Annual Conference, Part One

As I headed home from Annual Conference yesterday, I was exhausted. Conference always seems to have so many people that I need to catch up with and some many other new people to meet and greet on top of the "business" that needs to be done that I never seem to go to bed when I should. As I drove to meet Beth at her sister's house, I attempted to think about and process the weekend. There are too many thoughts for one blog post, so I'll spread them out over a couple of days.

First, I was certified as a Candidate for ministry this week. This was a very exciting step in the process for me, as it means that I get to continue on and that the Committee sees that I have things to offer to the Western PA Conference. Thinking about being Certified made me excited, but it also made me a little jumpy. When I would tell people that I still have three years left of school, it seemed like a very long time, while I know that those three years will fly by. I know that I have much to learn and many ways in which I need to grow (and that will take me more than three years!) but at the same time I'm so excited to come back and begin that stage of ministry that it makes me relatively impatient. Nonetheless, that was an exciting event in my continued journey.

When I arrived at my sister-in-law's yesterday, my Baptist pastor father-in-law asked me if we did anything important. I mentioned the Strategic Plan and attempted to explain it the best I could, but I think that he was confused. Honestly, I was conflicted about the Plan at Conference. I'm sure that our Conference needs a direction and a vision, and I agree wholeheartedly with the vision, mission and core value of the plan, but after that I got a little conflicted. I felt that it was difficult to deal with the plan when we weren't dealing with Appendix D which laid out the specifics of the plan. For example, I wasn't all too keen on the idea of hiring a PR firm to recruit clergy back to Western PA. For one thing, I don't want clergy who are recruited, I want clergy who are called. Too many people are recruited into ministry and are not called to it, and I think that this is a major issue. More than that, I wasn't quite sure what good it will do to have a PR make up a glossy brochure to send to colleges, seminaries and job fairs. A glossy brochure won't entice me to come back to Western PA, and while I realize that we're at a distinct disadvantage economically (I know this because representatives from other conferences have mentioned that I might think about a place like North Georgia or Florida where the minimum salary is almost more than $10,000 more than it is in Western PA), but I don't think that a PR firm is going to help us overcome our economic disadvantage. If I'm going to come back to Western PA (which I'm 99% sure that I am...I'm leaving the door open for God to call me elsewhere, but that's not been God's call at this point...so far, God is calling me strongly back home), I'm going to come back because I believe in the direction of the Conference, because I believe in the leadership in place in the Conference, because I know that my home church cares about me, because I know that my District Committee and my DS is concerned about me and thinks about me. I won't come back to Western PA because of a PR firm...I'll come back because of relationships...relationships with clergy and laity. After all, as one of profs says, Ministry is about relationships. Maybe we should take the $25,000 we'll pay a PR firm and invest it in Camping, a place where so many young people feel their call to ministry. This is just one of the areas that I'm conflicted about when concerning the strategic plan. Hopefully we'll continue to refine and discern what God is doing in our Conference and that will continue to become our strategic plan.