news article
Episcopal address speaks of needed shifts and unveils new Conference logo
June 2, 2023 / By Shannon Hodson / .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Disorientation and uncertainty. “This is the context we are living in,” said Upper New York Area Resident Bishop, Héctor A. Burgos Núñez during his Episcopal Address on June 2 at the 2023 Upper New York Annual Conference.
“We will not wait for the disorientation and uncertainty to end to move forward,” Bishop Héctor said, “We are going to continue to move forward together and unapologetically share God’s hope with our communities.”
Bishop Héctor then exclaimed, “UNY we’re moving forward and we’re doing it together!!!!”
The crowd responded with near-deafening applause.
Bishop Héctor recognized that to move forward, we need to make some shifts.
Two shifts involve relationship-building:
- We need to shift from silos to connections. We need to get out of the church doors and into our communities.
- We need to shift from competition to collaboration. Bishop Héctor said,” We are going to explore collaborations across the Conference. Competition speaks about individual agendas—collaboration celebrates our shared mission.”
One of the shifts, Bishop Hector expressed had to do with a new way of looking at vitality; he said, “We are going to shift from a culture of growth to a culture of impact.”
He asked the audience to “Imagine what if it looked like if you measured church vitality not by the number of people in the pews or the amount of money in the offering plate, but by people who could tell stories about how their lives improved because of ministries at your church!”
The final shift that Bishop Héctor shared is the shift from institutions to people and with that he shared the new branding of the Conference’s logo; the logo is no longer the Upper New York Annual Conference; we will now refer to ourselves as The United Methodists of Upper New York.
“We want our Conference logo to showcase people.” Bishop Hector explained.
Together, the United Methodists of Upper New York are moving forward in fulfilling the vision of living the gospel and being God’s love to our neighbors in all places.