Why I would like to go to General Conference

United Methodists are now living in an era of “self-nomination.” It is an odd thing. If you want to serve on any of the conference teams, boards, or ministry areas in the North Carolina Conference, you are asked to go the the conference website, fill out the nomination form, and then submit yourself for consideration. We do the same thing now for delegates to both General Conference and Jurisdictional Conference.

To see a list of the current nominees for clergy delegates, click here – and yes, I filled a form out. To make matters feel even more self-serving, one of the blanks on the form reads: “Why you believe you should be elected.” I tend to only use words like “believe” and “should” when I am confessing the Apostles’ Creed or reflecting on how to faithfully live the Ten Commandments – nevertheless – I am convinced that I could make a contribution to the important missional and ecclesial issues that I believe are before United Methodists this coming year and in the years to come.

To quote my response to that statement, I wrote:

I am particularly interested in the global nature of the UM Church’s mission and ministry, as well as the unique challenges that we are currently facing as a denomination here in the U.S. in terms of evangelism, outreach, and mission. I would welcome the opportunity to reflect more deeply and prayerfully with other United Methodists around the world about the emphases, issues, and foci that should be guiding us through the next quadrennium and beyond.