The United Methodist Church is deeply divided and we will just be for the next foreseeable future. We are unified by name only.

With a smirk and a shrug I will go back to Dallas, with nothing to show but experience. But, I was here…being.

But, like a flower growing from the cracks in the sidewalk, there is hope when there is separation. Let us not fear difference, fear diversity, fear change. What kind of change may come in the next quadrennia? Are we open to the kind of transforming change that calls us to greater faith, greater hope, greater love?

I guess what I want you to see, hear and sense from me on this conversation over inclusion: love never ends. I pray that the experience of me and you, me and the world, is an exuberant and extravagant love. My hope it is the kind of Love that points to God’s Love. Let us together seek love in our thoughts and actions every moment.

Maybe we have now lost our lives to gain it. What about our conferences? Districts? Local churches? Their committees? The people who gather? The pastors who proclaim the Word? We may all need to die, to lose, in order to live and gain so much more! Sure, we can find a plan, but we will need God’s grace to move us all forward.

What will this mean for clergy across the connection? Will it mean that we have clergy persons who serve faithfully according to their gifts but are still ineffective? Or, that we have ineffective churches who will receive effective pastors? Will it mean that effective pastors will be appointed to ineffective churches? Will it mean ineffective pastors be appointed to effective churches? Moreover, to what end will churches and pastors be held accountable to their effectiveness?

In my opinion, this decision calls all of us, clergy and the churches they serve, to hold each other to greater account. A few thoughts as I continue to consider this: Make each other better for the sake of Christ in the community and the world. Encourage one another in the Spirit and in Truth. Be open to co-mutual evaluation so that the community is served first and best by you. WE ARE IN THIS TOGETHER! Do not give up faith; hold to what is right and just; keep the heart of Christ close to your own.

Pray for me and our clergy sisters and brothers who will have to shape their thinking and being around what it means to be called, nurtured in that call and sustained in that call of God on our lives. Also, I will ask an additional favor: please hold me to the greatest accountability to my love of God and neighbor in all that I do. Without your help, I am incomplete. I, in turn, will covenant to hold you to greater account to that love of God and neighbor in all you do.

It is appropriate for us to center our worship around the Gospel of Mark this week at General Conference 2012. This quadrennium, we are faced with the urgency of facing God’s world and it’s challenges. What can we learn from Mark?

In the midst of the work to be done there is a Markan urgency. Let’s hurry to get the work done to encourage vital congregations, life-giving service and transformative community-building. I know that when I come home I’ve got work to do and work to be done to me, so that together the transformed world would be made as we follow Jesus Christ. Who is with me?

Well, then, let’s get on with it! Let’s go!!!

The General Administration legislative committee were facing a petition to restructure our boards and agencies. For four years, many have been working diligently to propose a structure of the church that would streamline services for efficacy and efficiency. And, given three days and a group of 60, the plan failed gloriously. (We will see what happens on the floor of Conference.) We were in need of change and courage.

Tonight, we celebrated women in ministry. I give God thanks for those clergywomen who have affected my life and my profession deeply: Elizabeth Wright, Kathleen Baskin-Ball, Lisa Greenwood, and Linda Roby. However, there are still churches who would not welcome mentors like mine. We are still in need of change and courage.

Please continue to pray for our United Methodist Church: we need change and courage. Maybe the courage to change comes from us; the courage to change to open doors, open hearts and open minds begins with you and me.

Today, I was with a group of Congolese delegates as they were describing an act of violence (certainly reminiscent of other acts committed in the name of change, democracy and freedom). The delegates were insistent that the Church needs to speak out against those acts of violence, that the Church apologize for its silence, and that the Church needs a prophetic witness in creating a better, brighter future for our children and our children’s children.

Tonight, we worship a God who urges us to repent, to be shaped by a love that will take us far into the future. Stepping forward in faith, knowing our sordid history, we press on reaching for the Love that ultimately brings us together…maybe, just maybe, one smile at a time.

What issues, concerns and/or problems hurt your heart? What action encourages your spirit in response to those issues, concerns and/or problems?

Let’s consider the corners of God’s world as we move through our week. Consider the highways, underpasses, rural villages, urban centers, closets, deserts, forests and oceans where God’s people reside and hide. Help us to stand with those everywhere and at all times to be Christ for many; God, help us to be open to be stood with in our place and time as well.

For me, my time today is dedicated to those in the churches in my growing up who helped to redirect a young person with a lot of questions. And, to the patient pastors who sat and listened to the meanderings of a seminarian and pastor. And, to my family who continue to show me what love means.

Here, at General Conference, I pray that the delegates are considering for themselves how their hearts, minds and actions will reflect the mentors in their lives. We’ve heard five addresses and each of them have had a tread: discipleship. Self, community and world were introduced as levels of discipleship. So, in response, we are asked to make disciples starting with us.

Think back to your mentors: what difference were they trying to make in you? Open your ears (again) to listen to their direction and open your eyes (again) to see that there are opportunities to share faith, hope and love.

Sitting now in the auditorium I see the delegates from all over our world who, in their own communities of faith and service, are shaping the lives of children, youth and adults. Last Sunday, these persons preached and taught about the disciples being called to ministry. For centuries, now millennia, those called by Christ have tried to make their communities of Christ better; that’s what we are about these ten days as well.

We are talking about denominational restructuring, ministers in transition, and eliminating poverty and disease. There is hope in the world! Pray that we are encouraged by the Spirit to remember the children and youth who will follow us! Pray also that the Church is better after these ten days than it was when we first began.

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