Annual Conference

It would be an overstatement to say that I am glad that health and other issues in my parish limited my time at this year's Annual Conference. But probably not much of one.
I am 47 years old. I have been going to Annual Conference for 34 years. When I was a young teenager, Conference left me perplexed. I had no idea what they were talking about most of the time. When I was a young pastor, Conference often left me angry. I thought that those running the show had no idea what they were talking about. Now, at the point where there are more Conferences behind me than in front of me, I just find it a nuisance.
Several things happen in those meetings, and few of them have any real meaning for me. I am honored to be present and among my sisters and brothers for the annual ordination service. I feel deeply that we owe it to those who have passed muster to support them on that evening. Because some of them may never feel supported by the body again. I think that the Memorial Service matters, because those who have gone before us have made us who we are, and we should show respect to their families for the sacrifices they all, inevitably, made for their mom or dad to serve the church.
Beyond these items, ugh! We debate inane resolutions, comb through budgets, establish study committees, and year after year, watch our churches and membership dwindle incessantly and unceasingly. And yet we do the same things, year after year. I remember something about a definition of insanity as doing the same things in the same ways over and over again, and expecting a different result. Yeah, we're crazy. Stinking, steaming, whacked out crazy.
And then there's my favorite part: declaring to the clergy that we are expensive, non-productive burdens on the Conference's neck. Year after year, the insurance program becomes more expensive and less valuable. We are in one of the highest-risk groups, healthwise, because the demands that fall on us are inherently unhealthy in every way: physically, emotionally, psychologically and spiritually. Just don't ask the laity to protect us or our families. But just wait until Aunt Jane has a hangnail. Then, we're the most important people in the world. And we better show up immediately. Or else.
And that leads to the hardest part of Annual Conference for me. We make great plans in those meetings. We get filled up with a bigger picture of the faith, the ministry and the challenge of the gospel. And then we go home. We go home to people who don't want us to do anything other than sit in the office and wait for the next terrible thing to befall a member of the church, so that we can run right over. That means that they want chaplains rather than pastors. And those who are outside the church better just find their own way in. In spite of the fact that most of us in the church were always surrounded by tour guides every step of the way. We go home to people who don't want to pay us or provide us with any benefits whatsoever. We go home to people who feel that they are active in and supportive of the church if they show up once a month. We go home to people who, in many places, don't care about ministry outside their own doors, and couldn't care less about paying the apportionments that fuel our shared work. And the bishop and district superintendents will implore us (clergy) to get them paid (implore means threaten). And in all of the churches I have served, there was nothing I could do in the churches that didn't pay their apportionment to get them to pay, and there was nothing I could have done in the churches that did pay them to make them stop. Either the given church was excited to be a part of the United Methodist connection, or they didn't give a damn. One or the other. (And I am thankful that my current assignment believes in being United Methodist!) We go home to try to share a vision that has never been seen in most of the pews, and most of them aren't looking. It is, in far too many places, a soul-killing disparity between the commission of Annual Conference and the daily reality of church life.
And yet, we who have promised to see the world as our parish continue to fight the good fight, reach out to those who need Christ, and take the best care we can of those who are in our charge. And we do that in spite of the inanity of the leadership, the routine ingratitude of those we serve, and frequently sorry circumstances we work in. Because we believe in what we are doing, and why we are doing it!
If you want to know where the gospel happens, and is lived out, don't look to Annual Conference. It is artificial. It is temporary. It is fleeting. It is far too safe. No, the real action is out in the trenches, one-on-one, where everything is on the line every day.
And that is where the battles will be won. Because the war is already over. The good guy won. But only because he got out of the fort. Like Lucy in Narnia. See the movie, thank me later!