Tuesday Evening

Dinner was right after the Liberian President...we had dinner with the delegation at the Hilton. A very yummy buffet, of which I ate much. Bishop Keaton was able to join us; a nice treat.

We did some legislation...it was grand. A lot of time was spent on Episcopal Areas and how we can get more bishops into Central Conferences that are growing massively and desperately need leadership. Unfortunately, a procedure isn't currently in place to figure out how to allocate bishops, determine what need is most major, etc. This was then referred to the newly-funded Standing Committee on Central Conferences (which, now that I think of it, we really should have named something else...next GC, someone remind me to do that). Sadly, it will be four years before the areas get new bishops...my prayers are with all in those areas. May the Church continue to grow, may resources continue to pour in. It was be an enormous sin if the United Methodist Church in the United States hampered the growth of the Church worldwide by funding US-based study groups, etc. which will have limited effect when we could be funding amazing, powerful, and very obviously effective ministries in other regions. But I'll get off my soapbox now...

We had a break at 9:30. When we came back, we were all exceedingly happy to hear that we had only one calendar item left to consider. Unfortunately, we did a lot of extra business. Most of the rest of the business was well intentioned but impractical. One good thing did come out of the extra business…a study on ministries with Pacific Islanders in the US was lifted out of rejection and into referral to the General Secretaries’ Table; they have agreed to help with a study out of their budgets. The one calendar we had was an issue with accountability and finances of the General Board of Church and Society. A court case is currently pending per request of the Trustees, so taking action here didn’t make any sense and could cause legal issues. But there was a minority report…so the issue was going to take a long time. Fortunately, some genius had the idea to table it indefinitely before we had even heard the minority report…so we managed to get done at a decent hour! That man is going to be very, very popular for a few days.

A few random notes:
1. I have discovered what happens at 10:32. Someone rings a really loud bell or something each am and pm just outside the arena doors. It’s not against the rules of the Conference in any way, but we can definitely hear it. I’m hoping they’ll be doing it each day and that more and more people will begin to understand what it is that they are hearing.
2. Funny moment of the night occurred when Arthur Jones moved to suspend the rules to call the question…his father was presiding. Poor Scott. Fun moment for the rest of us. I think that some people still aren’t aware that Arthur is Scott’s son; I had to explain the joke to Jerry. But it’s very amusing for those of us on the “in,”

I think that’s all for the night…I’ll be singing in the “Young People’s” choir (composed of fifteen to “forty-ish”) tomorrow morning at worship, so I have to be on the 6:15 shuttle. No rest for the wicked.

Good night, all. Lots of love.