{"id":12990,"date":"2016-05-18T10:27:33","date_gmt":"2016-05-18T17:27:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=12990"},"modified":"2016-05-18T10:27:33","modified_gmt":"2016-05-18T17:27:33","slug":"an-offering-for-a-way-forward-umcgc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/an-offering-for-a-way-forward-umcgc\/","title":{"rendered":"An Offering for a Way Forward #UMCGC"},"content":{"rendered":"

Galatians 3:25-29 (NRSV)<\/em><\/p>\n

25\u00a0But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,\u00a026\u00a0for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.\u00a027\u00a0As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.\u00a028\u00a0There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.\u00a029\u00a0And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham\u2019s offspring,[a<\/a>]\u00a0heirs according to the promise.<\/p>\n

Your bishops were honored to receive the request of General Conference to help lead our United Methodist Church forward during this time of both great crisis and great opportunity. \u00a0As far as we can discover, this is the first time that a General Conference has ever made such a request of the Council of Bishops, and we accept this request with humility.<\/p>\n

We share with you a deep commitment to the unity of the church in Christ our Lord.\u00a0 Yesterday, our president shared the deep pain we feel.\u00a0 We have all prayed for months and continue to do so.\u00a0 We seek, in this kairos moment, a way forward for profound unity on human sexuality and other matters.\u00a0 This deep unity allows for a variety of expressions to co-exist in one church.\u00a0 Within the Church, we are called to work and pray for more Christ-like unity with each other rather than separation from one another.\u00a0 This is the prayer of Jesus in John 17:21-23.<\/p>\n

UNITY<\/h4>\n

We believe that our unity is found in Jesus Christ; it is not something we achieve but something we receive as a gift from God. \u00a0We understand that part of our role as bishops is to lead the church toward new behaviors, a new way of being and new forms and structures which allow a unity of our mission of “making disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world” while allowing for differing expressions as a global church. \u00a0Developing such new forms will require a concerted effort by all of us, and we your bishops commit ourselves to lead this effort. \u00a0We ask you, as a General Conference, to affirm your own commitment to maintaining and strengthening the unity of the church. \u00a0We will coordinate this work with the various efforts already underway to develop global structures and a new\u00a0General Book of Discipline<\/em>\u00a0for our church. \u00a0Strengthening the unity of the church is a responsibility for all of us.<\/p>\n

PRAYER<\/h4>\n

We accept our role as spiritual leaders to lead the UMC in a “pause for prayer” – to step back from attempts at legislative solutions and to intentionally seek God’s will for the future. \u00a0 As a Council of Bishops, we will lead the church in every part of the world in times of worship, study, discernment, confession and prayer for God’s guidance. \u00a0We ask you, as a General Conference, to join us in this effort, beginning this week. \u00a0We were moved by the sight of delegates praying around the table, and we hope these efforts will continue. \u00a0As your bishops we are ready to join you and to lead you in these times of prayer.<\/p>\n

PROCESSES<\/h4>\n

We have discussed in depth the processes which might help our church heal and move forward – up to and including the possibility of a called General Conference in 2018 or 2019. \u00a0We have not finalized our plans for such processes, but we will keep working on options we have heard from many of you, and we will keep reporting to this General Conference and to the whole church.<\/p>\n

NEXT STEPS<\/h4>\n

We recommend that the General Conference defer all votes on human sexuality and refer this entire subject to a special Commission, named by the Council of Bishops, to develop a complete examination and possible revision of every paragraph in our\u00a0Book of Discipline<\/em>\u00a0regarding human sexuality. \u00a0We continue to hear from many people on the debate over sexuality that our current\u00a0Discipline<\/em>\u00a0contains language which is contradictory, unnecessarily hurtful, and inadequate for the variety of local, regional and global contexts. \u00a0We will name such a Commission to include persons from every region of our UMC, and will include representation from differing perspectives on the debate.\u00a0\u00a0 We commit to maintain an on-going dialogue with this Commission as they do their work, including clear objectives and outcomes. Should they complete their work in time for a called General Conference, then we will call a two- to three-day gathering before the 2020 General Conference.\u00a0 (We will consult with GCFA regarding cost-effective ways to hold that gathering.)<\/p>\n

CONTINUING DISCUSSIONS<\/h4>\n

We will continue to explore options to help the church live in grace with one another – including ways to avoid further complaints, trials and harm while we uphold the\u00a0Discipline<\/em>.\u00a0 We will continue our conversation on this matter and report our progress to you and to the whole church.<\/p>\n

Today, as a way of beginning to find our way forward, we suggest that in place of the allotted legislative time we spend 1-2 hours of plenary time in prayer, confession and exploration of a creative way forward.\u00a0 The bishops are prepared to provide questions to guide your conversations.\u00a0 Your conversations will be the first step to a way forward.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Galatians 3:25-29 (NRSV) 25\u00a0But now that faith has come, we are no longer subject to a disciplinarian,\u00a026\u00a0for in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.\u00a027\u00a0As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.\u00a028\u00a0There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":12991,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[449],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12990","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-conference"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/bishop-statement.jpg?fit=4076%2C2125&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-3nw","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12990","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12992,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12990\/revisions\/12992"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}