Thursday, April 9, 2015

So we had the closing conference session with the Bishop’s remarks, the various reports, and the remaining disciplinary and statistical questions.  It’s interesting to see: 1) how provincial and US-centric our questions and structure are (which begs a larger question:  if we are inwardly focused, (how)are we building or tweaking an organizational structure that is scalable and readily adaptable to 21^st century ministry); practically, this observation translates to how interesting it is to see: 2) how our disciplinary questions must be adapted to local cultures.  The property ownership and insurance questions particularly come to mind here. 

But the session went on; afterwards there was a lot of teasing of Bishop Reddick, comparing him to Bishop Hoyt who was legendary in the length of his conferences.  Mid-morning worship was led by Eric Spence, and the final Conference Bible Study was from Acts 9, comparing and contrasting Philip and Saul and their Damascus adventures.

At some point, we had a praise dance from the Youth. I have no words to describe it; only video here:

We had our lunch, I think we had some more afternoon business.  The last order of business was the location of next year’s conference. Not only will it not be at Good News, the guest hotel will not be close to the beach.  The conference will be in some convention center in Savannah La Mar, and the hotel will be inland.  While I’m neither happy with nor impressed by this, 1) it’s not my conference so my opinion is irrelevant; and 2) it is closer to Negril….

By now, instead of 2:30, the ordination service began around 5:30.  There was no one to  be ordained.  Earlier, Pastor Burns had put up a Facebook post, asking for prayers for prayers as she prepared to preach. She specifically asked that God's anointing power fall and that His believers might be empowered with the Spirit of Boldness to witness and make disciples with signs and wonders to follow.

She put out that prayer in the morning, I believe; the Spirit fell heavy on the conference, both during meditation and during her sermon.  Not sure her sermon had a title, but the message was quite clear:  “GO!!!” I can’t describe it, and she has asked me not to post it yet, so you'll just have to take my word for it.

We got back to the hotel, did the final tipping (and if you’re reading this with a thought to come, please add into your calculations the fact that it’s customary to tip the hotel waitstaff as well as the drivers as well as the hotel housekeeping staff.  If we are fed by buffet, we tip the waitstaff and the drivers communally; housekeeping tips are individual). 

Pics from the day are here:  https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10205352209578559.1073741896.1048146180&type=1&l=c24ba26e17