Annual Conference 2010

A Future With Hope:  Living For Jesus

It was my pleasure to represent you this year at Annual Conference in Greenville.  Lauren Riddick was also there as your representative.  In an effort to conserve funds, conference was shortened this year by one day.  Attendees were also asked to go online and print reports that were needed.  The opening worship service was an All Saints Celebration and Holy Communion led by Richard Hayes who will become the new dean of Duke Divinity School in July.  The business session began after lunch.  Rev. Allen along with Christine Dodson gave an overview of financial status for the conference.  This was a lengthy and informative report that can be found online at www.nccumc.org.  One of the issues our conference will be struggling with in the future is benefit planning for our clergy and retirees as pension liabilities and health insurance are dramatically increasing.  Another concern of our conference is the number of small churches struggling to keep their doors open.  I thought it interesting that a survey showed that the average attendance for most congregations is 44% of their membership and that giving per member has increased.  With recent trends in the economy causing reduced reserves, local churches and our Annual Conference have hard financial decisions ahead.  Bishop Al Gwinn gave the State of the Church Address Thursday evening.  He presented 3 questions for us to think about:  1) Who are we!  2)  Where are we!  3) What is our calling?  Methodists are called to be warm-hearted Christians who believe in a vital relationship with Jesus Christ.  We believe in the means of grace and practice spiritual discipline:  Bible reading, prayer, fasting, Holy Communion, and acts of mercy.  Bishop Gwinn believes we are on the cusp of something different; at a “Y” in the road and that racism and other forms of exclusiveness are holding us back from being all that we can be.  We also must improve our relationships between clergy and laity.  Our calling is to seek the lost–to practice what we preach–to start living for Jesus.  His message can also be heard at the web address given above.

According to the Statistician’s Report given on Friday, there were 2,774 professions of faith in 2010.  At the end of 2009 there were 237,495 total members in the NC conference.  This was the smallest increase in many years.  A presentation was made about the new Methodist building located in Garner.  The plan is to be open for operation on June 28.  An open house will be held at a later date.  From the Board of Institutions report local churches were challenged by the bishop to participate in the 1K for 1Kid program.  The idea is to sponsor 1 child at the Methodist Children’s Home for 1 year for $1000.00.  The body of Annual Conference voted to hold next year’s conference in Raleigh.  Friday evening we were blessed to hear the African Children’s Choir and Tom Morris.

If you are interested in reading the reports, resolutions, or watching any of the presentations, use the web address above.  I have certainly only touched on a tiny bit of what happened.  If you’ve never been to Annual Conference before, I encourage you to do so.  It is interesting and a blessing.  I also got to visit with some of our former ministers and that was a special treat.  Thank you for letting me represent you.

Jean Ash