Pastor's Weekly Round-Up

March 19, 2024. General Conference Update etc.

Mar 19, 2024

Dear Church,

As the season of Lent draws to a close, I want to remind you of the ways we will observe Holy Week this year at Annandale United Methodist Church.

Holy Week at Annandale

Palm Sunday

Not only do the Gospels narrate the Passion of Christ with a multiplicity of Old Testament allusions and citations, the Gospels also present the Passion in terms of Israel’s holy days. For example, though Jesus comes to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover, the crowd’s shouts of “Take him away!” recall Yom Kippur while the palm branches point to Sukkoth. In addition, this year Palm Sunday falls on the same day as the Jewish festival of Purim, from the Book of Esther.

To help us understand our scriptures better and see Jesus in his own context, my friend Rabbi Joseph Edelheit will join us for the sermon this Sunday at 10:30.

Holy Thursday - 7:30

I will preach, Pat will provide a musical offering, and we will celebrate Christ’s institution of the eucharist— what Martin Luther called Jesus’s last will and testament.

Good Friday - 7:30

The choir will sing seven pieces of music centered on the Passion and I will offer seven reflections on the crucifixion in light of Jesus’s parables of judgment.

Online Easter Vigil - 7:30

The panelists from our Monday night online classes will provide a virtual Easter Vigil Service. You can find the stream HERE. Or join us live HERE.

General Conference of the UMC and the LGBTQ Debate

Here is the helpful update our Lay Leader Pam Jones provided on Sunday about the UMC’s global gathering which fast approaches:

Good Morning. My name is Pam Jones. Jason asked me to give you an update this morning on the upcoming 2024 General Conference.

In the Methodist Church the General Conference is the primary legislative body. It is the only body that officially speaks for the whole United Methodist Church. General Conference typically gathers every four years but, because of the COVID pandemic, the assembly could not meet in 2020. That means the last regular session was in May 2016, nearly eight years ago, and a lot has happened in the UMC since. The denomination’s long awaited COVID-delayed General Conference will meet April 23-May 3 in Charlotte, North Carolina. The theme for the international gathering, which draws delegates and other church leaders from around the world will be “…and know that I am God” from Psalm 46.

This year’s General Conference will bring together 862 voting delegates, half clergy and half lay, from four continents—Africa, Asia, Europe, and North America—whose policymaking decisions will affect the denomination for years to come.

As the denomination’s highest legislative body, General Conference has the authority to make revisions to the denomination’s Book of Discipline and Book of Resolutions. The Book of Discipline is the denomination’s governing document and contains its doctrine, constitution, church law, rules of organization, and procedures. The Book of Resolutions is a volume containing the text of all resolutions on issues approved by the General Conference; they are considered the official positions of the denomination.

All told, the coming General Conference has received 1,099 total valid petitions dealing with matters as varied as the denomination’s international structure, social witness, ecumenical relations, and budget, all aiming to shape the future of the United Methodist Church.

Council of Bishops President, Tom Bickerton, told delegates that “we find ourselves at a seminal moment in the life of this denomination. General Conference provides an opportunity to shift, to pivot from what was to what can be. To move forward despite the current challenges of the continued impact of the COVID pandemic and church disaffiliations. To focus on welcoming rather than excluding. This is a moment for us to get a new wind and a new sense of purpose.”

There are many important pieces of legislation that will come before the Conference for a vote. I want to mention two priorities that are in the spotlight, particularly in the United States.

First is the language in the Book of Discipline regarding homosexuality that was added to the Discipline in 1972 and has been debated since. While affirming the belief that persons of homosexual orientation are persons of sacred worth, the statement added that the church “does not condone the practice of homosexuality and considers this practice incompatible with Christian teaching.” The Church has also maintained restrictions regarding clergy. Pastors may not be “self-avowed, practicing homosexuals” and may not conduct ceremonies that celebrate same-sex weddings or unions. Such ceremonies also may not be held on church property.

A proposal will be put before the General Conference to remove this language, considered by many to be harmful, to repeal the entire Traditional Plan, all LGBTQ prohibitions, and adopt revised social principals.

Regionalization

The second priority I want to mention is regionalization. Under the proposed plan, there will be four regional conferences — Africa, Europe, Philippines, and the United States — all possessing the same duties and powers to pass legislation in their respective regions.

The goal is to empower each region to act more nimbly without waiting for the next General Conference. It would allow for decisions in a certain area and not allow decisions from one region to influence or dominate the other.

The petitions that will be before General Conference would give to the United States the same power that the central conferences around the world already have, that is to legislate church issues for itself. Regionalization will help the church make General Conference more efficient and more focused on global priorities and on the mission of the church.

Some people have asked what regionalization means for the denomination’s longtime debate over the place of LGBTQ people in church life? Regionalization does not change the denomination’s current bans on same-sex weddings and “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy but would allow each region to set qualifications for clergy. It also would allow each region to determine what it considers chargeable offenses under church law.

Separations and disaffiliations

As a result of General Conference having been delayed, a separation of sorts already has taken place.

Before anyone had heard of COVID-19, United Methodists had expected to hold General Conference in 2020. At the time, the legislative proposals getting all the buzz involved separating the denomination along theological lines.

Each of those proposals is still before delegates. Ultimately, the delegates will need to decide how they want to handle those petitions.

Over the past four years, the denomination has seen about a quarter of its U.S. congregations disaffiliate under a policy approved by the 2019 special General Conference. That policy expired at the end of 2023.

The policy, Paragraph 2553 in the Book of Discipline, allowed churches to leave with property “for reasons of conscience” related to homosexuality, if they met certain financial and procedural obligations. Because of action taken by the 2019 General Conference, that policy only applied in the United States.

The coming General Conference will see petitions put forth to extend Paragraph 2553, so that it can continue to apply in the United States and expand to churches in the central conferences.

Other petitions seek to enable whole U.S. annual conferences to leave or make it easier for annual conferences in Africa, Europe, and the Philippines to do so. If passed more disaffiliations could occur.

Preparing for General Conference

In the meantime as the Conference approaches it is crucial for congregations to prepare thoroughly and prayerfully. The Virginia Conference provides resources about General Conference and proposed legislation at vaumc.org/gc2024/ and on Facebook at www.facebook.com/vaumconf. Please commit to prayer for the Conference, the lay and clergy delegates, the volunteers and for discernment. The Upper Room has a prepared a A Guide to Prayer for General Conference with daily scripture, reflections, and prayers that begins on April 7.

Listening to a Rabbi? (Dr. Kendall Soulen on Supercessionism)

Many of you know theologian Kendall Soulen, who used to teach at Wesley Theological Seminary and worship at Annandale. Many may not know that Kendall is known through the theological academy for his work on a Christian theology of Israel. I thought this video might be helpful in light of inviting a rabbi to preach on Palm Sunday. In it, Kendall discusses supercessionism. Simply, supercessionism is the heresy which holds that Jews must convert to faith in Jesus Christ in order to be saved. Rather, as Paul concludes in Romans 9-11, God has distinct vocations for Church and Synagogue that together serve God’s ultimate End.