Baseball player batting
Special to United Methodist Insight
The line-up for the United Methodist Church is set for the 2020 General Conference.
Veteran observers are reviewing players scheduled to play in the May game in Minneapolis.
Local Churches (LC) will be pitching. LC has an arsenal of pitches and speedy delivery, but he is known to make some wild pitches, and could be thrown out of the game by the umpire.
Caucuses and General Agencies serve as relief pitchers. They are veterans who have thrown a lot of pitches in previous games. Good News (GN), a right-handed pitcher, has been throwing hard balls since 1968 and, talk about veterans, Methodist Federation for Social Action (MFSA), a left-hander, has been pitching since 1907.
The Daily Christian Advocate has a full scouting report on expected pitches.
General Conference Delegates (GCD) will be behind the plate. GCD tries to catch everything thrown to him and occasionally catches balls that haven’t been thrown. He is adroit and flexible, but he tends to make errors in late innings. A new rule will require GCD to catch everything thrown in this game. In the past, GCD left the game while the pitcher was still throwing fast balls.
Judicial Council (JC) serves as the umpire. JC is a tough on all players and has a narrow strike zone. In 2012, he threw out the entire team in Tampa.
Catcher and ump
Indianapolis Plan for Amicable Separation (Indy) will play center field. Indy will try to catch balls coming from all directions. Indy tries to make both the right fielder and left fielder happy.
Wesleyan Covenant Association (WCA) will play right field. WCA recently announced that he will let the center fielder catch some of the balls hit his direction, but he may change his plan if Indy moves too close to the left fielder.
UMC Next (Next), a player recruited by 600 scouts at a May 2019 Kansas meeting, will play left field. Next plans to avenge the loss of a previous short-inning game won by Traditionalists.
All three outfielders support players who want to leave the team, but the umpire may dampen their enthusiasm for that effort.
New Expression Worldwide (New) will play first base. New surprised his teammates by suggesting they join four different teams, Traditionalist Methodist Church, Moderate Methodist Church, Progressive Methodist Church, and Liberation Methodist Church. A Transitional Council will help players make team selections. New knows this will hurt the line-up, but he insists they can all remain friends.
The Bard-Jones Plan (BJ) will play shortstop. BJ thinks his teammates aren’t playing well together and he wants them to join Progressive, Open and Traditional teams in the next two years. BJ wants all the teams to set the rules for the General Council of Finance and Administration, Wespath, the UM Publishing House and the General Commission on Archives and History.
Plain Grace (PG) will play second base. Don’t get confused when he sometimes spells his name as Plane; it all depends on his mood. PG can’t understand why BJ and New are in such a rush to break up the team. PG wants to give players time on other teams before they decide where they want to build their careers.
Black Methodist for Church Renewal (BMCR) will play third base. The veteran will remind the catcher that pitches thrown by black players need to be caught. BMCR is frustrated by all the attention given to the younger players who haven’t battled through difficult seasons.
The Connectional Table (CT) will be the pinch hitter. CT is expected to connect with a pitch that would make the U.S. Church into a regional church body. If CT connects, the ball will have to be caught by two-thirds of conference members around the world.
Bishops will sit in the dugout. It’s a shame they won’t get to play as they have been star players in previous games.
Most newspaper editors and opinion writers agree that the main problem with the players is they forget they are playing on the same team and they share a common goal.
Editor's note: Although some of this report uses traditional masculine pronouns, women and LGBTQ+ persons can and will play any of these positions in Minneapolis – unlike professional baseball.
Veteran United Methodist communicator, the Rev. Rich Peck, is a retired clergy member of the New York Annual Conference.