| Mark Conard |
 | Mark ConardHutchinson KS45 friends | 6 groupshttp://www.umcommunities.org/markconardLast Login: 10/24/2009view full profile |  RSS |
Thursday, April 03, 2008 10:02 pm | 3 comments | 266 views
The Legislative Process--Conferences Committee
by Mark Conard
The legislative process at General Conference is an interesting phenomenon. We can only deal with paragraphs in the Book of Discipline that have received petitions. If there is something that should have been given attention and there is no petition, we cannot deal with it.
Another factor in the legislative process is that, regardless of the wording or intention of any petition, it can be turned upside down and inside out and made to come out exactly the opposite of what the petitioner intended!
Each petition includes the disciplinary paragraph being addressed, a specific petition number, the name(s) of the petitioner(s), and any organizational entity that is represented. It was amazing to me to realize that individual clergy or laity can petition General Conference directly without going through any intermediate stage or step. Early on, I thought that this was problematic, but I have found value in this practice. It offers creative, sometimes edgy and off-the-wall proposals. In many instances, they can be easilyl dismissed, but there are often those that bring creativity and clarity in refreshing ways.
This time around, the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table have the most petitions to be considered. Many of them have to do with the proposed changes to become more truly a "worldwide" church. There are also petitions from individuals that deal with much of the same material. I would not be surprised to see the legislative committee on Conferences choose to work with an individual's petitions rather than those coming from the Council of Bishops and the Connectional Table!
This has nothing to do with the competence of the proposals coming from the Council of Bishops or the Connectional Table. It has to do with what I consider to be widespread ambivalence toward general church leadership throughout the denomination.
This is signified nowhere more powerfully than how we treat bishops. On the one hand, we elevate them to the highest office that our denomination offers. On the other hand, we take them out of functional leadership positions in General Conference. They no longer have voice or vote.
This time around, there are proposals dealing with conferences that come from the Global Young People's Convocation and Legislative Assembly. The immediate temptation for those of us who have done this before is to dismiss the proposals out of hand as unrealistic and idealistic. However, I have decided that, in 2008, that time has come for us to act in just such a way!
What would the church look like if we adopted their proposals, including:
• Assuring that no less than 20 percent of the elected General Conference delegates shall be youth or young adults between the ages of twelve (12) and thirty (30), and
• Holding no more than two (2) consecutive General Conferences in the United States;
Will these proposals pass? Probably not, but we ought to give them our thoughtful attention. The young people of our church cared enough to send these petitions, and the legislative committee on Conferences should care enough to give them our best thought.
| Comments |
| Those are certainly "provocative proposals" and would change the way that the global church is in ministry. I think that it may be more feasible for no more than 2 general conferences consecutively to be held in the United States, but both are good stuff.by Andrew Conard | |
| I was (am?) a founding member of a professional organization that wanted to be understood and accepted as a truly "international society"...it's even in the name. We concluded early on that the annual meeting should alternate between a US and non-US location to the extent possible given the leadership of the organization. There were two reasons for that decision. First, simple appearances. If we met internationally, we must be international. Second, given the nature of academic conferences, where a meeting is held affects who will submit proposals to participate, largely for budgetary reasons. When the conference is in Europe, the percentage of US participants is lower than when it's in the US, which opens the door to a broader array of folks than would have been the case if the conferences were always in the US. Requiring at least every third General Conference to be held outside the US would be a MARVELOUS idea! It would help US members better understand and appreciate that we are a global church and that not all the world is like the US...and that not all the world likes the US. The problem I see is the tremendous expense associated with such a move given the (current) proportion of delegates from the US. As for the youth proposal, I'm less enthused. I like the intent very much, but don't think it would help decision making. In fact, quite the opposite. As an example, one of our GC delegates is a very bright, wonderful young woman of 19 or 20, I think. I forget which legislative committee she was placed on, but it's one of the more technical, administrative committees. She has no clue (as she confessed) about what most of the stuff that committee deals with. Is she well suited to making those decisions? The organizational/management economist in me cries out "NO!" Granted, given there are enough people who DO know the material well, it may not make a difference...but it cannot HELP the process to have so many poorly suited people involved in decision making. Requiring 20% of the delegates to be between 12 and 30 seems unwise to me. And that's not even appealing to my "anti-quota" philosophical bias. Peace, Mikeby Mike Sykuta | |
| But Mike, how is that different from an adult who's on a legislative committee her or she knows nothing about? We don't suddenly gain all knowledge of technical administrative committee work when we turn 31.by Wesley Sanders |