Events

Holy Conferencing

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The Texas Methodist Foundation, in collaboration with Bishop Sally Dyck of the Minnesota Conference, and with the awareness of the Executive Committee of the Council of bishops has invited a small group of United Methodist clergy and lay leaders from across the church who give themselves to helping our church deepen its practice of Holy Conferencing to meet together over the next few years leading up to the 2012 General Conference.

The purpose of the Holy Conferencing is to build cross connectional relationships and trust across the church as we approach and hold General Conference 2012 so as to build on the common mission of the UMC in spite of our differences.  Our goals are:

• To aspire toward decision-making that values how we make decisions as important as the decisions to be made.
• To bring together a group of clergy and lay leaders who will meet throughout the rest of the quadrennium either once or twice a year, people who are influential in the Church and across the theological spectrum, and willing to work to keep communication and discernment open in the church.  These will be people committed to this work and the mission of the Church, willing to grapple with the issues and differences.
• To engage in ongoing discussion, deepening relationships through storytelling and truth telling as we recognize and affirm the faith in each other and build a common ground. 
• To broker relationships throughout the Church in order to help people stay focused on the mission of the Church even as we disagree about issues.
• To develop a deeper level of holy conferencing based on the guidelines of 2009 as well as solicit the enthusiasm of the Church in upholding them when we come together in 2012.