General Conference E-news Update – April 25, 2008
In The News - Friday, April 25
Daily Wrap-up for April 25
Click here to read the complete daily wrap-up for Friday, April 25.
$5 million grant boosts Global Health Initiative
(UMNS) To fight malaria and other diseases of poverty, The United Methodist Church will receive a $5 million grant from the United Nations Foundation with support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Bishop Thomas Bickerton has announced. Bickerton made the announcement on World Malaria Day, April 25, during proceedings of General Conference, the church's top policy-making body. “With the affirmation of this General Conference, we hope to use this $5 million to support a fund-raising and educational campaign to help prevent deaths related to malaria, HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis,” said Bickerton, president of the United Methodist Commission on Communication. “The goal is to raise $100 million over the next several years for malaria programs in Africa and the Global AIDS Fund." Bickerton also announced that the Nothing But Nets anti-malaria campaign has raised more than $20 million since it began in 2006. The United Methodist Church is one of the founding partners of the campaign, which fights malaria by purchasing and distributing insecticide-treated sleeping nets in Africa. A donation of $10 covers the cost of delivering one net and teaching a family how to protect themselves from malaria-carrying mosquitoes.
More>> |
 Delegates to General Conference donate money to the Nothing But Nets campaign against malaria in observance of World Malaria Day on April 25. A UMNS photo by Mike DuBose. |
Language on board membership is unconstitutional, council says
(UMNS)
Petitions that seek to guarantee membership of certain types of people to General Conference and to United Methodist general agencies are unconstitutional, the Judicial Council ruled.
Responding to a request for a decision from the floor of the opening plenary session of 2008 General Conference, the council cited previous rulings – Decisions 594 and 601 – in which the denomination's supreme court forbade “any legislation which would guarantee a preferred status not extended to others.”
In Decision 1090, the Judicial Council cited its ruling in Decision 601 that disciplinary provisions that “recommend” or ask that “special attention” be given to membership of certain categories of persons on general boards are constitutional. The council cited Paragraph 705.3i of the 2004 Book of Discipline as an example. More>>
Bishop Machado: Deeds, not words, needed to make true disciples
(UMNS) A United Methodist bishop from Mozambique reminded the 2008 General Conference that deeds, not words, are the key to making true disciples who can transform the world. In his morning sermon on April 25, Bishop João Somane Machado of the Mozambique Annual (regional) Conference said he was a product of the church's “great and glorious” missionary and evangelistic efforts to Africa in the 1950s, 1960s and 1970s. Just as much of Africa has been transformed by decades of work by followers of Christ, he told delegates to The United Methodist Church's top legislative assembly, so can the rest of the world be transformed.
Machado told of one missionary who came to Mozambique and was an agriculture expert. The missionary identified the widespread hunger in the region as a “beast” that needed to be killed, and went on to show the local residents what crops could be planted in each month of the year that would flourish and provide food. “He said which seeds to plant in the rainy season, and which to plant in the dry season.”More>> |
 Singers from Christ United Methodist Church, Baltimore, Md., lead music during the morning worship service.
A UMNS photo by Paul Jeffrey. |
Potato drop yields 20 tons of food for area hungry
(UMNS) As the hot, Friday afternoon sun beat down on the Fort Worth Convention Center, delegates, bishops, general agency staffers and visitors to the 2008 United Methodist General Conference left the center's air conditioning to help load 40,000 pounds of sweet potatoes into trucks, vans and trailers for distribution to area social service agencies that feed the hungry. The bulk of the sweet potatoes – more than 17,000 pounds – went to the Tarrant Area Food Bank, a Second Harvest central warehouse that sends food to 300 central Texas soup kitchens, food pantries, senior citizen centers, after-school programs and other agencies. More>>
Dr. Charlene Black Nominated to University Senate
Dr. Charlene Black, co-chair of the South Georgia delegation and lay member of Statesboro First United Methodist Church, has been nominated to the University Senate. The University Senate is the professional educational advisory agency for The United Methodist Church and all educational institutions related to it. The University Senate represents those interests held in common by The United Methodist Church and its affiliated schools, colleges, universities, and graduate schools of theology. Among other tasks, the University Senate provides an effective review process for the educational institutions qualifying for affiliation with the denomination and for denominational support. The University Senate has twenty-five members elected by the General Conference and is related to the General Board of Higher Education and Ministry. The elections will be held on Monday, April 28.
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Agenda Items for Saturday, April 26
7 A.M. |
Committee on Calendar and Agenda |
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Committee on Reference |
8:00 A.M. |
Choral music |
8:15 A.M. |
Plenary call to order |
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Morning worship |
9:05 A.M. |
Reports (as necessary) |
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Committee on Courtesies and Privileges |
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Committee on Calendar and Agenda |
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Committee on Presiding Officers |
9:20 – 10:25 A.M. |
Plenary—calendar items and conference business |
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Rural Life Celebration |
10:25 – 10:45 A.M. |
Morning break |
10:45 A.M. – 12:30 P.M. |
Plenary—conference business |
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Central Conference Pension Initiative (15 Minutes) |
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Task Force to Study the Episcopacy (30 Minutes) |
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General Conference Study Commission on the Relationship between The United Methodist Church and the Autonomous Methodist Churches in Latin America and the Caribbean (30 Minutes) |
12:30 – 2:30 P.M. |
Lunch recess |
12:40 – 1:10 P.M. |
Service of Holy Communion |
2:30 – 3:40 P.M. |
Legislative Committees |
3:40 – 4 P.M. |
Afternoon break |
4 – 5 P.M. |
Legislative Committees |
5 P.M. |
Daily deadline for Daily Christian Advocate Printing |
5 – 7:30 P.M. |
Dinner recess |
7:30 – 11 P.M. |
Legislative Committees |
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