Annual Conference #2

Long post, my apologies…

The Annual Conferences of the United Methodist Church will be spending much of their time electing delegates, both Clergy and Laity, to represent them at General and Jurisdictional Conferences. This is a process that occurs every four years and is the most “political” of all UM political practices, from my point of view. Not that politics is a bad thing. I heard an interesting analogy at some point at Conference that went something like this:
“Ideas are arrows and Politics is the bow. Politics is the entity that gives flight and direction to Ideas. You can have all the arrows in the world, but without a bow they’re pretty ineffective.”
People often say they wish “we could just leave politics out of the Church.” Yeah, that would be nice, but what’s the alternative? Just hope that everyone will be attuned to God and agree on everything? Well, we’ve tried that before. Read Galatians chapter 2 and let me know what you think. If those two guys can’t agree I doubt we have much of a chance.
Kudos to the Laity of the NTAC, it only took us twelve ballots to elect twelve delegates and three alternates. The Clergy took twenty-four ballots to elect the same numbers. Here’s a break-down of how the Laity delegation turned out:
Age:
20’s – 1; 30’s – 1; 40’s – 3; 50’s – 4; 60’s – 5; 70’s – 1 - - average age = 51.9 years old
Ethnicity:
Caucasian/Anglo – 12; African-American – 3 - - 20% ethnic minority
Previous Elections:
0 – 4; 1 – 5; 2 – 1; 3 – 2; 4 – 2; 5 – 0; 6 – 0; 7 – 1; 8+ - 0 - - four first-time delegates
Districts:
DD = Dallas/Denton; DN = Dallas Northeast; DS = Dallas South; PS = Paris/Sulphur Springs; SM = Sherman/McKinney; WF = Wichita Falls
DD – 7; DN – 4; DS – 1; PS – 0; SM – 0; WF – 3
These numbers are rather interesting. It shows that we’re top-heavy in the age department. We are close to having good representation in the ethnicity department, though we lack anyone of Hispanic, Asian or American Indian descent. I’d say four first-time delegates is a good number, equaling about 27%. Any more than that and I think we’re getting into a harmful lack of experience. The largest district, DN, had a strong showing while the second largest district, DD, had an outstanding showing. The third largest district, DS, showed poorly while the smallest district, WF showed very well. There was no one elected from PS and no one from SM submitted material to be included in the voting guide.
Ultimately, I think we elected a very strong Laity Delegation. Electing a few more “young” delegates would be helpful, as would spreading out the district representation a bit. Two churches had two delegates elected, also a problem.
I don’t want this to sound like sour grapes. As some who read this know, I submitted myself as a candidate, but was not elected. Frankly, I didn’t expect to be elected. My understanding is first-time candidates are rarely elected. However, I’m glad I participated. Whether or not I’m ever elected in the future is of no immediate concern. Do I think I could help? Sure. Do I think they can be effective without me? Absolutely. I’m not so vain as to think I’m a savior for the Conference or the UMC as a whole. But I think I can help. If nothing else, maybe I can convince someone from Sherman to submit a profile…