St. Louis General Conference Day 1

Coming into this General Conference all the preliminary conversations around today’s Day of Prayer was something of a head-scratcher. There were not a whole lot of details about what would go on… other than that prayer would happen. And I’ve got to say, I was really impressed with how boldly our leaders embraced investing a whole day to pray for guidance, wisdom, healing, and vision.

It was truly an inspired act to divide the day’s time into representative prayer times reflecting the diversity of our church—a denomination whose roots are in the United States but now has a footprint across the globe. Bravo.

I was in awe of the vast amount of times we as United Methodists repeatedly sat silently asking the Spirit to guide our words and actions in the coming days. We United Methodists are not exactly known for our ability to sit quietly. We’d rather roll up our sleeves and join God’s activity in the world, doing our part.

We closed with Communion.

There were a few things that caught me off guard. First of all that we are in the former home of the St. Louis Rams threw me. The space is so big… but the acoustics were remarkably good! I imagine that they have more than a few concerts in the space. The audio crew knew what they were doing. Also, being that we were in such a big space there was a large gap between the delegates on the floor and “gallery” in the 100 level seats (see photos below).

I’m guessing the reason for the gap was to ensure that the proceedings of the General Conference could go on uninterrupted. A couple of thoughts/ notes:

• Those round tables outside the bar are for the delegates to be able to have their meals on site and not at the same place as their workspace.
• Those same tables would be excellent places for reserve delegates to be allowed to sit in case called upon to serve.
• You might see that the last row of tables inside the bar are set up for members to be seated but they are empty. You’ll be glad to know that delegates were not skipping out. Those tables were not assigned anyone. They are extra.

I found the above printed on the back of our name badges interesting. Maybe they were there before but this time they seem more prominent. I felt safe… but it also felt a little weird… a little militant.

The afternoon was spent going over parliamentary procedure. Boring? Yes. Informative? Definitely. I think I agree with someone I saw on Twitter who commented that after the presentation on proper parliamentary procedure a) we as a body don’t understand parliamentary procedure and b) there’s probably more than one legislative strategy that is going back to the drawing board because we’re going to a “by the book” with a professional parliamentarian.

A lot of folks have been messaging me today asking a form of “how’s the spirit in the room?” Truthfully, I can say I do not know. First, the size of the room makes it difficult to get a sense of how people feel. I think another part of that is that everyone is anxious. We’re not overly joyful—folks understand the seriousness of the reason we’re here—but there’s not any mean-spiritedness either. At least not that I can see/ hear. Yes, the politicking is present and caucus groups are busy doing their work but we haven’t done any legislative work, yet.

A few things to pray about this evening and tomorrow:

1. Pray for the election of committee officers tomorrow. The outcome of that process will literally make or break this General Conference. That should happen rather early in the day.
2. Also, pray for the polling of the body on the priority in which petitions are taken up by the body. This will be important.

Lastly: Judicial Council ruled on 2 more petitions tonight. Petition 90052 and 90078 have been declared unconstitutional. You can read the story (with links to the ruling and petitions here.