Corpus Christi meeting to vote on 20 items

List of actions includes
4 outreach initiatives
from ministries agency



Southwest Texas Conference policymakers are to vote on at least 20 legislative proposals June 6 to 9 in Corpus Christi.
Those votes are to be cast during the 149th session of the Southwest Texas Annual Conference. It is to meet in Corpus Christi’s American Bank Center.
Details of the 20 legislative action items—along with 96 reports for information only—are included in a 128-page Preconference Report. It was mailed this week to clergy and laity representatives of the 344 United Methodist congregations in Southwest Texas.
An online version of the report is available at www.umcswtx.org.
Corpus Christi District representatives have the first opportunity to discuss items on the June agenda May 6. A district conference is scheduled for 3 p.m. that day at First UMC, Sinton.
Meetings of congregational representatives in the other six districts are scheduled for May 19 and 20.
A key business item for the June session is election of clergy and laity delegates to the 2008 General Conference and South Central Jurisdictional Conference. The Preconference Report presents proposed balloting procedures.
Southwest Texas is expected to elect 12 General Conference delegates—six laypeople, six clergy members—and an additional 12 jurisdictional conference delegates—six more laypeople and six more clergy members. To accompany these 24 to the jurisdictional meeting, the Corpus Christi gathering is to pick another eight “reserve” delegates—four laypeople, four clergy members.
The list of legislative proposals in the report includes four initiatives from the Council on Ministries. These initiatives are designed to help local congregations become directly involved in the conference emphasis on new church development and transformation adopted in 2006.
“These four initiatives will give focus to the local church as each seeks to continually transform itself in the ways God calls,” writes Carol Loeb, Council on Ministries chair, in the Preconference Report. “The local church will have the responsibility to develop strategies that they believe best enable them to engage each initative.”
The four initiatives call local congregations to:
> Become evangelistic in faith sharing.
> Strengthen evangelistic presence in the community.
> Call forth younger people for service in ordained ministry.
> Develop disciples and leaders.
The Commission on Communications is proposing a policy authorizing electronic mail as an official mode of correspondence with conference leaders. The proposal mandates the Communications and Public Witness Office to provide permanent e-mail addresses for clergy members and laypeople filling elected conference positions.
Leaders may check their church e-mail address through Webmail or have messages forwarded to another e-mail account.
The Council on Finance and Administration is proposing seven action items, including a $9.26 million budget for 2008 and the apportionments to fund it. The spending plan represents a 3.92 percent increase over the 2007 budget.
Other action items include:
> A resolution from the Board of Church and Society. It calls on conference agencies and local congregations to “welcome into membership all confessing Christians without regard to race, ethnicity, gender, age, sexual orientation, social status or economic condition.”
> A measure from the Board of Global Ministries setting Nov. 4 as Harvest Sunday in Southwest Texas and designating four anti-hunger causes to receive equal portions of the special conferencewide offering collected that day.
> An amendment to conference Standing Rule 22. That change is meant to clarify that “any proposals,” not just “resolutions,” must be recommended by a conference agency before coming to the conference session for action.
Fourteen of the 20 action items—those believed to face little or no dissent—are listed on a consent agenda for consideration as a group.
Another consent agenda lists 96 informational reports from conference agencies and United Methodist-related institutions. Conference members vote to receive those items for printing in the yearly journal.
More than 1,300 voting members of the annual conference session—half clergy, half laity—are expected to take part in the four-day meeting in Corpus Christi. Theme is “Offering Christ to All: Sharing Our Faith Stories.”