United Methodist Church
General Conference 2004

Pittsburgh, April 27–May 7

February 9, 2004

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

April 27th I will leave for Pittsburgh to attend the General Conference of our denomination. You have been reading a series of articles about General Conference from members of our Administrative Council as published in recent editions of the Tower Bell. At the last meeting of our Administrative Council a question was raised about how to inform members of First Church about what will be happening at the quadrennial meeting of our denomination which has the authority to make minor or substantive changes to our Book of Discipline. Lilian Ficht and Jerry Moyar volunteered to work on this communications project. They have done an excellent job of organizing the primary issues to be discussed and securing people to write about them. I am very grateful to them for all of their work.

This year's General Conference will be different from that of prior years in two significant ways. First the 998 delegates are going to be debating almost 1600 petitions. A petition can be submitted by any member of the denomination; any church; any organization or a General Board or Agency. Denominational officials are speculating that the increase in the number of petitions is in part due to the greater access to computers. It is easier and easier for people to send petitions via e-mail. This ease of communication has helped give voice to many in our church who have wanted to express themselves before but found the process for expression too cumbersome. The good news is more voices will be heard. However, the volume of petitions seems daunting.

The second change is the number of delegates coming from our Central Conferences (Europe, Asia and Africa). The United Methodist Church is growing rapidly in those regions of the world. This year there will be 178 delegates from Central Conferences which is an increase of 40 from the 138 who attended the 1996 General Conference.

Bishop Ruediger Minor, President of the Council of Bishops, has said "dialogue with the Central Conference delegates can address problems such as hunger, illnesses, inequality and oppression in a comprehensive way. The worldwide church can also equalize a growing obsession with national security — not only in the U.S. — in joining forces for a just peace that would work for a removal of the root causes of violence and terrorism."

It should be an exciting and challenging year. If any of you would like to come to Pittsburgh for one or two days of General Conference, please give me a call and I will provide a listing of hotels close to the Convention Center and any other information that may be helpful to you.

Joy and Peace,

Debbie