Open Letter to a Post-General Conference United Methodist Church
As I sit on the plane home to Dallas after two weeks in Charlotte I have much to reflect on.
The first thing that comes to mind is an immense debt of gratitude. While I cannot speak to many things on behalf of all General Conference delegates, I am comfortable taking the personal privilege to say a thank you on our collective behalf.
Thank you to our annual conferences for supporting our call to serve in this way, and thank you as a United Methodist Church for entrusting us to do this work. It has been one of the greatest joys, toughest challenges, but also most spiritually fulfilling things I have ever had the opportunity to participate in.
In addition to gratitude, I also feel called to reflect on the true weight and volume of all that we accomplished, which is by no means a small amount.
Having served at several annual conferences, and a special called jurisdictional conference, since my election as a general conference delegate I have already felt the Spirit moving in new ways in our legislative gatherings. These prior experiences gave me great hope for General Conference, but you can never truly know how the Spirit will move in a legislative body until it is convened.
And let me tell you, the Spirit was amongst us on the floor of the Charlotte Convention Center.
I have had a number of people ask why this conference was so different, and there are a large number of reasons, but let me share what I believe to be the most powerful.
We have worked diligently over the past five years to build relationships with each other.
Not to build relationships for the purpose of passing legislation, or to achieve a goal, or to convince each other of our positions. But we have worked to truly know and love each other in these years. In doing so, we have developed a deeper trust and respect throughout our worldwide connection. We have worked to be connectional in our love of each other, of our love of our individual ministries, and our love of God.
It is these relationships that laid the groundwork for us to cultivate an atmosphere in the legislative body that allowed us to get critical work done. It is these relationships that represent the best of who we are, and what we can be, as a church.
While there is never enough time in a legislative body of this magnitude to address every topic with the issue, attention, and patience it deserves, I am proud of the work we did and the manner in which we did it.
That being said, I know that there remain groups for whom this conference was painful. We remain an imperfect body, and for those marginalized groups hurt by the language used in various conversations or who feel we did not see them or treat them with the love God calls us to please know I hear you. You are valued. My hope is that General Conference will not be the end point of those conversations, and that we can continue to engage with each other on those topics.
The last point of reflection that comes to mind, as is fundamental to our Wesleyan heritage, is a call to action.
I have received so many calls, emails, and messages thanking me for the work of the General Conference. While I deeply appreciate those, and I am immensely grateful for the work we did, I think it is important to be clear:
Our role was to open the door, it remains our collective responsibility as a global church to walk through it.
The General Conference, much like a board of directors, makes decision on high level vision and sets a roadmap. We have no means of putting the vision for this new chapter of the UMC into action. That remains the work of the collective body of the church, and it is work I am confident we will do with kindness, love, grace, and compassion for each other and for those in our communities. And lest we not forget, we still have much work to do to live into the church and witness God calls us to be in the world. General Conference was a big step, but it was only the first one.
So as we move forward from this holy moment of General Conference and into the Post-General Conference UMC, this is my prayer:
As we work from this day forward to live into this new expression of the UMC, I pray we take with us all that we have learned about ourselves and about each other over these years. I pray we hold tightly to the importance of our connectionalism. I pray that we approach all the difficult conversations yet to be had with love and patience for one another. I pray that we engage in a process of internal reconciliation, and let go of our resentments; that we make the choice every day to move forward with each other, and work vehemently to do no more harm in that process.
As the sun rises on my flight, so a new day rises in the worldwide UMC, a new day indeed. Amen.
With love,
Jessica Vittorio
Lay Delegate, North Texas Conference
Jessicavittorio@yahoo.com
