First week reflections from Bishop Lanette Plambeck
First week reflections video transcript summary:
Hello, friends back in the Dakotas and over in Minnesota. It is a delightful experience.
You can absolutely feel the movement of the Spirit aligned to the work of the body [General Conference]. There is a spirit of joy that is palpable. There is a spirit of hope that is palpable.
The preaching has been off the charts. Worship has been life giving. It has been faith claiming.
There's an ongoing proclamation of who we are as a people called United Methodist. There is a spirit. God is doing something good in the future. The United Methodist Church is vibrant, it is alive, and God is at work. It has been such an exciting time, even in the few days that we've had together.
There is such a proclamation of who we are as people - of personal holiness and social holiness. Our personal piety and our social response, both in connection together. There's not a sense of; we are these are the jurisdictions in the United States or these are the central conferences. It is all about who we are together and what God is up to and inviting us into. We are a people connected to one another, and I am not fully me without you. My church is only at its very best when your church is at its very best.
I've never seen majorities like we are seeing at this general conference when votes happen.
Where we see alignment of the body, the regionalization, and what that will mean for us. We know that there'll be hard work ahead with ratification [of regionalization]. But what does it mean for us to really be able to say to one another in a spirit of contextualized ministry that this is not about power, this is not about privilege, this is not about like the position of where you are on the globe, but that as we are aligned to our articles of religion, that the things that bind us, I would say that's the front end of the Discipline[Book of Discipline], who we are as a people called United Methodist. When we look at our context, how we live out mission and ministry, it is the recognition that we can differ in our contextual expression. Where we are not going to differ from one another is in our identity, our faith identity as Christ followers, and as a people called United Methodist. That is a good word.
I want to say that there are certain things that don’t change, right? So, even if harmful language is ultimately removed, it does not change a pastor's decision about who they are going to marry [officiating weddings], and it[removal of language] does not ever force a church to have or not have weddings at their facility.
I think number one, and I want to be clear, we won't agree on all matters. We simply won't. We will agree on the critical things, I believe.
But my prayer is that we show up as our very best selves: that we never lose sight of the Imago Dei in one another-that all people are created in God's beloved image, and we are siblings in Christ; and to really hold that space as sacred space. My hope is that we will be able to name and confess some of the trauma that has happened at previous General Conferences.
What I'm seeing here is a collection of people, a connection of people, who continue to hold a more traditional or conservative theology, a centrist theology, or a more progressive theology, who have not only clearly stated, but they're demonstrating, what does life together look like moving forward.
That's what I want to say, I think, to our folks back home, that we want to celebrate the diversity of the breadth of our theology and the breadth of our sociology to not only proclaim it, but to claim that in the Dakotas and Minnesota. We belong together, belong with one another, where when we say all are welcome, all means all. That's the word. There have been no decisions made, nor any decisions coming that for me, would say to someone, there's now not a home for me in the United Methodist Church.
So I'm very excited about what our evangelistic efforts are going to look like, and our teaching and reaching as we tend to ministry at home and abroad.
