{"id":13173,"date":"2016-05-20T21:43:45","date_gmt":"2016-05-21T04:43:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=13173"},"modified":"2016-05-20T21:43:45","modified_gmt":"2016-05-21T04:43:45","slug":"may-20-wrap-up-budget-passes-with-increase","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/may-20-wrap-up-budget-passes-with-increase\/","title":{"rendered":"May 20 wrap-up: Budget passes, with increase"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Joey Butler<\/strong>
\nMay 20, 2016 | PORTLAND, Ore. (UMNS)<\/h4>\n

Budget passes with slight increase<\/h4>\n

General Conference delegates on May 20\u00a0approved a general church budget of $604 million<\/a>\u00a0for 2017-2020, a slight increase over the $603.1 million approved at the 2012 General Conference. It is also an increase over the $599 million budget proposed to the 2016 General Conference delegates, which would have been The United Methodist Church\u2019s lowest in 16 years.<\/p>\n

Opening worship<\/h4>\n

\u201cWe will not leave divided because God is not finished with us yet!\u201d Mountain Sky Area Bishop Elaine Stanovsky reminded those attending the\u00a0last day of the 2016 General Conference<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She concluded that the real work happens once the 10-day event has finished and gave the delegates an assignment to \u201cchoose life\u201d as they talk about what has happened here in Portland.<\/p>\n

LGBTQ people gather for final demonstration<\/h4>\n

A large group of LGBTQ people\u00a0circled the floor<\/a>\u00a0of the 2016 General Conference on May 20, singing, \u201cI am not forgotten, you are not forgotten; God knows your name.\u201d<\/p>\n

Participants said the respectful demonstration was the final chance for LGBTQ people to surround and support each other before everyone leaves General Conference and returns to their local churches.<\/p>\n

\u201cQueer people got no justice from this General Conference. \u2026 This was an attempt to let them know we are still here,\u201d said Jayson Dobney, an advocate for LBGTQ people in The United Methodist Church.<\/p>\n

Votes of note<\/h4>\n

After prolonged, impassioned debate, delegates\u00a0chose not to add a fossil fuels investment screen<\/a>\u00a0for the United Methodist Board of Pension and Health Benefits.\u00a0The question came down to divestment vs. engagement<\/a>\u00a0as the better way to use church investments in influencing energy companies to address climate change. Ultimately, delegates voted 630-101 against amending church law to call for screening out investments in fossil fuels companies.<\/p>\n

An amendment offered during debate on socially responsible investing that\u00a0sought to divest from illegal settlements<\/a>\u00a0on occupied lands failed 559-167. Earlier in the General Conference, the Financial Administration Legislative Committee failed to support any petition calling for divestment from companies doing business in Israel. Delegates also adopted an amended petition on behalf of a Palestinian village, Wadi Foquin, where United Methodists support an Advance project and community development site. The petition calls on General Conference to send letters to U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and other State Department officials, U.S. President Barack Obama, the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem and the Israeli Civil Authority to express \u201cour concerns over the confiscation of land and destruction of life in the village.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delegates approved requiring that bishops in the central conferences who have reached mandatory retirement age must step down three months after General Conference. The change is effective immediately. Before, central conference bishops had up to a year following General Conference to retire.<\/p>\n

By a vote of 509-242, delegates just exceeded the two-thirds threshold needed to support amending the article on \u201cInclusiveness in the Church in the denomination\u2019s constitution. The amendment adds \u201cgender\u201d and \u201cage\u201d to the list of qualities that will not be discriminated against in the life, worship and governance of the church. The amendment is structured to preserve United Methodist groups based on gender or age, such as church youth groups. Now, the constitutional amendment heads to annual conferences, where it needs two-thirds of the total vote of members to be ratified.<\/p>\n

A petition calling for a mandatory vote on all proposed legislation sent to the next General Conference was approved by a vote of\u00a0406 to 361. All petitions submitted to General Conference \u201cshall receive the vote of a legislative committee\u201d and all petitions approved by legislative committees \u201cshall receive a vote by the plenary session at that year\u2019s General Conference.\u201d Considering how many petitions weren\u2019t voted on before this General Conference ended, one wonders if GC2020 will need to last a month.<\/p>\n

In other news<\/h4>\n

General Conference 2016<\/a>\u00a0said a fond farewell to outgoing General Conference secretary the Rev. Fitzgerald \u201cGere\u201d Reist II, who has served in that position since his election in 2004. Incoming secretary the Rev. Gary Graves joked that he did not think he could do justice to the tradition of festive shirts Reist has been known to wear on the dais.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re keeping score at home, the last piece of legislation voted on by General Conference 2016 was the passage of a resolution to update and combine several existing resolutions in the section \u201cCaring for Creation: A Call to Stewardship and Justice\u201d from the Book of Resolutions.<\/p>\n

Butler is a multimedia editor\/producer for United Methodist Communications. Contact him at\u00a0newsdesk@umcom.org<\/a>\u00a0or 615-742-5470.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Joey Butler May 20, 2016 | PORTLAND, Ore. (UMNS) Budget passes with slight increase General Conference delegates on May 20\u00a0approved a general church budget of $604 million\u00a0for 2017-2020, a slight increase over the $603.1 million approved at the 2012 General Conference. It is also an increase over the $599 million budget proposed to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":13175,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","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":[449,32,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-13173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-video","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-conference","8":"category-news","9":"category-umns","10":"post_format-post-format-video"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/maxresdefault-23.jpg?fit=1280%2C720&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-3qt","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13173","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=13173"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13177,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13173\/revisions\/13177"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13175"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}