Be Still (General Conference 2024)

Come, behold the works of the Lord;

see what desolations he has brought on the earth.

He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;

he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;

he burns the shields with fire.

‘Be still, and know that I am God!

I am exalted among the nations,

I am exalted in the earth.’

The Lord of hosts is with us;

the God of Jacob is our refuge.

Psalm 46:8-11, NRSV*

Next week, Charlotte, NC will be home to the General Conference of The United Methodist Church, where over 1,000 delegates, bishops, and visitors from four continents will spend two weeks together discerning the future of the denomination. The theme of this year’s GC is “…And Know That I Am God,” a captivating title that immediately grabbed by attention because of the absent, but implied, “Be still…”

Be…

In fact, a General Conference is just about anything but still. Meeting once every four years, GC is the top legislative body of the global denomination, where decisions made impact the polity and practice of United Methodists everywhere. Delegates receive hundreds of pages of legislature to read in the weeks before meeting, and will spend time together in person discerning how the proposals they’ve read will impact the future of the church. Delicate matters of legislative language are made all the more complicated by the fact that many present do not speak English, and require interpreters to communicate.

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This General Conference carries an unprecedented weight to it. The global pandemic prevented the 2020 meeting of the GC, where decisions were intended to be made about an increasing polarization around LGBTQ marriage and ordination. In the meantime, The Global Methodist Church (GMC) announced its launch, and many American United Methodists disaffiliated from our denomination, using a discernment process that allowed disaffiliating churches to keep property belonging to the denomination. This painful process ended in December 2023, and those remaining in the denomination presumably are more interested in moving forward together than fighting to leave.

For this author, and so many who have closely been watching the proceedings leading up to next week’s meeting, the two big hopes are for a removal of harmful language excluding LGBTQ persons, and a regionalization of United Methodism that allows the mission of the church to be determined locally rather than globally. Both seem like a real possibility, and the healthiest possible outcome for a Christian community as broad and culturally diverse as The United Methodist Church. But neither is guaranteed, and we could just as easily meet and depart with nothing changed and nothing gained.

Be Still…

I grew up in a loving rural United Methodist congregation. I came to know God’s love for me in this denomination. I experienced my call to ministry in this denomination. And for all the problems I’ve had with the denomination, I’ve also found in it a valuable community where God’s healing grace and mercy can offer true healing and growth. I love Wesleyan theology, and I love belonging to a denomination that has allowed for rich interpretation of our own history and beliefs. I have so deeply identified my Christianity with a Wesleyan way of thinking about my faith that I don’t know if it’s really possibly for me to separate the two.

I am also gay, and quite frankly, frustrated that this is even something that has to be defended or mentioned. Being gay is not my defining identity or trait. I am not one thing. For me, navigating the world as gay is the only way I know how to exist in the world, not unlike the other parts of my identity: being a man, being white, being American, being an English-speaker. It just…is. It informs my world view, it gives me a natural solidarity with others who have been marginalized for simply existing as different, but I don’t see my sexuality as the most important thing about me, or as some agenda that I have to impose on others. If my being gay affects my ability to love God and neighbor, I only see it adding positively to that cause.

And yet, I didn’t come out of the closet until I was 38 years old because I was so afraid to be who God made me to be. Every time I came out to new people, no matter how long I had known or loved them, I had to face the very real possibility that they would no longer want to have anything to do with me. I had to move my ordination credentials when my denomination chose to double down on removing LGBTQ folks from the ministry for being “self-avowed homosexuals” (yes, I’m eliminating the word “practicing” because that word means nothing to those who use these terms to harm others). I have to navigate a society that celebrates me commercially but actively seeks my elimination legislatively. And I attach myself to a religion that has done more harm to people like me than could possibly be accounted for.

Be Still and Know…

“God is our refuge and strength, a help always near in times of great trouble. That’s why we won’t be afraid when the world falls apart” (Ps 46:1-2).

“….WHEN the world falls apart.”

Perhaps what most draws me to Christianity is its core honesty about reality: it’s all really beautiful, and it’s all really (expletive)ed up. When it seems the only way to survive is fight or flight…be still and know. Know that God is above the legislation. God is beyond the harmful ideologies. God is past the division and the isolation and the hurt. Even when those things are done within religion or in the name of God, they are not God. In fact, God is your refuge and strength in the face of such adversity.

This General Conference offers a possibility, but that is all. Regardless of its outcome, God is.

May we all be still, and know.