A live report from the 2005 US National Conference and General Conference.
Written, with occasionally annoying commentary, by Steve Dennie, UB Communications Director

Tuesday Afternoon

Page 3

1:40

We've launched into Discipline revision, starting with the proposals from Report 82 (download PDF file), The National Church. Proposal 34-1 was quickly adopted. Now they are on 34-2, which deals with the Duties of the Bishop.

Daryl Elliott (Mid-Atlantic clergy) proposed an amendment which would make the bishop an ex officio member of the General Conference delegation. This year, because we're electing a new bishop, that person won't be a member of the delegation for the General Conference, which meets on Thursday and Friday. This would make sure the bishop--whether new or "used"--is on the delegation.

Luke Fetters liked the idea. He pointed out that the leader of every other national conference will be represented at General Conference. The amendment passed on a voice vote.

Paul Michelson moved to preserve the wording of current paragraph 622.3, which gives the bishop responsibility for general administration (like with the UB Headquarters building). It passed.

Anthony Blair proposed changing the duty, "Station pastors in conjunction with cluster leaders and Personnel Relations Committees of the local churches," to read, "Station pastors in conjunctions with other assigned to that task." Keep it open-ended. It passed. And then the amended proposal 34-2 passed.

A lot of the Discipline revision material is fairly minor stuff, like terminology changes to fit the new structure. For instance, since we're eliminating the National Board, all references to it now go to the Executive Leadership Team. That's what 34-3 was about. And 35-1 eliminated the whole chapter on the National Board.

1:55 pm

Executive Leadership Team

Now we're on the chapter for the ELT, that entity which was thoroughly demonized during the talks about joining the Missionary Church. Now, suddenly, we're giving that group more power (the powers previously belonging to the National Board).

Proposal 36-1 passed quickly--nothing significant. Proposal 36-2 set the constituency of the ELT at nine persons--the bishop, four laypersons, and four clergy. Mid-Atlantic offered an amendment to bump it up, adding two additional clergy and two additional lay members-at-large. The other four would come from geographic regions (one lay and one clergy from each). The current ELT, as elected in 2001, is heavily from the Indiana area. This would spread things out geographically.

Jim Kendall (Michigan) wanted five regions instead of four, and do away with the member-at-large idea. He offered an amendment to do something that Tom Brodbeck challenged as not parliamentarily proper. Personally, I'm lost, but I suspect Tom has a point. We seem to have an amendment, followed by an amendment to the amendment by substitution, or some such wizardry. Okay, the bishop just now ruled Jim's motion out of order, so I can stop trying to figure it out.

They voted on the idea of four regions, plus four at-large members. Phew, that was close. Division is needed. Now, people are asking, "What exactly were we voting on?" The bishop explained that if you want to get to Jim Kendall's proposal for five regions, you need to vote "No" to the proposal on the floor. This stuff is really fun.

Bob Eberly pointed out that the Mid-Atlantic proposal would put more people on the ELT than the Michigan proposal (presented by Kendall). It would be 12 vs. 10 people. For whatever that's worth.

Now the Parliamentarian had to get into the act. I'm confused. How about if I just stop typing until the dust settles, and then tell you who's still standing?

Now there's a disagreement about how many people each proposal would put on the ELT. There's talk of 6 + 6 + 4 at-large, totalling 17. We're attempting to commit acts of basic math, and failing.

Okay, now they're voting on something or other. Hands are held up, either in voting or in worship. Voting, I guess. Looks like the "no"s won that one, but I'm not sure what they no-ed. It was 32-no, 29 yes. Now we're moving on to a new proposal, and I don't know what we just defeated. I hope the secretary is getting all of this right, because I'm sure not.

Anyways, we're moving on. Dan Paternoster (Michigan lay) wants the directors to be voting members of the ELT, rather than just advisory (as proposed). George Kreger (Michindoh clergy) doesn't like the idea of putting staff on the ELT, and of putting the bishop's subordinates in a role where they can make decisions regarding the bishop. Makes sense to me. Evidently made sense to the other delegates, because the amendment lost big-time on a voice vote.

2:20 pm

Jim Kendall is back with the idea of expanding to five regions. He said it would better represent the number of churches.

Pat Jones (Mid-Atlantic clergy) pointed out that the number of churches doesn't represent the number of people.

I just discovered that my file transfer program shut down a while back. So some of you have been furiously refreshing, and in vain. Sorry about that. It's all there now. Obviously.

Oops, they're voting. I think it's on the idea of having six regions instead of five. I'm not sure how they got there. Doesn't matter. The motion lost on a hand vote. 40-18. That puts us back on the idea of having five regions. So evidently I missed an amendment to go from five to six regions.

Denny Miller (Central clergy) said he wants to stay with four regions.

The five-region proposal lost on a strong voice vote. That puts us back on the original motion. Boy, was that a waste of time. They voted, and only one person opposed the original motion. "This is what I love about these things," said Tom Brodbeck. "We spent all that time talking about it, and changed nothing." People laughed.

Proposal 36-3 passed, and now we're on 36-4, the duties of the ELT. It passed quickly. Then 36-5 did. So much for the ELT.

Dan Paternoster, who had wanted the directors to be voting members, now spoke in favor of having them at least listed as advisory members. He made a motion to list "the bishop's staff" as advisory members under the ELT personnel paragraph. "Depends on what you mean by staff," said Bishop Hirschy.

The motion lost on a voice vote. Then Tom Brodbeck raised a point of order. The issue had already been voted on, so we technically needed a motion to reconsider 36-2. So now David Burkett made a motion to reconsider. Oops, another point of order thingy. I love this stuff. Here we go: the motion to reconsider was evidently in order, but they just voted against it.

2:35 pm

Property

There are three proposals regarding chapter 37 of the Discipline, Property. They're going to handle the three proposals together, since it should be considered a complete package.

Bob Eberly (Mid-Atlantic lay) noted paragraph 652.7, which says, "Should a local church fail to follow these established procedures [for withdrawal], the property will still be considered to be held in trust for the Church of the United Brethren in Christ, USA." He wondered: since we approved a referendum which gave local churches title to their property, how can we be talking about the church holding their property in trust?

A motion was made to delete 652., and Denny Miller spoke in favor of doing that. So did Duane Huerlein (Michigan lay). So did Ron Ramsey.

Lester Smith said that if we delete that line, the rest of the section on "Procedures to be Followed for Withdrawal" becomes a moot point. If they hold title, they can pull out--period. No need to follow any procedures.

Pat Jones said the concern was to prevent situations where a few people could gain enough control to pull off a withdrawal of the church from the denomination.

Paul Lehman (Mid-Atlantic lay) spoke against deleting the item. Bob Eberly said you can't give a Christmas present and then take it back (referring to the Property referendum).

Bishop Hirschy is calling for a vote. The hand vote showed 44-13 in favor of deleting the line.

Paul Michelson said he wondered why paragraph 652 is under property, rather than under membership. "Do you see what I'm driving at, Tom?" he directed at Tom Brodbeck. He got a blank stare back. I don't see what he's driving at. But he has a doctorate and I don't, so who am I to say anything? My esteemed former History professor made a motion to delete the whole rest of paragraph 652. There was talk of whether or not it should be "transferred" to a more appropriate section, like the Cluster chapter, rather than "delete" it entirely. The consensus seems to be that this material can be added back in once we get to the Cluster stuff.

Denny Sites (Mid-Atlantic clergy) said ... Oh, never mind. The motion to delete proposal 37-2, or the rest of paragraph 652, passed.

Clusters

On to the chapter on Clusters. This is a new chapter, and kind of a new concept for us. The idea is to organize all churches into clusters of, on average, 7 churches. There has been a lot of shade-tree talk about how the clusters will work, their authority over pastors and over churches, and other issues. So this particular discussion may go on for a while. The people who think we could, possibly, get done early and not need an evening session and maybe be able to adjourn early on Thursday--well, glory be to euphoria.

Drats, lost my FPT connection again. Craig Burkholder, sitting in front of me, said I'd been stuck at 2:35, and now it's 2:55. Sure enough, the connection was lost. I'll blame it on the college firewall. Or Satan. Sorry about that.

3:00

US National Conference

Proposal 32-1, on the Purpose of the National Conference, lost on a spectacularly weak voice vote. It remains the same.

Are ya' bored yet?

Local Church Covenant

Now we're on 32-2, which presents the Local Church Covenant. This is a new thing. Every church would be required to sign a covenant stating that they agree to certain things. If they don't, they can't remain as member congregations. This is one of the really major proposals.

Anthony Blair offered an amendment to the list of responsibilities of congregations, "They will participate in a cluster." So the complete list would look like this:

(1) They are committed to the Confession of Faith.

(2) They agree to abide by the Constitution and Discipline of the US National Conference.

(3) They are passionate about fulfilling the Great Commission in their local church.

(4) They are interested in partnering with other like-minded churches.

(5) They agree with the core values of the United Brethren in Christ, International.

(6) They are willing to pay an annual partnership fee.

(7) They will participate in a cluster.

Paul Michelson raised questions about what exactly should belong to a cluster. Should a pastor? Should a church? Should peanuts and chocolate? Yes, he said that. The Central delegation wants clusters to be for pastors, not for churches. It's an important distinction. Is this a congregational decision, or a pastor's decision? Through what will accountability be brought to bear? The latter ideas actually came from Luke Fetters, who is speaking on this now.

Roger Burk (Michigan clergy) was on the study committee that looked at clusters. He said in this restructuring, there will be a number of questions that aren't answered; we can't answer everything at once. He said there are things that aren't altogether clear, but the connection between the church and cluster should be firm.

Tom Datema said multi-staff churches enter the equation here. He said you could have a situation where a worship pastor is involved in a cluster with other worship pastors, rather than the one in which the senior pastor participates. (He and Anthony Blair spent much of lunch arguing, in a friendly way, over some of these issues. I got bored eventually and moved to a different table.)

David Rawley (Mid-Atlantic clergy) said, "My wife knew I loved her long before we were married, but she still asked me to spell it out in a commitment." He thought it was needed to add point 7.

Tom Brodbeck said he felt we first needed to determine what a cluster is, before we can vote on whether or not every church must participate in one.

3:15 pm. Order of the day. Break.

Go to Tuesday, page 4