

^From the days of Wesley, the "people called Methodist" have gathered in
"conference." The early Methodists attended to practical affairs of the
movement but focused primarily on the spiritual affairs and on the vision of
"spreading scriptural holiness throughout the land."  "Conferencing," the
coming together to be of one mind and to know the mind of Christ for the
church, is our legacy. "Conferencing" must not be lost in our conferences.

The General Conference is the representative, deliberative body for many
annual conferences.  It has developed an orderly, rational and fair process
for making majority decisions in the practical affairs of the church. Yet,
it also protects the rights of minority positions. There is no substitute
for such careful deliberation.

However, the spiritual affairs of the church and its mission are always
before the body, whether or not they are apparent in the passions of debate
on temporal affairs. The General Conference has spiritual and prophetic
leadership which must always form the contexts of its governance.

All through our history, there have been powerful and committed groups in
tension with each other to win majority position. For example,
"confessional" Wesleyans and "experiential" Wesleyans have vied for the
hearts of the people since the time of Whitefield and Wesley. At particular
points in our history, social forces have pulled us apart  and, in the case
of the slavery issue, produced schism.

In that case, we have come back together in the firm conviction that the
unity of United Methodism is God's will and the best way to "spread
scriptural holiness" in a global movement of the "people called Methodist."

To learn the wisdom in the theological and spiritual tensions, and to focus
our vision of God's will for us amid conflicting issues of our time we must:
First, recognize that our Plan of Organization must be honored with
integrity by all. However, at the same time it must be open to prayerful
discernment of God's will for us. Second, there will be times, in the midst
of deliberation, when we will need to stop, pray together, listen in silence
together, and refocus our common vision of where the spirit is leading the
church.

The times of prayer and discernment may be varied and surprising. While they
do not substitute for decent and orderly debate, they do serve to hold our
temporal affairs up to the light of the larger, common vision for the
"people called Methodist."
  

______________
United Methodist News Service
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