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June 21, 2018

Dear Reader,

Annual Conference can be an intense and focused time for the 500 or so members, guests, and staff that are part of the event. I’ve been going for more than 20 years. So, I don’t really know what that week is like for the other 23,420 United Methodists in Oregon and southern Idaho.

Some years the intensity ends after Conference and we return to the local church. Summers in church can be busy, with Vacation Bible School and other programs. But often they slow down with families (including the pastor) on vacation and a different pace of life.

This year seems different. We came away from Annual Conference with calls to action. For immigration. For an end to sexual abuse. For protecting families. For welcoming LGBTQ people into our churches. For standing up and speaking out. For disrupting the status quo.

If you were there, tell someone about it.

If you are curious, ask someone who was.

Grace and peace to you,
Greg Nelson, Director of Communications


CONFERENCE NEWS

Methodists join rally to support imprisoned asylum seekers in Sheridan

photo by Paul Jeffrey
Photos provided by Paul Jeffrey

Feeling increasingly frustrated with President Trump and his administration’s decision to separate asylum-seeking families from their children, several United Methodists joined a large crowd at the federal prison in Sheridan, Oregon, to demand better treatment of immigrants and their families.

“I felt some internal longing at Annual Conference for a call to action,” said Karlene Clark, pastor at Wesley UMC in Eugene. “I saw an opportunity to use my body to do something. How much worse do things need to get to move our bodies to action?”

According to the Statesman Journal Newspaper, there are currently 123 male asylum seekers being housed at the Sheridan Federal Correctional Institution. They arrived in mid-May and come from countries such as India, Nepal, Peru, Russia, Guatemala, Brazil, Armenia and more. The newspaper reported that at least six of the men housed there have been separated from their children.

Read more of this story on the Conference website.

The official Annual Conference report for 2018

Each annual conference files a wrap-up report with the United Methodist New Service. Here's the Oregon-Idaho report:

In the second year of a quadrennial theme of Do this and you shall live!,  based on Luke 10:26-28, Bishop Elaine JW Stanovsky lead the 50th Session of the Oregon-Idaho Conference.

The conference gathered in Boise, Idaho, June 13-16, 2018 as it does at least once each quadrennium to honor the merger of the Oregon and Idaho Conferences in 1968.

Building on a series of Table Talk sessions held across the episcopal area in the last three months, Bishop Stanovsky invited Rev. Brian Brown, a trainer with the Arbinger Institute, to lead the conference in a series of training and discussion sessions based on the book “Anatomy of Peace.” Meeting in small groups of 10-12, conference members and guests practiced the skills of dispute resolution and listening with their hearts.

Read more of the report on the Conference website.

What happened at Annual Conference?

If you are looking for resources to share the story of the 2018 Annual Conference Session, go to www.umoi.org/ACInfo to find download files, photos, and videos from the session. Some items are still being added, so check back if you don’t see what you’re looking for.

You can also read a wrap-up report on the conference website.

What are you missing?

A few items didn’t go home with their owners after Annual Conference.

If your health is suffering for lack of a Fitbit, glasses, or water bottle, contact Sally Blanchard at sally@umoi.org.


AROUND THE CONFERENCE
Stories from Annual Conference you might have missed

Awards honor service, courage, social justice efforts

The spirit and vitality of the Oregon-Idaho Conference is alive and well, with several people earning special recognition for their ministerial efforts during Friday night’s awards ceremony.
 
For her fearlessness in addressing the issue of immigration and speaking out on her own personal story as a Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals recipient, Yuni Rueda earned the Bishop’s Award from Bishop Elaine Stanovsky.
 
Rueda reminds us why we are United Methodists, Stanovsky said as she took the stage Friday night.
 
“You have been an incredibly powerful witness to us,” Stanovsky said. “You’ve put a face on those four letters – DACA. You’re a connector for us. May you never forget that God loves you and you are precious to God. God is working through you to bless the world.”
 
Find more of this story on the Conference website.

Ceremony honors returning Wallowa Lake land to Nez Perce

With one small rock, a monumental moment was honored at the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference gathering, when it was noted 1.5 acres of land at Wallowa Lake Camp will soon be returned to its rightful owners – the Nez Perce Tribe.
 
During a ceremony on Friday a rock from Wallowa Lake Camp was symbolically passed to representatives from the Nez Perce Tribe to honor and represent the vote taken on Thursday to return a parcel of land, river bottom land detached from the camp, that is ideal Sockeye Salmon spawning habitat.
 
“This sacred act was encouraged by the work done at the 2012 General Conference through the Act of Repentance with Native peoples,” said Camping and Retreat Ministries Executive Director Todd Bartlett. “This is also in line with two previous actions of the Oregon-Idaho annual conference: 1986 and 2007 when we returned land to the Klamath tribes.”
 
Read more of this story on the Conference website.

Commissioning worship calls for service, love and 'disruption'

The emotions of what she was about to embark on hit Jessie Cummins a whole 24 hours before she was commissioned as a provisional elder of the Oregon-Idaho Conference.

On Wednesday night, she was sitting in the sanctuary at Cathedral of the Rockies in Boise with Bishop Elaine Stanovsky, rehearsing the words she would utter the next night that would set her on this journey in ministry. Just an hour before this, she witnessed 17 candles being lit to honor the memory of 17 good and faithful servants in the Conference.

“I said to the Bishop, ‘I feel very overwhelmed,’” Cummins recalls. “She said, ‘Good. You should. Because at the end of your life, someone is going to light a candle honoring you.’”

In addition to Cummins' commissioning, Rev. Leroy Barber, director of congregational development and vitality for the Oregon-Idaho Conference preached on the story of the Good Samaritan in the gospel.

Barber, who is a member of the Greater Northwest Episcopal Area Innovation and Vitality team, said there is more to the Good Samaritan story than simply helping someone out who is in need.

Being a good neighbor means getting outside one’s comfort zone. Jesus, Barber said, is calling us to disrupt privilege.

“Jesus takes a familiar setting and he flips the story. He disrupts the order,” Barber said. “It’s like he didn’t read the Book of Discipline.”

Read more of this story on the Conference website.

Bishop’s address: In the midst of turmoil, run toward love

Even in the midst of uncertainty about the future of the United Methodist Church; even as we sometimes feel like things are crumbling and we can’t all agree on recognizing our differences there is still opportunity to live and love boldly, Bishop Elaine Stanovsky proclaimed during her Episcopal address to open the 50th session of the Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference.

She reminded laity and clergy sitting inside Boise First United Methodist Church, Cathedral of the Rockies, Wednesday night of the scripture introduced last year from Luke 10: 25-37 and how a lawyer testing Jesus on how to live eternally is both a call to live boldly in Jesus response and subsequent parable of the Good Samaritan.

“Who is my neighbor?” the lawyer asks Jesus in scripture.

Stanovsky said in her address Wednesday night that the way you treat a person makes them a stranger or a neighbor.

“That is a lot of authority,” Stanovsky said.

Read more of this story on the Conference website.

AROUND THE GLOBE

Clergy, laity file complaint against Sessions

More than 600 United Methodist clergy and laity say they are bringing church law charges against U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a fellow United Methodist, over a zero tolerance U.S. immigration policy — a policy that includes separating children from parents apprehended for crossing into the U.S. illegally.

However, an authority on church history and polity said he’s unaware of a complaint against a lay person ever moving past the district level. 

The group claimed in a June 18 statement that Sessions, a member of a Mobile, Alabama, church, violated Paragraph 2702.3 of the denomination’s Book of Discipline.

Specifically, the group accuses him of child abuse in reference to separating young children from their parents and holding them in mass incarceration facilities; immorality; racial discrimination and “dissemination of doctrines contrary to the established standards of doctrines” of The United Methodist Church.

All are categories listed in 2702.3 as chargeable offenses for a professing member of a local church.

Read more of this story from United Methodist News Service

Texas bishops issue statement, encourage continued response after child separation ends

We are heartened to see President Trump sign an executive order today ending his administration’s policy of separating families at the border. Furthermore, we commend him for taking this action and putting the needs of these children at the forefront.

The humanitarian and moral crisis that has escalated over the past several weeks along our southern border has been difficult to fathom. Approximately 2,000 children have been separated from their parents attempting to apply for asylum or seeking safety from the violence in their countries. Acknowledging the differences many persons have on matters of immigration and refugees, we call upon United Methodists to be public witnesses regarding the plight and conditions of these children. 

The forced separation of children from their parents produced consequences in the children’s emotional and mental development. We do not know what these children have experienced in their home countries or in their journey to the United States. The trauma some children have experienced can affect their well-being for years. Howard Markel, a noted American physician and medical historian, has said, “How much our society values its children can be measured by how well they are treated and protected.”

Read more of the Texas bishops’ statement on their website.

Annual conferences mixed on bishops’ plan

After singing “And Are We Yet Alive,” a number of U.S. annual conferences have weighed in on how The United Methodist Church might live in the future.

Various annual conferences have voted on resolutions related to the Council of Bishops recommendation for a way forward through the denomination’s potentially church-splitting divisions over homosexuality.
 
In May, a majority of United Methodist bishops recommended what they call the One Church Model.
 
Some conferences have endorsed that plan, which would leave questions of the ordination of LGBTQ clergy up to annual conferences and same-gender marriage up to local churches. Others have called for stronger enforcement of the denomination’s current prohibitions against same-gender weddings and “self-avowed practicing” gay clergy.
 
Read more of this story from United Methodist News Service.

COMMENTARY

Families Belong Together

Bishop Michael Hanley, The Episcopal Church

          … Speaking out and acting in ways that make our views known to the government and to the world is, I believe, a Christian imperative. …

 


 

 


This week in the
Annual Conference

Thursday, June 29

Ordinary Revival. Portland.

Friday, June 30

Ordinary Revival. Portland.


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