What is Beautiful: Holy Conferencing

(written last Monday; two days after NC's Annual Conference ended)

This was my 4th Annual Conference.  Unlike others, I did not attend them until I had to.  And it was beautiful.  It was the Church being the Church.  It was not perfect.  There were a few problems with the opening communion service.  We went almost four hours the second day without a break and rescheduled the flash mob and rescheduled the picnic.  I struggled in the hotel room with my 9 month old.  I struggled with running into friends I hadn't seen in months while running an urgent errand and having to discern on the spot just how urgent it was.  As a body, we debated many things.  A couple votes were very close.  We listened to each other, to our elderly and to our youth.  We remembered the dead and sang "Hymn of Promise."  We honored the retirees and sang "Great is Thy Faithfulness."  Unlike previous years, the local pastors were licensed during the final worship service, combined with commissioning and ordination.  As a licensed local pastor not yet commissioned, I really appreciated it.  And as a young clergy person and someone still in the middle of that process, I felt as though Bishop Hope's words were directed at me, too.  "We're betting the farm on you!"  "You're good news!"  Earlier that morning with Bishop Goodpastor (of the Western NC Conference) and June Atkinson (State Superintendent of Public Instruction), I heard the best John Wesley quote ever: (paraphrased)

JW to some of the early Methodists: Go work among the children.
Some early Methodists: But we have no gift for this.
JW: Then you have no call to be Methodist. 

Two other fun notes related to my daughter at Annual Conference:

I was amused that she was in some of the pictures shown at the Hispanic/Latino Ministries Luncheon - and she's now in pictures of the luncheon! (http://nccumc.org/hispanic/)

I completely forgot to pack college paraphernalia for myself, much less Isabel, for the picnic celebrating higher education.  So, I borrowed a Duke shirt from my sister, who, unthinkingly, dressed Isabel in light blue.  We ran into many folks who commented on our two different shades of blue!  (For readers unfamiliar with NC universities, light blue is the color of Duke's biggest rival, UNC.)