Annual Conference After Show
Thanks to Andy Ihnatko (yes, I spelled his last name from memory, thank you very much) from MacBreak Weekly, I finally have an iOS blogging client that doesn't make me want to injure myself or anyone else. His "pick of the week" on the show this week was an iPad app called Blogsy and it is fantastic. That takes me one step closer toward being able to abandon my computer for all but about 10% of my tasks (image & video editing, Skype, writing really long pieces, and desktop publishing).
Enough of the tech talk, though, for that is the subject of my other blog.
I returned last night from the Arkansas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. It was a long week. The United Methodist Church meets every four years at General Conference and there we make decisions concerning the polity and structure of the whole church. Ou next General Conference is in 2012 so we elected delegates at our Annual Conference this year who will go next year. The clergy and laity groups each elect 6 delegates, 6 more delegates to Jurisdictional Conference (where new bishops are elected), and three alternates. In all, 30 people were elected in 3 days. This was my first time to vote as I wasn't eligible to vote last time because I hadn't yet been ordained.
OK, enough of the nerd talk, right? Actually, the voting was pretty important because it meant that we had to stay in the conference most of the time so that we wouldn't miss a ballot. I spent less time visiting with people this year than years past because of this. The Asbury Seminary alumni were pleased to host J.D. Walt for our alumni lunch. It was great to visit with him and to hear of some exciting things going on in the world of Wesleyan Methodism.
The Confessing Movement of Arkansas hosted Dr. Chris Bounds from Indiana Wesleyan University. Chris is a great guy and one of the smartest people I've ever met. It was great to catch up with him and hear him speak at both the CMA breakfast and on the floor of the Annual Conference.
We also passed a new and radical direction for our conference called Imagine Ministries. That was a significant deal and am proud of the work the IM team did and look forward to joining in their work for years to come.
Enough of the tech talk, though, for that is the subject of my other blog.
I returned last night from the Arkansas Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. It was a long week. The United Methodist Church meets every four years at General Conference and there we make decisions concerning the polity and structure of the whole church. Ou next General Conference is in 2012 so we elected delegates at our Annual Conference this year who will go next year. The clergy and laity groups each elect 6 delegates, 6 more delegates to Jurisdictional Conference (where new bishops are elected), and three alternates. In all, 30 people were elected in 3 days. This was my first time to vote as I wasn't eligible to vote last time because I hadn't yet been ordained.
OK, enough of the nerd talk, right? Actually, the voting was pretty important because it meant that we had to stay in the conference most of the time so that we wouldn't miss a ballot. I spent less time visiting with people this year than years past because of this. The Asbury Seminary alumni were pleased to host J.D. Walt for our alumni lunch. It was great to visit with him and to hear of some exciting things going on in the world of Wesleyan Methodism.
The Confessing Movement of Arkansas hosted Dr. Chris Bounds from Indiana Wesleyan University. Chris is a great guy and one of the smartest people I've ever met. It was great to catch up with him and hear him speak at both the CMA breakfast and on the floor of the Annual Conference.
We also passed a new and radical direction for our conference called Imagine Ministries. That was a significant deal and am proud of the work the IM team did and look forward to joining in their work for years to come.