Nous Avons Fini!!

Ladies and gentlemen, I am pleased to announce that the 2008 General Conference of the United Methodist Church process every single petition brought before it...no legislation was left untouched. And...here's the really exciting news...we finished by 11:15 pm! I don't think that anything too major was passed. We tried to allow deacons in certain circumstances to administer the sacraments (ie, hospital chaplains), but that didn't work. Laity are now allowed to take non-perishable pre-blessed sacraments around to churches; this will be most used in places like Alaska and the Phillipines where the geography and population densities make it difficult for the pastors to circulate through their charges in short cycles. Some churches will have lay preachers nearly every Sunday and see an actual pastor only once a year or so. We want people to be able to celebrate communion more often than that, hence the change.

After our final piece of legislation (accompanied by many, many cheers), Bishop Gregory Palmer, the new president of the Council of Bishops, preached in closing worship. The service was powerful but brief. Bishop Palmer's sermon deserved a lot more cheering, clapping, and "amen"-ing than it received...it was just too late. People just wanted to leave. But he did get a standing ovation, and I think people were really glad they had stayed.

And so there it is...GC08 is over. I'm probably going to have serious separation issues in the morning. I've come to really love it. I suppose there's always next quadrennium...it's only four more years!