UMNS Photo
Conference scene
A scene from an annual conference session
The days are getting longer and warmer. The school year is winding to a close. It’s the end of May and you know what that means: Summer Vacation Annual Conference season!
Now if you’re not a United Methodist, you should probably tune out right about now. But for those of us who find ourselves exercising our faith in The United Methodist Church, this is the time of year for our annual gathering among all of the churches in our immediate geographic area.
Quick United Methodist Polity lesson: Your local church is organized in a cluster of churches in and/or near your town. We call these districts. Those districts are organized with other districts in the surrounding area of your state (possibly including parts of your neighboring state) and we call this body the annual conference. Read more from our friends at Wikipedia here.
If you’ve ever been to an annual conference gathering, you’ll know that it looks a like a church version of a pep rally. Churches celebrate ministry. Agencies report on their work from the previous year. Pastors are honored for their work. We remember those who have died from the previous year. And at the very end, appointments for the upcoming year are fixed. It’s a wonderful time to come together and share in the love and joy that’s integral to being a part of the Body of Christ.
As we prepare to gather and make decision that will affect the life of the church in our area, I’m reminded of a very simple, yet powerful, truth: God is not confined to our Annual Conference gathering. You see, it can be a bit misleading to think just because we’re discussing the business of the church, God is somehow exclusively in our midst. We can get all pumped up for the latest program, revitalization strategy, or budget-saving idea. We can even work ourselves into a frenzy and start believing it’s our job to leave Annual Conference and take God back into the world. But last I checked, the very missional nature of God locates God actively in the world already. God doesn’t need to be “taken” anywhere. What God really wants is a church with the guts to dare to follow Him into the margins of the world that are too often forgotten by our churches when we worry so much about reports and budgets and programs.
Annual Conference is a wonderful time for reconnecting, celebrating, remembering, and yes even reporting. It’s a time to see old friends and to hear the Word even amid the stacks of paperwork and seemingly endless agenda items. But let’s just make sure we don’t confuse our time together as some sort of opportunity to hatch a plan to take God into the world — God is already there just waiting for we United Methodists to find the courage to come and follow.
God gives us strength and courage to be your missional people. Grant that we may hear the call to follow you wherever you may go. Amen.