Church Business? Or the Business of the Church?

For those who do not know, the quadrennial worldwide gathering of the United Methodist Church known as General Conference is taking place in my hometown of Tampa, Florida even as I write.  I watched online last week with great interest as this gathered body debated some of the issues of the day.  Yesterday I crashed the party in person just to get a feel for what is like to be with Methodists from all around the globe.  The stories of what the sessions are like are legendary, and I wanted to see for myself.  As always seems to be the case when talking church policy and politics, the truth is much stranger than fiction.  Witness the following accounts...

• Three separate petitions were introduced at the committee level calling for major restructuring of the way the church is structured and carries out its business.  After much weeping and gnashing of teeth concerning how these might impact the church, and much legitimate discussion of how they might help save the church, none of the three ever made it out of committee.  Status Quo 1, Future 0.
• After a long and heated discussion on language used to described the relationships of homosexuals and the UMC led to a vote that also maintained the status quo, it was suggested that a statement be entered stating that it is a subject on which there is disagreement.  After all of the arguing, and a split vote in the committee, it was decided that we do NOT disagree on the subject.  Or at least we were not going to admit it...
• The session on Saturday night was supposed to end at 9:30.  It did not. In fact, there was controversy about whether or not it could continue at one point, and it was like the final shot in a basketball game.  Was the question asked in time?  Had the shot left the shooters hand when the buzzer sounded?  I didn't realize God's business had a time clock.  This felt more like Wall Street. 
• Yesterday as the entire gathered conference gathered for business for the the first time, a motion was made to shorten the lunch break by 30 minutes to allow more time in the afternoon plenary session.  There was much discussion from the floor before the vote, as people pointed out other events that would be impacted by such a change.  17 minutes worth of discussion.  And then when called to a vote, the motion failed.  So instead of 30 minutes more, they actually wound up with 17 minutes less. Twitter was going crazy...
• Then came the discussion of Super Bishop!  A proposal was made to elect a bishop who would have no other responsibilities but the to be the head of the Council of Bishops. In the petition, this new Bishop would be elected by the COB.  Someone spoke from the floor and wanted that changed so the the General Conference itself would select the person, and very quickly that became a hot topic.  I found myself thinking that we were now arguing about how to elect a person we had yet to decide we wanted.  When the great Maxie Dunham rose and spoke that very concern, I felt vindicated.  That feeling was short lived, as the presiding Bishop shot us both down and the debate continued.  A vote was called and the motion failed, leaving the power to elect the Super Bishop with the COB. Moments later, the motion to elect any Super Bishop failed as well.  Another hour of my life I will never get back.
• Remember those 3 proposals for re-structuring that died in committee last Saturday?  They're baccccck!!!  A secret new and improved super proposal, PlanUMC, is being released this morning and is said to be a combo of the first three.  Apparently legislation at the GC is harder to kill than your average zombie...
• One final story.  They were using new electronic voting pads, with each official delegate having their own.  As the GC began to elect new members to one of the boards, they decided to practice the new voting procedures by letting the body choose their favorite apostle.  This did NOT go well.  The learning curve was very steep, and many invalid votes were being cast.  Pressing a number and hitting send seemed to confuse people until a 2nd grade teacher stood and explained it in a way all could understand.  As they kept trying to get it right (3 strikes was not enough) in the arena, there was a ground-swell of sentiment on Twitter to elect Judas- just to really mess with some minds.  Fortunately, those of us on Twitter have no vote, and another fiasco was avoided.  

I know that church business has to be done.  But it frustrates me to no end that church business seldom has anything to do with the business of the church. Making disciples. Spreading grace. Taking the love of God whose name is Jesus to a hurting world. But just as I was ready to write off things like General Conference as a total waste of time, I got the following tweets last night from Bishop Michael Coyner:  For the first time in my 40 years of ministry, we set actual ministry goals tonight! 73 conferences presented goals for worship attendance, new disciples, small groups, persons going in mission, and mission giving. Maybe there is hope.. Please pray for this gathering as they continue this week, and may we all focus on following our Great God & our Great Savior while practicing the Great Commandment and the Great Commission so that we might be a part of a GREAT Church!

Because of Jesus,