2008 General Conference to be shorter

Commission cuts length
of meeting by 2 days to
increase efficiency

United Methodist News Service
SCHILLER PARK, Ill.—The commission that plans the denomin-ation’s top policy-making assembly has cut the budget for the 2008 session and shortened the meeting by two days.
Delegates to the 2008 General Conference in Fort Worth are to meet for nine days instead of 11—from April 23 to May 2. Theme is “A Future With Hope.”
The 17-member Commission on General Conference, meeting April 4-6, reduced the assembly’s budget by $250,000 to $6.66 million. The action was in keeping with a mandate from the 2004 General Conference to study ways of increasing efficiency and decreasing costs.
The budget for the 2004 assembly in Pittsburgh was $4.87 million.
“How a denomination spends its money reflects how it values its ministries,” said Sandra Lackore, the denomination’s treasurer. Commissioners were encouraged to review the purposes of General Conference and determine what parts, processes and characteristics of General Conference they value.
The Rev. Gail Murphy-Geiss, commission chairwoman, asked the group to determine how General Conference could become a better ministry for the church rather than simply a process for rewriting the denomination’s law book, The Book of Discipline.
“I want to make sure that Christian conferencing remains before us during General Conference,” said Joel Huffman, a commission member representing the Western Jurisdiction and treasurer of the Desert Southwest Conference.
Reducing the length of General Conference was one way the commission determined it could increase efficiency, commissioners decided. Reducing the days should make the conference a better experience for the nearly 1,000 delegates and the denomination.
To strengthen the working relationships among delegates, the commission is establishing a new delegate-training program. The members voted to include input from JustPeace, the General Commission on Status and Role of Women, the General Commission on Religion and Race, and the General Board of Global Ministries in creating the program.
Transitions in staff were noted at the commission meeting. The Rev. Alan J. Morrison, pastor of Center Avenue UMC, Pitcairn, Pa., was named meeting planning director/business manager of General Conference at the General Council on Finance and Administration, effective July 1. He succeeds Gary Bowen, who is retiring after 31 years at the fiscal agency.
The Rev. Gary Graves, pastor of Beaver Dam (Ky.) UMC, has been reappointed petitions secretary for the 2008 General Conference.
In other action taken for the 2008 General Conference, the commission:
> Approved a contest to design a logo for the 2008 theme.
> Created a subcommittee to advertise for and select a music director.
> Authorized production of The Daily Christian Advocate, the official record of daily proceedings, and the advance Advocate edition, a workbook for the meeting, in both a print and an electronic version.
> Authorized petitioners to include a 50-word rationale for petitions-requests related to The Book of Discipline that would be used on the General Conference Web site.
> Selected a subcommittee to examine sites in the Southeastern Jurisdiction for the 2012 General Conference.