The 181st session of the Oklahoma Annual Conference is just one week away. Are you ready? There are many ways you can still prepare for your time if you are conference member coming to Oklahoma City.
• Visit the Annual Conference Information Hub to access all of the information you will need.
• Download and read the PreConference Workbook, which has all of the reports we will be voting
on as well as many great reports about ministry happening across the connection, especially here in Oklahoma.
• Watch the 17 minute preconference briefing to get the latest information from conference leaders.
• Read the audit report from the Council on Finance and Administration, which is not voted on by the conference but contains important financial information you may be interested in.
• If you have not already done so, take a special offering this Sunday to benefit Lydia Patterson
Institute and to honor Bishop Nunn’s service to the Oklahoma Conference. You can bring the special offering with you to the annual conference or you can give online
• If you have time, read paragraphs 120 to 143 (Part IV, The Ministry of All Christians) in the 2016 United Methodist Book of Discipline to be reminded yet again of our common witness as followers of Jesus Christ in the Wesleyan way.
Finally, you are encouraged to pray for your time as a member of the conference. Ask the Holy Spirit to guide your deliberations and
decisions.
If you are not a member of the conference, you can still prepare in the same way. It takes all of us in the connection to make the connection viable and vital. The Discipline reminds us that “Our connectionalism is not merely a linking of one charge conference to another. It is rather a vital web of interactive relationships” (¶132). When we prepare for and gather in our conference session, this vital web comes alive. It takes all of us to serve the world, which is FOREVER our parish. Thanks be to God.
Icome from a youth group of three, eight if we had a party.
I’m thankful that did not stop my church from providing Sunday school and youth group for us.
Growing up, my parents were the youngest adult couple in the congregation, I had lots of church grandparents. They cared about us and in the summer of 1979, my whole church sent me to sixth grade camp where the seeds of faith they had already sown, grew.
Several days before camp started, my bags were packed and I was ready for the adventure! On the morning of our departure, I almost made myself sick with anticipation. The drive down into the canyon was amazing and the camp…BEAUTIFUL!
talking to God in lots of different ways. I WASN’T DOING IT WRONG!
To top it off, when we were singing “He’s Got the Whole World in his Hands,” the girl sitting next to me said she liked the way I sang the song! The week only got better. Our small group explored the natural surroundings while our leaders helped us to notice God’s
our church also caught the camp spirit and attended with us. I heard women preach for the first time, took communion by the creek, learned about prevenient grace - and one of the older kids taught me a wicked serve in ping pong.
My freshman year, I stepped up as a leader and volunteered to serve on the District Youth Council and was the president (we had more than 3 students by then) of my local youth group. I also learned how to play volleyball that year.
I was almost giddy when we set up our bunks. But, when we were called to the slab for the opening worship to sing songs and pray, my joy turned to fear.
Several years prior, a well-meaning person told me that I was praying wrong, and even though I didn’t remember who it was or what needed to be corrected, I was afraid to pray out loud and embarrassed to sing in public.
Equal to the terror was the excitement of being around so many other United Methodist kids my age. The leadership team was so savvy, before we had a chance for the nerves to set in, they had us playing games to get to know each other, singing fun songs that required no musical talent and the minister (who was wearing shorts!) shared an opening message about
beauty all around us, students were encouraged to work together, leadership efforts were affirmed, and we practiced living out our faith.
When I came home, I couldn’t wait to share my experience and the people in my church listened to me and even asked questions. Church leaders worked with parents to teach Sunday school and lead youth activities. The next year, more of us attended camp, the youth group grew a little, and I developed enough confidence in my faith so that when a girl in my class told me I wasn’t going to heaven because I didn’t go to her church, I was able to smile and respond that my God would let us both in.
At summer camp in seventh and eighth grade, several volunteers from
In high school I went on to attend CYME leadership camp, helped lead worship in my home church, taught a Vacation Bible School class, backpacked for the first time on the Colorado Trail Hike with 21 of my United Methodist friends from across the conference and answered a call to ministry.
Local church, camping and campus ministries work hand in hand. The seed planted at home and nurtured through our camps, bloomed in campus ministry. As a Bishop Scholar at OCU, I continued to be nurtured and stretched by professors, church leaders, campus ministers and other students. With their encouragement, my faith matured and I served in many leadership capacities on campus.
After graduation and for most of my adult life, in collaboration with others, I have served the church as a lay person through youth and hospitality ministries, on Conference boards and committees and even served for several years as a camp dean (with my own children as campers).
TALK ABOUT A RETURN ON INVESTMENT!
When my church, the First UM church in Henryetta, spent $200 to send me to Camp Egan in sixth grade and then took the extra time (priceless) to listen to my experience, did they know that their gift would chart a path for not only deep personal faith but also a lifetime of leadership in the United Methodist Church? I am forever grateful.
When we volunteer in our local church, send kids to camp or support campus ministry, we build the church now and for future generations. Start building your portfolio now; the dividends will be worth the effort!
Just over a year ago, Quayle United Methodist Church, located in northeast Oklahoma City, developed a monthly contemporary worship experience. The ministry goes by the moniker Plugged In.
The one-year anniversary was held on Sunday, April 28. This service featured the
church’s praise team and a combined children’s choir. There were 84 people present to celebrate God’s faithfulness.
The organizing team for this service has plans for an outdoor community-wide service to commemorate Juneteenth, which will be held at 12:30 p.m. on Sunday, June 23. There will be a cookout held after the regular 10 a.m. service to allow worshipers from both experiences to fellowship together.
Rev. Dr. Elvyn Hamilton and his wife, Rev. Dr. Bessie Hamilton, have
this ministry. Elvyn Hamilton conveys that he is “still amazed at the potential we have as God’s servants to reach new people in new ways for the glory of God.”
General Conference approved significant legislative changes during its recent gathering in Charlotte, North Carolina, but not everything goes into effect at the same time. While most items will become effective on January 1, 2025 in the U.S. and a little later in the Central Conferences, other items went into effect immediately upon adoption, some need constitutional ratification, and still others are dependent upon other meetings.
Below is an outline of the effective dates for some of the newly adopted legislation.
In the United States, legislation adopted by the General Conference goes into effect January 1 of the year following the General Conference, January 1, 2025.
Central Conferences adopt legislation a little later. According to the Book of Discipline, in any central conference “using a language other than English, legislation passed by a General Conference shall not take effect until 18 months after the close of that General Conference.” In English-speaking central conferences, legislation does not take effect until the central conference convenes and publishes their decisions on rejecting, adopting, or amending any General Conference actions they are allowed to adapt.
Revised Social Principles Budget
Deacons and sacraments
Young People’s Ministries becoming Young People’s Connectional Network
New Retirement plan for US clergy serving local churches – Legislation effective January 1, 2025. New plan goes into effect January 1, 2026
Amendments to the Constitution of The United Methodist Church must be approved by a two-thirds majority of the General Conference, and then must be ratified by a “two-thirds affirmative vote of the aggregate number of members of the several annual conferences present and voting.” The following were approved by General Conference and are awaiting ratification which is expected in the spring of 2026.
Worldwide Regionalization – Includes amendments to 28 paragraphs of the constitution
Racial Justice (¶5) Article V - “The United Methodist Church commits to confronting and eliminating all forms of racism, racial inequity, colonialism, white privilege, and white supremacy, in every facet of its life and in society at large.”
Include ‘gender’ and ‘ability’ (¶4) - “All persons without regard to race, gender, ability, color, national origin, status, or economic condition, shall be eligible to attend its worship services, participate in its programs, receive the sacraments, upon baptism be admitted as baptized members, and upon taking vows declaring the Christian faith, become professing members in any local church in the connection.”
Edit of the educational requirements for voting privileges to elect clergy delegates to General Conference (¶35) Effective now
Some approved legislation contains
language that made it effective at the close of General Conference, or in one case immediately upon adoption.
Preparations for Worldwide Regionalization
Creation of a US Regional Committee
Enabling an interim US Legislative Committee
Human sexuality
Removal of ban of same-sex weddings
Changes to chargeable offenses: returning the wording of the first chargeable offense to its pre-2004 version
Removal of ordination ban (came into effect immediately upon adoption) Removal of funding restrictions concerning LGBTQ+ ministries and advocacy
Other effective dates
Some legislation is not able to go into effect until other meetings occur.
The departure of 4 Eurasian conferences into an autonomous Methodist church is expected to occur in 2025, per a statement from Bishop Eduard Khegay.
Full Communion with The Episcopal Church upon approval by The Episcopal Church which is not expected until 2027.
Two additional bishops in Africa –One additional bishop will be elected at each of the upcoming sessions of the Africa and Congo Central Conferences.
US Bishops to 32 – General Conference recommended that no new elections occur at 2024 Jurisdictional Conferences. Instead, current bishops would be assigned to cover two vacancies in the Western Jurisdiction and one vacancy in the Northeastern Jurisdiction. These would take effect September 1, 2024.
Conferencing. We have been doing quite a bit of that in these past few years. We began 2024 with a “bonus” annual conference. On the day that marks the feast of the Epiphany we gathered online for worship and gave our annual conference the gift of moving from 8 districts to 5. Truly, it will be a gift as we live into a new reality of being United Methodists across the great state of Oklahoma. In just a few weeks we will gather for the 181st session of the Annual Conference of Oklahoma. How will you show up when we gather?
I decided to do a little digging on the beginning of the concept of holy conferencing. Some Methodist historians contribute the regiment and design of John Wesley’s system of intentional meetings to his mother Susanna. Her development of family devotions followed an order of mutual support, spiritual instruction, and religious teaching. These were the seedbed of what began the Class Meetings, Band Meetings, Quarterly Conferences and Annual Conferences.
Here (RIGHT) is the wording in the first Discipline of the Methodist Episcopal Church in America December 27, 1784, concerning the holding of a (Annual) Conference:
In this glimpse from our history as Methodists in America, you can see a skeleton of what we continue to do as the work of the Annual Conference meeting. The roots of this gathering were planted in the rich soil of John Wesley’s understanding of the responsibility we share in the connection we keep. He referred to holy conferencing as one of
“Instead, by speaking the truth with love, let’s grow in every way into Christ, who is the head. The whole body grows from him, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up with love as each one does its part.” Ephesians 4:15-17
the means of grace; a way that God’s grace is present to us.
Our American Methodist ancestors wrote about these annual meetings as way of “watching over one another in love.” (General Rules)
The practice of meeting for an Annual Conference has carried through all the divisions, unifications, and transformations of the people called United Methodists.
“SECTION II. On the Method of holding a Conference, and the Business to be done therein.
It is desired that all Things be considered as in the immediate Presence of God. That every Person speak freely whatever is in his Heart.
Quest. 1. How may we best improve our Time at the Conference?
Answ. While we are conversing, let us have an especial Care to set God always before us.
2. In the intermediate Hours, let us redeem all the Time we can for private Exercises.
3. Therein let us give ourselves to Prayer for one another, and for a Blessing on our Labour.
Quest. 2. What is the Method wherein we usually proceed in a Conference?
Answ. We enquire,
1. What Preachers are admitted?
2. Who remain on Trial?
3. Who are admitted on Trial?
4. Who desist from travelling?
5. Are there any Objections to any of the Preachers? Who are named one by one.
6. How are the Preachers stationed this Year?”
7. What Numbers are in Society?
8. What is collected for the contingent Expenses?
9. How is this expended?
10. What is contributed toward the Fund for the superannuated preachers, and the widows and orphans of the Preachers?
As we prepare for yet one more meeting, I invite you to join me in showing up with this prayer on your heart as we anticipate the grace of God that will find us there:
11. What Demands are there upon it?
12. Where and when shall our next Conferences begin?
Quest. 3. Is there any other Business to be done in Conference?”
Holy Majesty who has called all creation into being,
As you sent us a Savior and poured out your Holy Spirit so send your Spirit once again. Save us from all that distracts us from the grace you offer as we gather. Save us from the triteness that brings division.
Move among us, we pray, so that we will welcome the gale of your Holy Wind, Fire and Spirit.
We seek to be your church, your body of Christ.
Lead us, Holy One, Holy Three, lead us into this day of new beginnings. Amen.
I’ll save you a seat! Carol
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The Ministry Center will be closed Monday, May 27, in observance of Memorial Day. Annual Conference 2024 begins May 30, with the Day of Learning on May 29.
Youth Force OKC is looking to serve Oklahoma City Neighbors! The urban mission experience for youth returned to operation last summer after a hiatus caused by the pandemic. This year they will return to serving neighbors by repairing homes. Do you know someone in Oklahoma City, someone in your congregation or a neighbor close to your OKC church, that could use some help with home projects? This is especially great for families with disabilities, aging or financial hardship. They do need to own the homes they are living in (or the family system owns).
The design plans to work on three to five homes depending on youth registration. Please submit applications by June 12. Follow the link to fill out the google form, which serves as the application. If you have questions about the process, please reach out by email youthforceokc@gmail.com.
There is still time to sign up your youth group to serve at Youth Force OKC, July 21-26. Interested in bringing a youth group? Registration for youth is open until June 27.
Share your event or job opportunity in the Contact For consideration, email your listing to editor@okumc.org.
