Brothers and Sisters The hour glass is just about out of sand. it is now time to proceed to the General Conference. More than just attending,are we ready to deal with the issues? Have we seen the plans of the candidates? do any of them show a vision for our Church and its future? Have you seen the economic plan of Candidate Rev. Dr. Santucci? Do you see benefit and hope from it? Are we really to include Africa in the African Methodist Episcopal Church leadership? Are we ready to include members ideas (like my own) from outside the United States? We have spent much time discussing the details and opinions on this board.Are we ready to move from discussion to decision, from articulation to action? I hope and pray that we are. Your thoughts anyone?

Blessing from Bermuda

-- Anonymous, June 14, 2004

Answers

Okay, this question is prompting several others:

• Is the budget adequate for the mission and needs of the Church?
• What can we do to adddress the discrepancy between "conference roll" and what we see from Sunday to Sunday?
• Should we create episcopal seats in Africa along linguistic (Dutch, English, Portugese, French, Bantu, Xhosa) lines?
• Should we consolidate US based districts?
• Should the Ecumenical seat be consolidated into the COO's role (or General Officer role)?
• Should we encourage retiring bishops to take a pulpit (a la Bishop Hildebrand)?
• What will be the impact of the 75 retirement age cross the connection? (Two 10th district elders are expected to retire)?
• Will the church elect another female bishop?
• How successfully will Africa be represented on the bench?
• Where shall we go to reach the lost?
• What shall we do to hold our gains?
• Will we all be talking in August ;-)?

Enjoy,

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2004

My 2 cents:

• No.
• Start telling the truth and accepting the consequences.
• If we do, will we include Adyghe,Tosk Albanian, Amharic, Moroccan, to name a few (and those are just the languages spoken in Egypt)?
• Not sure.
• Not sure.
• If you retire pastors at 75, how can you have a retiring Bishop take a pulpit?
• The 5th loses a living legend in Pastor Murray. We won't know the ramifications of this loss until January.
• Yes.
• At least 1 seat; 2 at the most. <-----IMHO
• How about our own neighborhoods?
• Feed our sheep.
• As long as Jesus hasn't come back, yes!

-- Anonymous, June 21, 2004

Is the budget adequate for the mission and needs of the Church? NO. What can we do to adddress the discrepancy between "conference roll" and what we see from Sunday to Sunday? Tell the truth. Should we create episcopal seats in Africa along linguistic (Dutch, English, Portugese, French, Bantu, Xhosa) lines? No. Should we consolidate US based districts? Yes. Should the Ecumenical seat be consolidated into the COO's role (or General Officer role)? Yes. Should we encourage retiring bishops to take a pulpit (a la Bishop Hildebrand)? No. What will be the impact of the 75 retirement age cross the connection? (Two 10th district elders are expected to retire)? The Youth movement will be energized. Will the church elect another female bishop? 2 I hope. How successfully will Africa be represented on the bench? Not at all I fear. Where shall we go to reach the lost? To our neighborhood. What shall we do to hold our gains? What gains? Will we all be talking in August ;-)? I certainly hope so.

-- Anonymous, June 22, 2004