wfn.org | Campaign misses mark, but young people will have voice at assembly

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

July 15, 1999 Contact: Linda Green*(615)742-5470*Nashville, Tenn.
10-21-71BP{375} 

NOTE: Editors might want to use a General Conference logo with this story.

By Linda Green*

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (UMNS) -- A campaign to get more youth and young adults
elected to General Conference delegations fell short of its mark, but United
Methodist advocates for the young applaud the fact that people under 30 will
have a voice at the table.

The "20 under 30" campaign, launched in 1998, sought to have people under 30
years old make up 20 percent of all annual conference delegations to General
Conference. The effort was endorsed by the churchwide Shared Mission Focus
on Young People, the United Methodist Student Movement and the
denomination's National Youth Ministry Organization (NYMO), and it was
supported by numerous churchwide agencies, commissions and caucuses.

"Although this campaign missed its mark, we do celebrate the fact that young
people will be present at this quadrennial event," said Linda Bales,
director of the Shared Mission Focus on Young People in Dayton, Ohio.
"However there is still much work to be done in terms of giving young people
greater voice in shaping the future direction of the church. 

"Local churches are challenged to make a difference by intentionally
reaching out to youth and young adults in their community," she said. "The
reality is that we (the church) simply cannot live or thrive without them."

General Conference, the top lawmaking body of the denomination, meets every
four years. The next assembly will be May 2-12 in Cleveland.

A preliminary report from NYMO indicated that 33 youth and young adults were
elected as voting delegates to the 2000 General Conference, and 14 were
elected as alternates. Seventy-six youth and young adults and eight
alternates will be members of jurisdictional conference delegations that
will elect and assign bishops. The five jurisdictional conferences will be
held during July 2000.

A survey by the churchwide Council on Ministries showed that 51 lay
delegates and 17 clergy delegates to the 1996 General Conference were under
30. The survey covered 80 percent of the total 988 delegates to that
conference.

The Shared Mission Focus on Young People is a four-year initiative
authorized as a response to the church's effort to make people ages 12 to 30
a priority, enhance resources for them in the denomination and celebrate
their achievements.

NYMO Director Angela Gaye Kincaid said a mark of good leadership is knowing
when to step aside and let new leaders emerge. "I am pleased that so many
annual conferences are willing to make that commitment. The work to develop
and recognize young leaders will continue."

One youth, Gerald "Jay" Williams from Buffalo, was selected to lead the
Western New York delegation. A senior at City Honors and soon to be Harvard
University student, he was elected on the first ballot to serve as a lay
delegate.

A more formal survey of the 1,000 delegates - half clergy and half lay - is
being conducted by the church's General Council on Ministries and will be
released this fall. In 1996, the average age of lay delegates was 59, up
from 56.3 in 1992 and 55.6 in 1988. The average age of clergy delegates in
1996 was 51, down from 51.7 in 1992 and 52.3 in 1988.  

In 1996, 32 diaconal ministers were elected to General Conference as lay
delegates. That conference, meeting in Denver, created a new order of
deacon, eliminating diaconal ministry as an option for new candidates.  

Annual conferences meeting this year elected 11 deacons in full connection
in the clergy category to General Conference and 11 such deacons to
jurisdictional conferences. Five diaconal ministers were elected to General
Conference and two to jurisdictional conferences.

"The conferences that elected deacons as part of clergy delegations need to
be commended for including representation of the new order of deacon," said
Jimmy Carr, staff executive in the section of deacons and diaconal
ministries at the United Methodist Board of Higher Education and Ministry in
Nashville. "This is an exceptional showing for the first election after the
new order of deacon was created by the 1996 General Conference."

An initial report from the Commission on the Status and Role of Women
indicated that 197 laywomen from the United States were elected to General
Conference.   

Cynthia Hopson is the first African-American laywoman elected by the Memphis
Conference to General Conference as a regular delegate.

The chairwoman for the Commission on the General Conference, Mollie Stewart,
was elected a lay delegate in the North Alabama contingent.

The North Georgia General Conference delegation made history by having a
woman - the Rev. Martha Forrest -- elected first among its clergy delegates
and a youth elected for the first time in nearly 40 years.

A tally by the section of elders and local pastors in the Division of
Ordained Ministry showed that 109 clergywomen were elected to 2000 General
Conference from the United States.  There were 107 elected from the entire
denomination in 1996. 

Of the 109 elected to General Conference, 99 are elders and 10 are deacons.
The 10 deacons in full connection represent 10 conferences, and nine of
those conferences also elected female elders in full connection. The 10
conferences include five from the Southeastern Jurisdiction, two from the
North Central, two from the South Central and one from the Western.  

Two Korean-American clergywomen were elected as delegates for the first
time: Sung Ja Moon from Northern Illinois and Young Sook Kang from the Rocky
Mountain Conference.  

A preliminary report from the division also shows that 26.2 percent of the
clergy delegates are women. That percentage is higher than the percentage of
women among all ordained full members in the United States.

Of the 66 annual conferences, 12 elected a clergywoman first, and eight have
a clergywoman as head of the General Conference delegation. 

West Michigan elected its first mother-daughter team to the
General/jurisdictional conference delegation: the Rev. Lynn Pier-Fitzgerald,
Grand Traverse District superintendent, and her daughter, Erin, president of
the Conference Council on Youth Ministries. A mother-daughter combination is
also in the Oregon-Idaho delegation - the Rev. Deborah (Debbie) Pitney and
Erin Pitney. Another combination is in Kansas East, where the Rev. Marilyn
Gregory was elected to General Conference and daughter Anna was elected a
jurisdictional alternate.
Three members of the same family were elected to Iowa's delegation to the
General and jurisdictional conferences. The Rev. Lynn Ryon and Susan Ryon
were elected to General Conference, and their daughter, Anna, was elected to
jurisdictional. 
In the North Texas Conference the heads of the lay and clergy delegations
are both children of bishops. The Rev. Don Underwood, son of the late Bishop
Walter Underwood, leads the clergy delegation, and Mary Brooke Casad,
daughter of retired Bishop Ben Oliphant, leads the lay delegation.
Three father-son combinations -- the Rev. Dirk Elliot and Josh Elliot, the
Rev. William Hines and the Rev. Derik S. Hines, and Robert C. Walker Sr. and
Robert C. Walker Jr. -- are included in the delegation from West Ohio.
Charlie and Stephen Yoost, a father-son team, were elected in the East Ohio
delegation. In 1996, Charlie Yoost and another son, Tim, were on the
delegation.
The Florida Conference's delegation has a father-daughter team: David
McEntire was elected to the jurisdictional conference, and daughter Katie
was chosen to go to General Conference.
In the Little Rock Conference, lay delegation leader Carolyn Elias and
clergy delegation leader David Wilson are both from First United Methodist
Church in Hot Springs, Ark., where Wilson is senior pastor. Elias is head of
the full delegation.
One of the most seasoned delegates in the denomination is James Hardcastle,
84, a lay member from the Peninsula-Delaware Conference. He has served on
General Conference delegations since 1960 and jurisdictional delegations
since 1956, when he was a member of the racially constructed Central
Jurisdictional. 

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*Green is news director of the Nashville, Tenn.,-based office of United
Methodist News Service.