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These little ones sure are sweet! They love to sing, dance, snack, paint, play, and pray together!

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Church News Week of March 17, 2019 - https://mailchi.mp/f3472d1d3d94/church-news-week-of-march-17-2019

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Be sure to set your clocks an hour forward next weekend for Daylight Savings Time which begins Sunday, March  10. 

Our observance of the season of Lent begins with our Ash Wednesday service on Wednesday, March 6 at 6 pm in the sanctuary.

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Thoughts from General Conference (last update): I’m letting Miriam drive for a bit on the way home so I thought I’d take a few minutes and share some thoughts from General Conference. I neglected to give a late update yesterday because I was both emotionally drained and physically drained and needed some time to process some thoughts. Early in the day I was somewhat optimistic. We seemed on track to pass the Traditional Plan and a Gracious Exit plan. Certainly passions had been high this week but I felt like for the most part our conferencing was Christian. There were several legislative attempts to pass the One Church Plan and defeat the Traditional Plan. This was expected. When it became clear that opponents to the Traditional Plan weren’t going to win the day, the meeting became very painful for me. As the father of three children I’ve had my share of times when I’ve needed to referee arguments between them. More often than not both disputing children will be wrong. But there are times when its clear to me one child is actually right and the other is wrong. Regardless of whether blame can be shared or is found more on one side than the other, as a parent, the fighting itself is painful. I’ve often said to them, look you can be mad at each other from time to time but you still have to LOVE each other and it hurts be to see you being so ugly to each other. That is how I felt yesterday for much of the afternoon. I was watching brothers and sisters in Christ fight with each other. I did not enjoy the conflict. It felt like I was watching a session of the British Parliament not a session of holy conferencing. Speeches were given were progressives were saying “you will not force progressives out of the denomination and in the same speech criticize those traditionalists “who might exit the denomination”. The final action of General Conference by leaders of the Western Jurisdiction that regardless of what the General Conference had decided they were going to do what they think is right. This did not feel Connectional at all. So did we accomplish anything? Well the General Conference made it clear our connection as it now is cannot accept a solution anything like the One Church Plan. In a sense, nothing really changed. The General Conference has voiced support to stay traditional. Yet our United Methodist Church is hurting right now. God help us all. I was crushed when one of my great heroes gave an insulting, snarky, full of zingers speech against those who supported the Traditional Plan.

Quick update from General Conference. Traditional Plan passes. It has some unfixed constitutional problems. Demonstrations are active at the moment in an attempt to disrupt proceedings. Pray and love and be peace keepers. Bro. Tim

Mid morning update from General Conference plenary session: Parts of the Traditional Plan ruled unconstitutional. Both Exit plans, Taylor and Boyette, were ruled unconstitutional. As I read the decision they were struck down because neither plan allowed for annual conference participation in the process of disaffiliation. I think they can be salvaged, however. Right now the proposal to substitute the minority report is being debated. This is the process that I discussed yesterday which would allow for the General Conference to reconsider the One Church plan. It will require a two thirds majority, however.

All right this will be a quick evening update on the afternoon General Conference proceedings (I'm tired and ready for bed!) 1. The One Church Plan did not pass the committee which means it will not be sent to the plenary session tomorrow as part of the committee's work. 2. The same can be said for the Simple Church Plan. The Simple Church Plan, in a nutshell, was to just remove all restrictive language regarding homosexuality from the Discipline. 3. Remember that today was work done by "The Committee of the Whole". While all the General Conference delegates all voted on the petitions, the session tomorrow will be the plenary session. Think of this way, today the "bills" were in committee (and the committee just happened to be everyone in the building) and tomorrow the "bills" will go to the "floor" (plenary). 4. Petitions not referred to the plenary from the committee can be brought up as part of a "minority report" but would require a 2/3's vote to be reconsidered. As all the petitions that went forward passed by a 55-45 margin and all petitions defeated where by a similar margin, it seems unlikely that those defeated petitions will be brought up again. 5. I believe I understood the Traditional Plan was sent to the Judicial Council so that the delegates might have a chance to perfect anything through amendments tomorrow at the plenary. There have been constitutional (discipline) problems with some enforcement provisions of the Traditional Plan and one of the criticisms of the Traditional Plan has been around that very question. 6. Much more passion, tears, and frustration could be seen as the business session came to a close. It would not be a surprise to me if we see more tomorrow. I encourage all, no matter your perspective on the present controversy, whether your side "wins" or "loses", Christ commanded us to love one another. "By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another." John 13:35 NIV. I have observed some unkind words today and encourage all to pursue a more excellent way. 7. In the interest of being transparent, I should say clearly these General Conference decisions have gone the way I would want them to go. I believe there was some potential in the Connectional Conference Plan and perhaps this may be direction we might pursue in the future but as a more complex plan that required major restructuring of our Book of Discipline that we probably didn't have enough time for it to be worked on. Plus it only seemed to draw about 18 percent support. Perhaps it may be a way forward to pursue in the future. 8. Having said that, I'm not sure what to do with TWO exit plans being passed. I've not read up or thought through enough to know the differences and therefore the advantages or disadvantages of each. At my brief look, the Taylor exit plan (the first one passed) seemed the most attractive. It creates a process that allows for church's whose conscience cannot make them compliant with the decisions of GC 2019 a "gracious exit". The exit has a window of time this exit is available. Exit is only permitted (by my reading) around the question of human sexuality, meaning you can't just leave for "reasons". The Boyette plan, I think, allows for a process that would allow churches to leave for any reason. When I have time, I'll study up more on these proposals. Regardless it doesn't seem that both plans should be passed, it should be one or the other. Now I'm off to sleep, blessings to all! Bro. Tim

Monday mid day recap of General Conference: First item on the agenda this morning was the traditional plan. The first motion was to move the work to the end of the queue for the day. This was a delay tactic by opponents to the Traditional Plan and failed. Amendments were offered and passed in an attempt to get the Traditional plan compliant with recent Judicial Council rulings. After the amendments were passed, the Traditional Plan was passed in committee and will now be presented at the plenary, tomorrow. To understand the process, today’s work, though done by the whole General Conference is actually the work of a legislative committee. Petitions passed today will be referred to the plenary which convenes tomorrow. The plenary is actually the same group of people that form the committee today. It’s just one of the weird wrinkles in our parliamentary process that shows up because we are actually just working as a specific called General Conference. The next two items on the agenda were Disaffiliation plans. These are plans that allow for gracious exits of churches who feel that they cannot be compliant with the Book of Discipline. Both plans passed committee. Since they both attempt to do the same thing but with different processes I don’t know exactly what will happen to them tomorrow. I don’t think both plans are needed or are in harmony with each other but I will have to do more reading on that issue. It is now lunch break and work will resume at 1 pm. The next item of business to be discussed is the One Church Plan. The general atmosphere from my experience has been positive and polite despite passionate differences of opinion. I’ve observed no disorder and while there have at times been applause when different points of view were stated or motions passed, the chair of the body has admonished that such applause it out of order and should be resisted. I was told as I walked into the Dome that because I was a United Methodist pastor I was leading people to Hell by some interesting characters that have gathered to protest against the United Methodist Church and homosexuality.

A chant has started in the balcony starting a small disruption to proceedings. I think they are chanting “Hate Divides - Love Provides”. Here’s video Miriam took.

Update on GC2019: 22 plans (by my count) have been voted on for legislative prioritization. My best guess is if any plan gets more than 50 percent that plan will control conversation forward. Right now we are singing while the votes are compiled.

Special Music By the VBS Children & Youth

Special Music by the VBS Children & Youth

🎵Gloria Patri🎵 led by the Preschool Choir

Baptism of Anne Braxton Ward (Sorry for the cameo! Oops!)