Dec 16, 7pm, River Road United Methodist Church chapel

For those who have lost loved ones, the holidays can be a difficult time.  It can be hard to be surrounded by celebrations when you are hurting inside.  We invite you to come to a community service designed for you with space to be right where you are.  Join us for prayer and candlelighting in the chapel on December 16 at 7pm.

Please contact the church office at 804-740-7061 if you have any questions.

Connect to God:

This Sunday “United Methodist Owner’s Manual: Person and Social Holiness”
Scriptures: Leviticus 11:44-47; Matthew 25:31-46

Connect to Each Other:

NEIGHBORHOOD LIFE GROUPS — starting soon!  We are organizing small groups based on where people live.  Meet together for a potluck supper with those in your area.  Your group convener will contact you within the next few weeks.  Questions?  Contact the church office.

2012 GRADUATES: If you or another church member or visitor you know will be graduating this year from high school, trade school, college, graduate school, etc., we’d like to celebrate your accomplishment with you.  Share your name, school, and degree with us, and – if you’re a high school graduate, e-mail or send a picture and your future plans to Justin Hicks.  Otherwise, contact the church office with your information.  Graduate Recognition will be June 3.

Connect to the World:

“MARCH IN MAY” FOOD DRIVE – Metropolitan Area Resource Clearing House (MARCH).  MARCH is an umbrella group that assists seven community centers in the City of Richmond stock their food pantries.  Grocery bags with a suggested list of non-perishable food items will be in barrels in the Welcome Center, Narthex and throughout the Church during the month of May.

You also are encouraged to make a financial contribution to MARCH if you feel so led; make your check out to RRUMC with “MARCH” in the note field.  100% of the money you donate will be used to buy food to be distributed among the seven MARCH sites.

Kirk Nave, May 5, 2012

So I’ve packed my bags, and I’m waiting for the plane to take me home after this surreal experience known as the General Conference of the United Methodist Church. So to help me process, I am doing something I’ve never done before: blogging.

I still feel so honored and humbled that my peers elected me to be a delegate. On the one hand, it is such an honor! On the other hand, I think, “God, there has to be someone smarter and more qualified than me! Am I among the best we’ve got? Is the church in such bad shape that there’s no one better to do this?”

That being said, I learned a lot about how our polity works. There is some good in what we do, and there are some aspects about this process that I wish I’d never seen. Talk to me personally, I will share with you a couple of the lowest moments.

We considered nearly one thousand pieces of legislation. An overwhelming amount was passed, or rejected, by the legislative committee and a process we call the consent calendar. Overall, we processed about 90% of what was sent to us. Of those items that we considered individually, we processed slightly less than half. I pray that those who prioritized items for us made sure that we did the most essential work.

I found out that if legislation does not get processed through the Advanced Daily Christian Advocate, it has slightly less chance of survival than a snowball’s chance in Tampa. I tried to work a political Hail Mary on an issue, and may have done more harm than good. I probably had no effect either way. And I also learned that the people in the office of the General Conference Secretary are incredibly helpful, patient, and just downright nice.

For those reading this from Virginia, I have never been prouder to be a United Methodist from Virginia! In case you didn’t know, our delegation did not agree on all one thousand pieces of legislation. Nor do we agree on those that most painfully divide us. But my experience was that I could share my thoughts, feelings, theology, beliefs, and my very soul to my sisters and brothers in Christ, and would be deeply loved.

My overwhelming impression of General Conference is that the world of the United Methodist Church in the early 21st century is a vastly different world than it recently has been. On one or two days, I wore my father’s cuff links with the UM cross and flame on them. He had been a delegate several times himself. I can’t think of anywhere else that I could where those things with showing what a United Methodist nerd I am.

But that UM world is now undeniable global in nature. The General Conference now includes 40% of its membership from outside the U.S. As nervous as I got about what I would say in my legislative committee, and in the plenary (yes, I did, once), I also had to remember to break up my phrasing and use vocabulary that would make it easier for those who would translate my thoughts into French, Portuguese, and Kiswahili, among other languages. My favorite moments came in worship, when we were all invited to pray the Lord’s Prayer in our own first language. It was Pentecost come to life!

Another large learning was that what many call doing “the business of the church” can no longer be done in the same way as we have done in the past. Many of the long time political players of the larger church have lost their influence. Deals quickly arranged by a few players in the previously influential groups will no longer be readily accepted. If voices like the combination of Adam Hamilton and Mike Slaughter cannot sway delegates to even a moderate position, who can? And the church of the Central Conferences (outside the U.S.) has now found its own voice and will no longer be easily played by Americans who shallowly make appeals to say that their legislation is beneficial to the Central Conferences in order to sway their votes.

Yet there is a storm brewing just beyond the horizon. We heard just a distant rumble of thunder on the floor of this General Conference. The Central Conferences now pay about 1% of the global apportionments, while making up more and more of the membership of the global church, and the General Conference delegation. As the Death Tsunami (the average age of United Methodists in America is about 58, therefore in the next twenty years, much of the U.S. church’s wealth will be gone), hits the American church, and the global church will undoubtedly continue its growth, the way we have done church in the past, inside and outside the U.S. will not be sustained. What will the emerging church look like?

So in the end, the most critical issues of United Methodism are still primarily about the local church. The connection, as we call it, exists for the church to do ministry in ways that the local church cannot do on its own. And friends, there is fruit borne of this connectional ministry. Our connection enables my local church to be the hands of Christ for the children who live off of the dump in Phnom Phen, to provide transportation for the United Methodist Church (delivering everything from bishops and medicine, to pigs) in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and to provide food, shelter, and education to orphans of the civil war in Sierra Leone. My local church cannot do these things without the United Methodist connection. On the other hand, the future of the gospel in my own community is up to us. It is not up to things like restructuring the General Boards and Agencies. The future of my local church is up to how effectively we make new disciples in a church which is focused on meeting the needs of our changing community, and which is relevant to (especially young) people 21st century. So some of the Call to Action (a set aside Bishop, and restructure of Boards and Agencies) did not go through, the effort to shape Vital Congregations remains. The United Methodist Church’s future in the United States is dependent upon the vitality of new and existing local churches. Of course, the same is true throughout the world. May Christ hold us together. May Christ be our focus to lead us into a very new and different future. We are making disciples to transform the world. Perhaps my take away is that Christ is transforming us… and me.