Soon after Christmas you and I will be able to go to the Upper Room’s web site and begin using a Prayer Guide for our upcoming United Methodist General Conference. I like this option to join together in prayer for the delegates who will be in Tampa, Florida, April 24 through May 4. As a denomination engaged with the world and its issues, we should never be surprised that our General Conference grapples with matters of utmost urgency and importance. What greater opportunity and need do we face than to join together and pray?
The Prayer Guide will cover the forty days leading up to General Conference and then the ten days of the event itself. I love the notion that so many United Methodists will join together in prayer for one purpose.
General Conference will consider proposals to make significant changes to the structure of the general church. Plus, the delegates will set a budget for the next four years, consider proposed changes in our Social Principles and vote on proposals to focus all of our attention on creating and nurturing vital congregations.
Also during the ten-day event, our bishops will formally present the five-year strategic plans which all United Methodist churches are developing. Our Vision 2015 Team is currently at work on our plan.
Also of local interest, Rev. Dr. Tim McClendon, former pastor of First UMC, Cheraw, has been nominated to be elected as a bishop next year. Elections of new bishops will take place during the Southeastern Jurisdictional Conference. It will be held July 18 – 20 at Lake Junaluska, NC.
Let’s keep our delegates, and especially Tim McClendon, in our prayers. For more information, go to www.upperroom.org; www.advocatesc.org; or www.generalconference2012.org.