The quadrennial gathering of the world-wide United Methodist  family will happen this month, May 10-20, in Portland, Oregon. Nearly 900 delegates and many more observers and support people will convene to consider options in moving our denomination forward for the next four years.

Everyone is expecting an even more contentious General Conference (GC) than 2012, which was a debacle, to say the least. The “progressive”  forces who want the UMC to change its stance on homosexuality, same-sex marriage, abortion, and a number of other hot button issues plan to disrupt the conference, since they know they do not have enough votes to change its stances.

Our Lay Leader, Karl Baumgardner, will be attending as a prayer minister, and Wesley Putnam (the evangelist we hosted recently) will  also be there.

So, what can we do who remain home?  Pray.

I want to encourage all of us to be in prayer from now through the end of the General Conference.  Pray for the Holy Spirit to fall on the General Conference, and pray for Biblical Faith to prevail in all decisions.

There are several ways you can follow the proceedings of the GC.  There is a mobile app for General Conference which will provide updates and even some live video.  Look for it in your app store. There is a  General Conference Facebook page (www.facebook.com/umcgeneralconference) which will have updates as the proceedings  unfold.  You can subscribe to the United Methodist News Service email or webpage (go to http://www.umc.org/news-and-media/united-methodist-news for more information).  And you can even watch live streaming from Portland by visiting http://www.umc.org/who-we-are/general-conference-2016-live-video-stream-english.

Much of the GC will be routine and not very interesting, especially in the first week.  But please, please, please, keep it in prayer.   Let’s bathe the GC in prayers for spiritual renewal, awakening, faithfulness and Biblical truth!

Faithfully,
Pastor Glen