Wedneday, June 27

Wednesday focused on the United States structure. See reports 71 and 72. There were many issues involved, and much debate. It lasted practically all day.

Bishop Ray Seilhamer called the General Conference into session, and asked Rev. Winston Smith from Jamaica to read Scripture and lead in prayer.

Paul Hirschy gave the Pension and Ministerial Aid report.

Bishop Seilhamer then moved on to the Women's Ministries report. In introduction, he applauded the Women's Missionary Fellowship for being willing to re-engineer itself with new paradigms. Then he invited Joan Sider, the elected WMF president, to give the report on Women's Ministries.

Women's Ministries

The WMF board of directors has been working on this idea for several years. While the WMF has focused on missions, they wanted to broaden their scope to include a wide range of ministries involving women, with missions being just one component.

Joan pointed out the decline in interest in WMF throughout the North American church. An ad hoc committee began meeting to look at ways to infuse new life into WMF and excite women. They began realizing they needed to widen the umbrella and do what other denominations were doing--the larger concept of women's ministries, with missions being just one thing under that umbrella. They then fleshed out the other things they wanted to put under the umbrella.

They would have a women's Ministry Leadership Team, with six areas:

1. Missions
2. Evangelism
3. Care/Support (encouraging women to ministry to persons with specific needs (support groups, etc.)
4. Women's Life: Exhorting women to seize ministry opportunities in all seasons of life (moms, seniors, empty nesters, etc.)
5. Discipleship
6. Prayer

The National Women's Ministry Leadership Team would include these persons:

1. Director
2. The Coordinator of each ministry area (Missions, Care/Support, Women's Life, Evangelism, Discipleship, Prayer).
3. 3-4 members at large

Joan presented these recommendations:

1. That we adopt the proposal of the Women's Ministry model for the United Brethren denomination.

2. That Women's Ministry be a National Women's Ministry program. Rationale: As a working document, the model was designed as an international program, which is readily adaptable for each national conference.

3. That the Director of Women's Ministry be an elected position by the National Conference. Suggested criteria for nominees:

a. A woman of passion for women's ministry.

b. A woman of prayer.

c. A United Brethren member.

4. That the US Director of Women's Ministry be a member of the Executive Leadership Team.

5. That the ELT appoint the US National Women's Ministry Leadership Team.

6. That the current WMF Board of Directors continue to work with the Women's Ministry Leadership Team during the transitional period with a completion date of December 31, 2001.

7. That funding for the National Women's Ministry model for salaries and expenses, after December 31, come from special gifts, programs, and offerings specifically designated for Women's Ministry.

Joan emphasized that no money given to missions would be used for Women's Ministry.

Tom Brodbeck (Central) asked what the General Conference was to do with this report. If they intended this to be a national conference model, should they just refer it to the national conferences? Why would General Conference adopt a model which it had no ability to implement or impose? He thought it would be a more efficient use of time to just accept the report and refer it to the national conferences.

Joan replied that they wanted General Conference to approve this as a model for all national conferences. She didn't think it would be a waste of time to tweak the model at the General Conference level.

Brian Magnus (Canada) moved to adopt this as a model for other national conferences. The motion carried.

Bishop Seilhamer then thanked Joan Sider, and said the US National Conference would then need to deal with the model.

The US National Conference Begins

Bishop Seilhamer said we would next recess the General Conference and move into the US National Conference. He said he wanted the international delegates to remain in the room as observers, so they could see what goes on, but that they wouldn't have a voice or vote--they would only be observers.

Kyle McQuillen then commented on the procedure. He moved that we adjourn the General Conference, and reconvene later after the US National Conference finishes its work.

The Bishop then picked up his gavel, rapped the podium, and declared that the US National Conference was now in session.

US National Conference Structure

Paul Hirschy (left) took the podium to present the US National Conference Task Force Report. He gave an overview. He noted that one part would need to wait until the Constitution had been amended through a nationwide referendum in 2005. That part had to do with the constituency of the US National Conference--that each church could send its pastor and at least one layperson as delegates. So that part needed to wait.

The first part of the proposals dealt with editorial changes to the constitution. The Constitution, after a referendum in 1993, allowed the church to establish and participate in an international structure, and then to edit language in the constitution to make it consistent with that structure. There were only two suggested editorial changes: changing the term "general conference" to "national conference," and inserting "United states of America" after the words "Church of the United Brethren in Christ," to show that this is the constitution of the USA, not of the entire world (at least not anymore).

In addition to those editorial deletions, they felt they were within their rights to delete the words in bold from the following sentence in the Constitution:

"The national conference has authority to establish and participate in an international United Brethren church structure, and to edit constitutional language to reflect the same." There were arguments that removing those words exceeded the permission to edit language, and in fact removed a power of General Conference, but the delegates voted to delete those words from the Constitution.

Next, the delegates marched through about ten proposals without amendment.

Report 72-12 had an amendment on the line which says the US National Conference will elect a US Bishop, Education director, and Global Ministries Director. Since General Conference determined that they would elect the US Missions Director, the requirement that the US elect the position needed to be deleted. So some amendments were made to be consistent with the action of General Conference.

A new duty of the US National Conference was suggested: to approve a slate of candidates for Director of Global Ministries, for election at General Conference.

The US wanted to be able to determine the slate, which the international delegates would then participate in voting on. They wanted to be able to tell the General Conference, "These are candidates we are okay with." The problem is that General Conference could still nominate persons from the floor. There was discussion about that, including the ability to seal off the ability to make nominations from the floor.

An amendment was made in point 9 to give representation to mission districts outside the US, which right now would include Mexico, Haiti, and India. But that amendment lost, mainly because it would infringe on the autonomy of the United States by giving representation to countries outside of the US. (Advisory or observer status could still be granted to representatives from those countries.)

Lunch

Joe Bob Amara brought a report on conditions in Sierra Leone. Then James O'Sullivan, who founded the work in Jamaica in the 1940s, brought greetings.

Back to business.

Dr. G. Blair Dowden began with an amendment which would define doctrinal integrity as conformity with the Confession of Faith. Dr. Paul Fetters felt this amendment gives us an objective standard and is a guard against the winds of theological novelties which come along and challenge orthodoxy.

DuAnne Thrush (Mid-Atlantic) moved to add the Director of Women's Ministries among the persons to be elected by the US National Conference.

Mike Newman (Mid-Atlantic) didn't think this should be an elected position. He saw it on the same level as the other leadership teams--Healthy Church, Youth, etc. He wondered if we would need to elect a director of men's ministries, if such a organization was formed, or the leaders of other ministries.

They finally passed Proposal 72-12, with a variety of amendments, and then continued with the rest of the report. They stopped again on 72-14, about the role of the bishop.

Tom Brodbeck moved to delete the requirement that the bishop live near Huntington, Ind. Paul Hirschy said the task force discussed it, and felt that it was important for the bishop to leave near Huntington because of his responsibilities and need for interaction with the Headquarters staff.

There were amendments all along the way, but minor ones.

Break at 3:10.

Upon reconvening, the Bishop said he wanted the General Conference to elect a bishop this afternoon.

During the day, they approved these elements of a US National Conference structure:

A bishop elected by the US National Conference. A director of Education elected by the US National Conference. No longer have a Department of Church Services, nor an elected Director of Church Services. Several leadership teams with members appointed by the Executive Leadership Team (rather than elected by the delegates--a major change). Those are the Healthy Church, Global Ministries, and Administrative Leadership Teams.

They moved church planting (ethnic and Anglo) from the Global Ministries Leadership Team (Missions) to the Healthy Church Leadership Team.

They placed women's ministries under the Healthy Church Leadership Team.

Everyone really really wanted to get on to electing the bishop, but people kept proposing motions to reconsider things dealt with earlier in the day.

George Kreger (Michindoh) proposed requiring not only pastors, but Huntington College professors to abide by the Confession of Faith plus the official doctrinal positions. Right now, there's only one official doctrinal position: on depravity.

Dr. Paul Fetters said it was enough to require affirmation of the Confession of Faith. By also requiring that employees agree with the Depravity statement, he felt we were using the back door to add something to the Confession of Faith.

Luke Fetters, a faculty member at HC, said "This is serious dangerous scary stuff to a faculty member." He said he likes to introduce his students to other viewpoints, and if he did that with a position which didn't conform to the statement on Depravity, he could be in trouble with the denomination.

Dr. Dowden spoke against the idea, too. He said we could legitimately hold the president to all of the church's doctrinal positions, but didn't think we could hold all faculty to those positions. After all, the faculty come from a wide variety of denominational backgrounds, though they all must state their agreement with our Confession of Faith. He also questioned whether we could legally change the rules on faculty who are already on contract and even tenured, and now say they were not in conformity with United Brethren beliefs. He said he felt the Confession of Faith was enough.

Meanwhile, the clock ticked well past 5:00, which was supper time.

Lots of discussion. They finally voted, and the voice vote was too close to call. The standing vote showed that the requirement lost 33-13, which means those 13 spoke up pretty loudly.

Okay, that was an interesting way to spend 45 minutes. No time left to elect a bishop. Have to wait until Thursday morning.

Now the Bishop asked for a vote on the whole task force document, which they'd been amending all day long. It was adopted.

Phew.