Wednesday, June 11, 2008

General Conference 08 The Wesleyan Church

The General Conference of The Wesleyan Church is now history. At least the public action is over. All of the Memorials that were passed will not be effective until the new Discipline is printed and that will take several months.
Some of the highlights include:
  • First woman elected General Superintendent - JoAnne Lyons, CEO of World Hope International
  • Membership voting privileges extended to Community Members AND Churches desiring to have Community Members no longer have to get permission from the DS or District.
  • Leadership (Local Boards, Trustees, etc.) will have to be Covenant Members and that will have to be reaffirmed on a yearly basis.
  • A strong and spiritually sensitive statement on Immigration. The Wesleyan Church can be among the leaders of a Christian response to immigration. (I suspect this will enrage Rush and Hannity)
  • Communion is encouraged to be a monthly experience within the church!
  • Churches are encouraged to be aggresively involved in evangelism. If no converts in two years the church may revert to Developing Status.
  • Twenty five members are needed to have a church be established. Churches may revert to Developing Status if it drops to twenty or fewer members.

I am thankful to a friend from long ago who provided feeds from the Conference via his blog. Thanks Keith.

My thoughts about the conference from a long ways away are that it was a very typical conference. I am surprised there is not real time information coming from the Conference or that there was no broadcast or podcast of the major addresses. Hopefully we will be able to do this in the future. It would be healthy for the whole church to be able to hear our leaders and significant spokespeople.

I am looking forward to reading Jim Garlows message. I understand the two women speakers, one of which is a new GS, were also great messages. Looking forward to seeing them as well.

1 comment:

kerry kind said...

Rick, I'll get the "Forum on Holiness" addresses up as soon as possible. I don't yet have the raw footage from the tech people.

Peace.