Big, Long Day; Big, Long Post

Our morning began at 7:30 with worship. This was 30 minutes earlier than originally planned, which makes sense, since we don't have a lot of time to convene. Funny thing, though...after worship, we took a 40 minute break. It sort of felt like we were reluctant to start the legislative process.

After our break, we heard a presentation from members of the Commission on A Way Forward, including endorsements from members who support each of the plans presented in the report (One Church Plan, Connectional Conference Plan,  Traditional Plan). Other plans submitted through petitions after the COWF Report was published were not included in this presentation.

The presentation was long, and at General Conference, everyone speaks very slowly, to give interpreters time to translate. You could sense the anxiety in the room escalating, as people knew we were finally getting close to finding out how General Conference would choose to move forward on the petitions.

But the presentation was important. In 2016, General Conference gave the Bishops authority to help the UMC find a way forward.   The Council of Bishops then  appointed a 32-member committee and charged them to "design a way for being church that maximizes the presence of a United Methodist witness in as many places in the world as possible, and that balances an approach to different theological understandings of human sexuality with a desire for as much unity as possible."

The Commission developed a number of "sketches," and submitted them to the Bishops for review. The Bishops asked the Commission to continue to work on only two of the sketches, which are known as the One Church Plan and the Connectional Conference Plan. When the Commission was near the end of their work, with just one meeting left, the Bishops asked them to also provide a third plan, known as the Traditionalist Plan. The Commission submitted their final report, but shared concern that this plan was not as well developed as the other two, given the time they had to work on it. The Traditional Plan was included in the appendix.

Before General Conference convened, additional petitions were submitted by people throughout the United Methodist Connection. The Judicial Council reviewed all of the petitions to see if they were in harmony with the purpose of this called session, and also to see if they were constitutional. A number of petitions, including many that were part of the Traditional Plan, were ruled unconstitutional.

Following the COWF Report, Bishop Hope Morgan Ward from North Carolina led the delegates through a process of deciding the order in which petitions would be considered by the legislative committee. (After a delay, as technological issues related to the voting machines were resolved. We are not, as a body, very good with technology.)

Photo by Paul Jeffrey for United Methodistst News Service.

Each of the petitions (some were grouped together) were voted on, separately, with a "yes" or "no" vote. "Yes" meant that you thought the body should make this petition a priority, "no" meant that we should not. The votes were tallied, and the petitions were listed in order of votes received:

The petitions receiving the highest number of votes were submitted by Wespath, the pension arm of the UMC. Immediately, some snarky comments surfaced on Twitter stating that the UMC cares more about pension than about anything else. Given the context of our meeting, these claims are out of line. In presentations made to jurisdictional conference delegates throughout the country, Wespath urged delegates to vote for these petitions, so a practical plan is in place regardless of what plan passes (or doesn't pass). Since one thing all plan supporters can agree on is the desire to follow the wisdom of Wespath, a trusted institution, regarding the future of our pension, it is no surprise that these petitions ranked highest.

The Traditional Plan ranked the next highest, so this is the plan that the legislative committee will work on, first. This plan keeps the current language in the Discipline related to homosexuality, and tightens restrictions to ensure that the rules are followed by clergy and conferences.

The One Church Plan had a strong number of votes, which means that tomorrow could be a very interesting day. Since much of the Traditional Plan has already been ruled unconstitutional, we will work together on the floor of Conference to refine it. There may or may not be time to refine the One Church Plan. Monday is the only day scheduled for the legislative committee to do its work. Tuesday, we'll reconvene as the plenary session of GC to vote on which plan we will follow. Or, possibly, we won't agree on any plan.

After these results were shared, the Conference elected a Chair, Vice-Chair and Secretary of the one legislative committee (the entire body of GC) that will work on Monday to refine these petitions. The committee began its work today, and agreed to move forward with the Wespath Recommendations as they were submitted. Tomorrow, work will begin on refining the Traditional Plan.

Rev. Mark Holland seeks clarification on the Wespath petitions.

The body was relatively subdued about all of this, although there were some protests in the arena. There wasn't a jubilant air from those who support the Traditional Plan, and those who support the One Church Plan were a bit quiet. Maybe it's hard for people to quite know, yet, what to think. We'll certainly know more, tomorrow.

Is the One Church Plan dead? No. If we agree on changes to the Traditional Plan tomorrow, does that mean that it passes? No. If we spend all of our time tomorrow on the Traditional Plan, and do not get to the One Church Plan, it can still be presented as a minority report on Tuesday. It's hard to know what will happen, and a lot still hangs in the balance.

Continued prayers are needed, along with the reminder that, "Jesus is Lord!"