{"id":378,"date":"2012-04-25T06:39:30","date_gmt":"2012-04-25T13:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/gc2012\/?p=378"},"modified":"2012-04-25T06:39:30","modified_gmt":"2012-04-25T13:39:30","slug":"the-questions-of-a-sleepy-college-student","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/the-questions-of-a-sleepy-college-student\/","title":{"rendered":"The Questions of a Sleepy College Student"},"content":{"rendered":"

Participants sing during the opening worship of the 2012 United Methodist General Conference held in Tampa, Fla. A UMNS photo by Kathleen Barry.<\/em><\/p>\n

General Conference 2012: it\u2019s here, and it\u2019s with us for the next 10 days \u2013 or is it 10 years? 10 decades? Forever?\u00a0 General Conference is hugely important, someone even went so far as to describe it as the most important Methodist gathering.\u00a0 But as it starts, I find myself with mixed emotions about it, and pondering its relevance even.\u00a0 So now that I have your attention, let me explain.<\/p>\n

I do want to be clear that I find General Conference to be an extremely exciting time.\u00a0 We gather, as United Methodists, once every four years, as a global church.\u00a0 Almost a thousand delegates and thousands of others from all over the world come together, representing the millions who call themselves United Methodists.\u00a0 It is a time to celebrate the ministry that is happening across the globe, a time for use to reflect on how this church is living out God\u2019s call, a time for fellowship, a time to strengthen our connection.\u00a0 And for all that, it is indeed an exciting time.<\/p>\n

Even with all that excitement, and even while knowing that some of the stories of ministry happening around the world may (strangely?) warm our hearts, I still wonder about the relevance of General Conference to local ministry settings.\u00a0 On the one hand, decisions made at General Conference will affect every local congregation in some way, but on the other hand, will those decisions really have an impact on local churches, ministries, individual United Methodists, and, just as importantly, the people we seek to be in ministry to and with?<\/p>\n

I started pondering that question on Monday as I began preparing for another week serving in youth ministry.\u00a0 I was thinking that it would be cool to do something about General Conference on Sunday at Youth Group.\u00a0 But then I started to wonder, would the group of 11 to 17 year olds I am in ministry with really care?\u00a0 How is it relative to their faith journey?\u00a0 Beyond just the youth, how are the decisions at General Conference really going to affect the 80-something year old woman who faithfully ushers every Sunday?\u00a0 Or the young man who just joined our church because it was a congregation where he finally found Christians living the faith he believed in?<\/p>\n

Yes, there are some concrete ways in which General Conference can affect every United Methodist, but I think this question of relevance is part of the very important question about what it really means to be a global church.\u00a0 How do we realize the realities of our global connection?\u00a0 How does that reality change what we believe, how we practice, how we go about ministry, how we make disciples, and how we transform the world?<\/p>\n

So I suppose that\u2019s my challenge to all of us participating in, or following General Conference.\u00a0 Think about, and try to answer these questions, especially as votes happen, decisions are made, and, later on, as delegates return home.\u00a0 And while you\u2019re thinking about these questions, take time to be in conversation with God, and with each other.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Participants sing during the opening worship of the 2012 United Methodist General Conference held in Tampa, Fla. A UMNS photo by Kathleen Barry. General Conference 2012: it\u2019s here, and it\u2019s with us for the next 10 days \u2013 or is it 10 years? 10 decades? Forever?\u00a0 General Conference is hugely important, someone even went so […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":381,"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":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-378","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-conversation"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/04\/gc-2012-crowd.jpg?fit=640%2C427&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-66","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378","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\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=378"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":382,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/378\/revisions\/382"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=378"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=378"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=378"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}