A note from Pastor Travis 6/3/21
Dear FUMC Family and Friends,
This Sunday we are celebrating our church being a Reconciling Congregation as part of our celebration of Pride Month and as a part of our commitment to working for a fully inclusive Methodist church and a just world. As you are aware, the United Methodist Church was supposed to hold General Conference last year, but it was postponed due to COVID-19. The issue of full inclusion is the major item for General Conference, and the likely outcome of this meeting the United Methodist Church dividing into several new dominations. The General Conference has once again been delayed until August 29 – September 6, 2022. When this delay was announced a Special Session was called for May 8, 2021 to address some housekeeping matters, including the election of Bishops. This meeting has also been postponed.
Understanding everything that is happening in our denomination is difficult. One of the best, and in my opinion most trustworthy, sources for information on all of the developments within the United Methodist Church is the blog hackingchristianity.net, by Jeremy Smith. Below I am including a large portion of one of Jeremy’s blogs on the delay in General Conference. I encourage you to go to the blog and read more of his article on the subject. Also, please feel free to talk to me about these important issues.
From Hacking Christianity:
Here are some immediate responses with more informed commentary coming later.
1. The General Conference Commission acknowledges that virtual conferencing has too many barriers to participation. It was interesting that a mail-in ballot for critical votes was the best practice recommended, as we’ll see it in use in the next announcement. I’m glad the tech team found that a distributed, asynchronous, and COVID-safe method for voting could be found, though they didn’t recommend one for actual conferencing.
2. This is a rejection of the Wesleyan Covenant Association’s repeated lobbying efforts to hold a virtual General Conference to pass the Protocol so they could have received $25 million and not have to pay pension share as they leave. I fear they will revert back to sabotaging the denomination for the next year, or there’s something else coming. Stay tuned.
3. This delay and an anticipated special jurisdictional conference (unannounced but expected in July 2021) to retire bishops means that 15 bishops positions will go unfilled until 2023 at the earliest. So interim positions and shared oversight and retirees will serve some areas for 1-2 years. We’ll have more details later, but there’s no way to elect new bishops until after GC, so now we know. Looks like the Bishops get their 15 member reduction without a vote by the people, even though their constant narrative (prior to this decision by the General Commission on General Conference) was it was to be a vote by the people. Sigh.
4. The Commission names this, but ughhhh it again is the beginning of the school year and again is disempowering to young adults and educators who are delegates or participants. Money > inclusion.
5. Finally, but most importantly, this delay continues the harm against LGBTQ+ persons who see their hope for inclusion deferred another year. Justice delayed is justice denied. The only way this works is for the bishops to immediately publicly pledge to hold complaints in abeyance, and for churches that want to continue to prosecute LGBTQ+ persons to use the GC2019 process that they voted in to leave.
Grace and Peace,
Pastor Travis
There are some important things happening in the next few weeks.
1. After reviewing the changes that the Commonwealth has made to the COVID-19 restrictions, the recommendations of the CDC, the numbers of the vaccinated people in Massachusetts, and the declining infection rates, the Leadership has decided to lift the church policy requiring people to wear masks. We are mindful that people have different levels of comfort and different health needs. Therefore, we respect people’s decision to wear a mask or not to wear one.
2. On Sunday June 6 we will be celebrating our church being a Reconciling Congregation. We invite you to join us as we celebrate God’s inclusive love and work to create a church which reflects this love.
3. On Sunday June 13 we will be celebrating our graduates and those who have received their driver’s licenses. Since we were unable to celebrate these important life events last year, we will be celebrating those who graduated in 2020 and 2021 as well as those who have gotten their licenses since January 2020. If you have a graduate or a new driver in your family, please contact me at tbonnettekim@gmail.com