With 78 petitions to be considered and just three days to do it with 864 delegates from all over the world in multiple languages, how will the General Conference get it all done?

That is the question on the minds of many United Methodists as final preparations are being made for the meeting in St. Louis February 23-26. While we do not know exactly how this is going to go, there are some things we know about the process. Thanks to some guidance from my friend, Gary George, I can say a little more definitively today what those few days will look like.

Saturday is a day of prayer and preparation. It is a transitional day for those who are traveling, especially from great distances, and will allow some buffer for potential weather delays. But it also provides a time for delegates to have guided prayer and conversation. Don’t discount the impact the Holy Spirit can have when people gather to pray together.

Sunday is the first scheduled day of business, and will begin by ranking the petitions. The 78 petitions will be grouped together by plan, and will be considered one at a time. All delegates will vote one of two ways – high priority or low priority – on every petition. After all the votes have been cast, the results will be posted. Petitions will be ranked by the percentage of high priority votes they receive. This is not a vote on the petitions themselves, only the order in which they will be considered. This process was outlined in a press release February 1.

After that, legislative committee leadership will be elected; a chair, a vice-chair, and a secretary. Normally, legislative committees are smaller groups that consider legislation on separate topics. In the case of this conference, legislative work will be done by a committee-of-the-whole, meaning all 864 delegates will do the work normally done by 60-80. The legislative committee officers will determine the process for combining and perfecting the petitions to then be debated on the floor of the conference. We expect that Sunday will mostly be consumed with the ranking of petitions and the election of committee officers, who will need to be trained and to meet together to develop their approach. The legislative work will possibly begin Sunday evening, but more likely Monday. That will be complex work.

By Tuesday, the revised petitions deemed most fully formed and supported will be presented again in the plenary session. There, they will be subject to debate, amendment, and substitution. Expect that at least some, if not all, of the legislation presented for discussion will also have a minority report. Parliamentary procedure will be in full force, which favors those who know the process over those for whom it is less familiar.

The real challenge comes in getting all of this done by the end of the session on Tuesday. Conference rules dictate that all business sessions will be completed no later than 6:30 p.m. each day, including the final day. Further complicating matters is that in 2016, a rule was passed that all legislation submitted to General Conference deemed in order must be considered by a legislative committee and that every petition advanced by the legislative committee must be voted on in a plenary session (paragraph 507.10). Rules could be suspended to allow for additional time for debate, but the UMC also has a contract with America’s Center Convention Complex in terms of how long we can be in the space. So, what happens if the rules and the contract collide? Anyone’s guess.

Some few key things to watch for: (1) The order that petitions will be considered. Which plan is considered first will have a major impact on what has the best chance of passage. If exit plans rank high enough in priority to be considered first, that will have an enormous impact on any of the plans on the table. (2) Who presides. Bishops will select from among their ranks who will rotate into the presider seat for plenary sessions. Elected legislative officers preside over legislative committee session. A professional parliamentarian was hired to guide the process, but the person in the chair still guides the spirit and the flow of debate. (3) Obstruction. If the debate starts to go in a direction some people are not happy with, they could use parliamentary rules to slow down or stymie the outcome, like motions for referral, to table, to reconsider, to amend by deletion or substitution, or others. This seems a likely turn of events on Tuesday; watch to see who is doing so and why.

For people who love debate and Robert’s Rules, this will be very interesting indeed.

Oh, and in case you missed it, Uniting Methodists posted a podcast interview with me earlier today. You can check it out here.

A number of people have spoken to me recently about their views on what the United Methodist Church should do regarding human sexuality and their hopes for the outcome of the special session of General Conference this week. One repeated concern is, “We need to be faithful to scripture and not simply bow to the culture.”

That’s a pretty loaded statement. There is much that can be said about being scriptural in our approach to church doctrine, and typically people who refer to what scripture has to say on any given topic are of the opinion that there is only one position articulated by the Bible. Any reading of scripture requires interpretation whether we are aware of it or not. We all read through the lenses of our experience, reason, and tradition, whether we are conscious of doing so or not. I could speak on this at length, lifting various passages of scripture and applying them to our present question, and few if any people who read this would be moved to change their present position. Suffice it to say that, while there are many things that differentiate Traditionalists and Progressives, it is not true that one perspective follows scripture while the other does not. The teaching of scripture is essential to our identity as Christ-followers. I pray that whatever outcome is determined in St. Louis is rooted in scripture.

Let’s deal instead with the second part of that statement, regarding bowing to current culture. As Christians, we understand that we have been called to a way of living that is frequently contrary to the prevailing culture around us: Placing God before everything else. Loving others at least as much as self. Caring for the least, the last, the lost, and the lonely. Recognizing that, in God’s eyes, the last are first and the first are last, that we are called to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow. We are, by nature, counter-cultural.

Typically, in relation to our present question, people who express a hope that the denomination will not bow to culture mean something along the lines of holding to traditionally-held positions on same-sex relationships instead of becoming more tolerant and accepting of same-sex relationships in the church. I want to be fair to this perspective; few people who express this view desire to be hostile to LGBTQ+ people, and I believe most to be genuinely loving and desiring the best for everyone. They tend to feel, however, that society has become more accepting by normalizing same-sex relationships and different sexual identities in a way that has led us away from what the Church has taught. For many of these folks, not all, separating from the denomination is preferable to staying if the church changes its position, even by allowing local churches to decide for themselves.

There is another cultural norm we should consider, however. Increasingly, our society is bifurcated into factions on any number of issues. We are bombarded by messages that tell us one side is right and the other is not only mistaken, but inherently bad. Whether political, theological, or social, these messages promote a kind of tribal mentality that isolates us from one another, creating “camps” wherein we maintain relationships with those who are like-minded and break relationship with those who disagree.

I am grateful to serve a church where people of lots of different opinions work together toward a common mission – to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world. In our congregation, we understand our unique calling is “bringing new life to greater heights,” at least partially a play on the name of the communities from which we largely draw: Cleveland Heights, University Heights, and Shaker Heights (and lots of other “Heights” on the East Side of Cleveland). We don’t do that because we all agree about everything, but because we agree about the main thing: being faithful disciples of Jesus Christ on a mission to offer hope and redemption to the world

We don’t agree about everything; we agree about the main thing: being faithful disciples of Jesus Christ.

Culturally, we are out of the norm. I don’t believe we are alone in this. Many other churches are made up of people with diverse ideas. And yet, there is now a prevailing idea that we cannot be in relationship with people who disagree with us on some points; well, one point in particular in this case – whether and how to be in ministry with gay and lesbian people.

The culture dictates that this should cause us to divide, to separate into factions that identify on one side of the ideological spectrum or another. Some church leaders feel the same way. But if we separate, how will any of us grow? Where will we encounter ideas that challenge us? How will we move the needle on any particular question if we have no relationships to build on? Not to mention, the natural outcome of continued separation because of disagreement inevitably ends with each of us in a very small room…alone.

What if, instead, we chose to be counter-cultural, to stay together when the rest of our culture dictates it is time to separate? What if, instead of being easy to associate with the Right or the Left, the United Methodist Church challenged that false dichotomy and made the bold claim that we stand for the kingdom first and seek to learn and grow along the way? That’s the kind of cultural revolution we desperately need in our world today.

Why would anyone create a blog site just for a General Conference? Why would anyone take the time to read it?

I am the pastor of a United Methodist Congregation in Cleveland Heights, Ohio. As we have followed the work of our denomination since the 2016 General Conference, many people from our congregation and from others have asked me big questions: Why is a special session of General Conference necessary? What do you think will be decided? Is this really the best way to move forward? What will happen to our church?

Throughout the process of preparing for A Way Forward, I have done my best to answer those questions honestly, transparently, and with hope. We are living in an unprecedented time in the history of our denomination, and no one knows for certain what comes next. We know the reason for this gathering – to address what our Book of Discipline says about human sexuality – and we know the proposed plans and legislation. How the conversation goes, what the outcome is, and where we go from here remains to be seen.

As a jurisdictional delegate from our conference, I am not a voting participant in the conference, but I will attend as an observer and to encourage our delegation. My goal with this site is to provide real-time updates. There are plenty of resources for monitoring what happens at General Conference – United Methodist News Service will report thoroughly and clearly as they always do. My intent is to provide insight that is accessible for everyone, observations about the atmosphere and the direction the conference is going, and opinion about how any changes approved will impact local churches like ours.