Ending and Beginning

The Uniting Conference on June 19th has come and gone - and what a day it was! The Plan of Union was presented, debated, revised and adopted. There's now a new conference in Upper New York. Thanks be to God!

It's been an incredible journey serving as New ACT's Convener these past 18 months. I've been stretched and blessed in ways I never imagined. In this last "Convener's Corner" blog post, I want to say a brief word of thanks to three special communities who helped make this journey possible for me:

• New ACT - I'm so grateful to have worked with this amazing group of people. Bold, compassionate, funny, committed and able to see the possibilities even amid enormous challenges. I've learned an enormous amount about leadership, creativity, spiritual discernment, forgiveness and hope from these colleagues and friends.

• Lansing United Methodist Church - I have been blessed to serve this congregation as pastor for the last seven years. During almost that entire time I've been involved in the creation of our new conference. Despite the heavy commitment of time and energy this work required of me - especially during these past two years - the people of Lansing released me to do what was required. They model what a connectional church is all about. And their vibrant ministry in Lansing (and beyond) kept before me the primacy of the local church. Its where God finds hands, feet and voices to build the Kingdom.

• My family - my wife Dori and my daughters, Tasha and Alisha. We spent many Friday nights and Saturdays apart as I was off to meetings. And when we were together, my family often had to put up with a distracted husband/father! But they loved me all the same. Dori, in particular, provided the kind of support only a soul-mate can give: thoughtful questions, practical wisdom, steady encouragement, and a good dose of humor whenever it got too serious. Thank you, sweetheart, for everything.

And thanks to you for stopping by this blog to learn how the work was moving along. In a few weeks I plan to start a new blog on www.unyumc.org (Upper New York Conference's new web site) writing as the Director of Connectional Ministries. We've got many exciting days ahead of us as we continue to walk together as a new conference. I look forward to sharing this next leg of the journey with you.

Grace and Peace to you!

Things You Will Want to Do and Know

With less than a month before our Uniting Conference, let me get right to what I need to share with you today:

1. Register for the Uniting Session: If you're a clergy or lay member (including equalization member), you need to register ASAP. Please do this right now by clicking here.

2. There are several documents I think you'll want to have in your hands whether you're a conference member or not:

• Plan of Union
• Transitional Budget (July - Dec 2010)

3. Take a look at the FAQ page. Questions you have (or others have had that you'd not even thought of!) are here. If you don't find your question, please add a comment here and we'll get you an answer.

Hope this is helpful.

More to come.

What We Leave Behind

New ACT's last face-to-face meeting was held the Saturday after Easter (April 10th). Recognizing this ending, Holly Nye (New ACT member and Conference Minister of the Troy Conference) led us in a service of worship centered around the story of Joshua and the People crossing the Jordan into the Promised Land (Joshua 3 & 4).

In that story, God cuts the flow of the Jordan River to allow Joshua and the People to cross on dry land. As the People make their crossing, God instructs a representative from each of the 12 Tribes of Israel to pick up a stone from the dry river bed and carry it with them to the other side. Once safely there, these representatives were to assemble a memorial out of these stones to mark the occasion of the Crossing.

"When your children ask you, 'What are these stones to you?' you'll say, 'The flow of the Jordan was stopped in front of the Chest of the Covenant of God as it crossed the Jordan - stopped in its tracks. These stones are a permanent memorial for the People of Israel.'" (Joshua 4;4-7, MSG)

This story really captured my imagination. Like the People crossing over into a new land, you and I are about to enter this new relationship called the "Upper New York Conference." But it wasn't the "moving forward" part that really spoke to me; it was the "leaving behind" bit. As I took hold of my stone, I pondered what I was leaving behind in order to cross over.

Truthfully, up until a few months ago, I'd not spent a lot of time thinking about what was ending, having lived so intimately and intensely with the work of planning the beginning of a new conference. Serving as the convener of a four conference team (New ACT), I'd not wanted to sound or appear partisan for my own particular conference. Members of New ACT early on adopted the practice of identifying themselves, not by conference affiliation, but by town or city. I think practices like this did help us live into something new.

But its also very true there's nothing inappropriate about naming, feeling, and grieving what we are leaving behind in order to move into the new. In fact, its essential. In order to begin something, we must come to terms with what's ending.

For me at this moment, the reality of what's ending as we move into the new conference is pretty concrete. I'm packing up my office at the church where I've been serving these past 7 years, getting ready to move to the offices of the new conference July 1. I'm excited about being the new conference Director of Connectional Ministries, but I'm grieving the relationships and work I will leave behind here in Lansing, New York.

What about you? Are you experiencing a sense of loss, even as you look forward to the future? I'd love to have you leave a comment on this blog as a "memorial stone" naming what you might be leaving behind.

Seeking a "New Normal"

I just returned from one of the "District Days" being offered around the region for clergy and laity to share information about where we are in the planning process and what the Health and Pension Benefits picture looks like moving forward. This was the first event I've attended and I was impressed by the attention given (it was all clergy and we're easily distracted!), the good questions asked and the helpful suggestions offered.

In particular I appreciated the way people acknowledged the huge challenges we're facing as we put together a region-wide health benefits plan for clergy. Meeting the needs and expectations of hundreds and hundreds of clergy who've lived under very different systems is proving harder than anyone expected. For years our current annual conferences have met those needs in ways that worked in that situation, creating a set of expectations we naturally came to accept as "normal."

But now we're all being asked to live into a "new normal" and its no wonder some of us are experiencing not a little anxiety and discomfort. Although much of the tension I'm hearing about now seems focused around the new health care plan, I'm certain other issues will emerge even as this one settles down. Its the nature of the journey we're on.

Regarding the new health care plan, I'd offer just a few reflections:

1. the whole country is wrestling with this issue, so it is no wonder Upper New York United Methodists are struggling with how to care for it.

2. some good, smart and faithful people have put this new program together AND some good, smart and faithful people are raising questions about it. If we continue to talk with one another like sisters and brothers in Christ, we'll get to the place we need to.

Keep checking uppernewyork.org for updates on this issue. Work's still being done. Your prayers, comments, goodwill, sense of humor and adventure are welcome and needed.

2010

Happy 2010 - the year our new conference takes it's first independent breath! Pretty amazing.

But before this birth, there's a lot of work left for us to do.

In fact, right now I'm drafting a presentation piece to be shared around the districts this coming March outlining the basic plan for our new conference (check your conference website for details). This presentation will address:

• Why a New Conference in Upper New York?
• A Brief History of Our Journey to this Place and Time
  
• Guiding Principles and Driving-Vision
• Challenges We Must Face Together
• Details and Discussion

Check back here in the weeks ahead for a "preview" of each of these topics.