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

Wednesday Afternoon

3:45 pm

The delegates passed a proposal to establish four regions in the United States. These would be used primarily for purposes of representation, such as on the ballot for Executive Leadership Team. The ballot for ELT has four parts, so that we would elect clergy and laypersons according to region, to make sure we have good geographical representation.

The ballots have been distributed. Here are the candidates, with one addition made from the floor (Tom Brodbeck). Delegates are to select one layperson and one clergy from each region. "Mark your ballots at this time," instructed Bishop Hirschy.

The persons elected are in bold.

East Region: Clergy

• Anthony Blair
• Daryl Elliott
• Todd Fetters

East Region: Laity

• Sherwood Cook
• Gary Croft
• James Byers
• Annette Sites

North Region: Clergy

• Kevin Cherry
• Phil Whipple
• Lester Smith

North Region: Laity

• Dan Paternoster
• Lowell Smith
• Sam Rupp
• Ruth Ralph

Central Region: Clergy

• Randy Carpenter
• George Kreger
• Bob Loar
• Tom Brodbeck

Central Region: Laity

• Molly Kessler
• Brian Hughes
• Dennis Burkholder

West Region: Clergy

• Stan McCammon
• Dennis Miller
• Sam Quinn

West Region: Laity

• Paul Michelson
• Thad Clements
• Tom Clounie

Alcohol Revisited

While the tellers are counting the ballots, Paul Hirschy brings up a question he was asked at break time. The delegates voted down the idea of churches having a tougher stand on alcohol than is in the Discipline. "Are we saying that a church is not permitted to do that?" he asked. He wanted to hear how the delegates feel this impacts a church which still wants to require total abstention.

Paul Michelson thinks that's still the case.

Nobody offered a motion, so the Bishop is moving along. He says, "In case any of you have any pipe dreams, we are not getting done today." He says we'll try to get done at noon tomorrow. That's the plan, and we're sticking to it.

Global Ministries Recommendation

The Global Ministries Leadership Team recommended that the bishop be required to hire a fulltime director of Global Ministries. Luke Fetters says this is a special competency they would hope the new bishop would want to emphasize. Plus, Global Ministries is essentially self-funding, and money raised by Global Ministries pays the director's salary.

Bishop Hirschy, asked to confirm that, didn't. He said the Finance Committee's recommendation is that the full director's salary be paid through assessments. Luke said that shot his rationale down. But in short, the Finance Committee seems to be agreeing with the GMLT recommendation.

They approved the recommendation.

Church Multiplication recommendation

This is a related recommendation. It asks that the bishop make "staff assignment" to have someone working in church planting. It doesn't need to be a fulltime position. The motion carried.

4:10

Conference Organization

The legal opinion from the Headquarters attorney came last Friday, saying we would need a referendum to do away with conferences. Since it looked like we would still have conferences, we needed to revise the chapters on conferences. Yours Truly threw this stuff together very quickly. I think it's probably good stuff, but I haven't looked at it since I put it together. I may decide that these ideas are totally stupid, and wonder what in the world was infecting my cranium.

But the bishop said we needed something, as he headed to a funeral in Illinois, and asked me to handle it. So this is what we got.

We're working our way through some proposals which would gut a lot of conference requirements and give flexibility as we move toward a one-conference system.

Several persons are speaking against some of the proposals, wanting to preserve in the Discipline some of the requirements of conferences. The proposals say, "Let conferences include these requirements in their own bylaws, if they want to. Just don't put a lot of stuff in the Discipline to force conferences to all look the same."

The idea of giving freedom seems to be very difficult for UBs to grasp. We fight tooth and nail to keep requirements in the Discipline. It's difficult to think we can just let other groups determine their own structure and bylaws. This type of discussion arose in 1993 when we gave local churches great freedom over their own local church structure. People wanted to keep requirements in there, even though local churches can be extremely diverse. Further back in our past, we put in the Discipline an order of worship service which, presumably, every church had to follow. Imagine.

4:30

We've eliminated requirements on conference officers, the purpose, annual conference duties, and now we're working on eliminating the requirements concerning the conference council. Every conference would still need a conference council, but they could decide its makeup, responsibilities, and more. Accomplished that. Lots of trees are being saved. Now we're looking at eliminated the chapter on conference superintendents--not doing away with the superintendency, just the requirements in Discipline involving them. It passes. Paper mills are laying off workers.

Now we're on the "Disbanding an Annual Conference" chapter. There are some questions about the disposition of conference assets, about how local churches in a disbanded conference are supervised in the new cluster structure. But that's all. Only minor changes in those chapters.

4:45

ELT Election Results

The ELT election results are announced by Bishop Hirschy. Back up to the top of this document, where the candidates were listed. The ones elected are in bold.

There is a proposal from Bob Eberly to increase the size of the ELT by adding two lay and two clergy members-at-large. They can come from any region, and would be appointed by the ELT.

Tom Brodbeck pointed out that we need to reconsider the section in the Discipline that deals with the make-up of the ELT. Craig Burkholder, the Parliamentarian--what a Pharisee!--says we need to declare Bob Eberly's motion out of order, accept Tom Brodbeck's motion to reconsider that section of Discipline, then bring back Bob's motion to amend that section.

Gayle Ruble Sr. (Mid-Atlantic) says if we let them add four persons, and they pick persons all from the same area, then we're back to the same problem of having one region with disproportionate representation. Dennis Miller says that's a good idea, and makes a motion that the members at large be chosen from the separate regions, one from each. The motion passes in that form.

So when the ELT meets, they'll choose four new members.

New Bishop and General Conference

Denny Miller said he's not sure if this is legal, but here's what he wants to do: give up his slot as a General Conference delegate, and give it to Ron Ramsey, as the newly-elected bishop.

There was some discussion that this would be a good thing. Denny Miller then made a motion that Ron Ramsey be named the sixth member of the US delegation to General Conference. The motion passed. There were a couple parliamentary hoops thrown into the mix, but you don't care about that.

Lester Smith said he needs to go to Nebraska tomorow to conduct a wedding, and asked to be dismissed. The delegates agreed. Bishop Hirschy says that if Hubert Schmucker, the alternate, shows up tomorrow, he'll be seated as a voting delegate for Michindoh Conference in Lester's place.

Ed Mast (Arizona) was asked to bless the evening meal, or at the least, invite God to bless it. He did so. The latter, that is.

There is no business meeting tonight. Instead, there'll be a service. So you eavesdroppers can do something else tonight.

5:00. Time for supper.