NEJ Day 1 Summary from a Reserve Delegate’s View
July 14, 2016 / By Rick LaDue
The first official day of the Northeast Jurisdictional Conference certainly seems like Day 3, but who’s counting? As a reserve delegate, I sit outside the bar of the conference. Actual delegates receive the perk of a table, more elbow room, and a special book highlighting the ministry of the jurisdiction (available to the rest of us for only $10!).
Our opening worship was a memorial service starting promptly at 8:30 am. Two bishops and two bishop’s spouses were memorialized by UNY’s former Bishop Marcus Matthews. Bishop Matthews would be approved for retirement later in the morning, but first, one more sermon. Bishop Matthews was the perfect choice because each of the persons who have passed away since the last conference had a formative impact on his ministerial career. Bishop Matthews noticed the common characteristic of inclusiveness evidenced in each of their lives. He preached how they modeled and taught others how to invite everyone to the table. Matthews then challenged all of us to learn from their legacies by staying in covenant with God in order to find our way out of the challenge of our human condition.
After a break, we gathered for the first business session of the conference. The bishops opened with an episcopal response to current events and encouraged the “church to be the church.” Some might think that means more potlucks, picnics, and fights over finances. But, I’m sure they really want us to reach out to a hurting world with God’s love, hope, and peace and make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
Conference business sessions always seem to begin with the adoption of the rules. For General Conference groupies, you know this vote alone can take upward of three days. Thankfully, this only lasted a couple of minutes.
Former UNY Communications Director Maidstone Mulenga was tasked with teaching the delegates how to properly use the keypads for voting. His test survey asked if the delegates were Christians. Over 95% responded “yes.” In the spirit of Christian love, no action was taken against the other 5%. Adirondack District Superintendent Bill Mudge was specifically asked not to steal the keypad and the delegation held him accountable.
The business sessions are regularly interrupted with votes for episcopal candidates. There are 172 voting delegates and this year two vacancies needed to be filled. On the 11th ballot, somewhere in the middle of our evening session, Rev. Cynthia Moore-KoiKoi from the Baltimore/Washington Conference was elected bishop. The entire proceeding came to a halt and a party broke out! She addressed the conference with sincere thanks and a promise to uphold the sacred trust. Next time we saw her, she was sitting among the bishops. One of the candidates from our conference, Rev. Cathy Hall Stengel, had withdrawn in the 9th ballot, opening the door for the election. Cathy’s concession speech was gracious and humble and brought the entire room to a standing ovation.
The afternoon session featured the finance report and a State of the Church address from Bishop Sudarshana Devadhar, another bishop with UNY Conference connections. Bishop Devadhar highlighted the fruitful ministries of each conference and when he mentioned Upper New York he emphasized the impact of our Leadership and Preaching Academies.
Young adult delegate Ian Urriola made a passionate plea for youth voting privileges, but the conference could not allow the additional lay votes. The 172 delegates are mandated to be an equal representation of clergy and lay delegates and granting Ian’s request would have brought imbalance. His words were heard and well-received as one delegate followed up with a call for more conferences to elect youth delegates in the future and several youth were empowered to lead us in prayer throughout the rest of the day.
The evening session featured the nominations report – a report dear to me – having served on this committee on Monday. As people picked apart some of the decisions we made, I felt like people might not appreciate the time (over five hours) and effort it took choosing dozens of representatives for General and Jurisdictional committees all while being fair to 10 conferences and monitoring diversity of gender, ethnicity, and age. In the end, all were approved, but one. Each conference was asked to meet after the session to help make one committee more diverse.
As the night wore on, we began to wonder when that meeting might take place. By 10:20 pm, we actually started calling for votes to determine if we wanted to keep meeting or not. A 30-minute extension was rejected, then a 15-minute extension was also voted down. It all took about 15 minutes, so it may have been voted down, but really all we did was extend the time without accomplishing anything. Typical Methodists!
As I wrap this up, I want to share the prayer request I left with my congregation on Sunday: that God would show up and lead and guide our church during this week of holy conferencing. I was reminded of that prayer a couple times during the day because someone would occasionally lean against the light switch and plunge the room into darkness. The lights would return, but then it would happen again and so there were moments were it was hard to see and others were we could see clearly. Sometimes when we search for God’s presence among us it’s hard to see and other times it’s easier. On a busy day that started at 8:30 am and ended after 11 pm, it might have been harder to see God at work. But, God was with us and spoke through our episcopal leaders, guided us to a new bishop and helped us to accomplish administrative tasks that will enable ministry into the next quadrennium.
It was a long day. It was a good day. I think it’s time to turn in for the night, but I can’t find my watch. I’ll check with Bill Mudge in the morning.