Holy Conferencing
“And let us consider each other carefully for the purpose of sparking love and good deeds. Don’t stop meeting together with other believers, which some people have gotten into the habit of doing. Instead, encourage each other...” - Hebrews 10:24-25
The writer to the Hebrew people implored them to gather, and to never stop gathering.
John Wesley encouraged us to do the same.
He called Holy Conferencing – practicing accountability to one another – a communal means of grace. For Wesley, Holy Conferencing was a way for the community to come together and discuss the big things, leading to deeper connections with other believers.
Fast forward to today. Each year United Methodists across the connection engage in Annual Conference. Churches from the Oregon-Idaho Conference send delegations to a central location (either physically or in the Zoom room) to discuss the important issues facing our church. This, for the United Methodist Church, is Holy Conferencing.
We talk about how we are engaging in justice work and what hope looks like in our contexts, and we meet others we have never known but with whom we are in ministry daily. Each Annual Conference operates a little differently, but the hoped-for outcome is the same: to enter a space where the Spirit moves in and among us to share about the things we are doing and the ministries of which we are all a part.
First Church sent a delegation of two clergy and three lay members to represent you, the members who make up our community of faith.
We met a few weeks after Annual Conference to talk about the things that happened there. To process the challenging, to address the hurt and the hope, and to name the big things.
Your delegation came home encouraged because justice was in the forefront of conversations that were had and because the conference cares deeply about this work, both in public and relationally with one another. Relationships were built and sustained across the connection. We noted that people are actively engaged in the work of the church; not just waiting for other people to do things. We were also encouraged by the establishment of the Conference Creation Care and Resilience Team as work that we are doing to actively engage in justice for God’s creation.
As we shared our encouragements together, we also shared wonderings that we had from our time together. We wondered how we can best prevent harm that was done during our time together. We wondered how we can be better together and how we can be more attuned to other’s opinions. We wondered what the many unfinished conversations that got voted on mean for the future of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference. We also wondered what, exactly, is going on with Action Request (AR) 8 – you will hear more about that later.
Throughout the month of August you will hear from your delegation, both those who represented you with voice and vote and those who were there as supports, about what happened at Annual Conference. We were left with lots of questions. We were also left with lots of hope for who the church is and who the church could be.
Together we pray that we can lean into the ongoing work of the Spirit, lead where we can and are needed, we can come to consensus on important issues, we can continue to care for each other and have deep, intentional conversations, and we can learn how to talk (and listen) across the conference with great care.
Yours in community,
Rev. Rachel