'Reform & Renewal' Forces Acknowledge 20 Percent Delegate Drop

It’s official: the Rev. Thomas Lambrecht, vice president of Good News has written a column noting that “reform and renewal” forces are getting their collective butts kicked in 2020 General Conference elections. Thus far, according to Rev. Lambrecht, U. S. conservative forces for GC2020 have been reduced by about 20 percent. Among those NOT elected to General Conference are some prominent names such as the Rev. Rob Renfroe (Texas Conference), president of Good News; and the Rev. Jeff Greenway (Western Pennsylvania Conference), a leader of the Wesleyan Covenant Association.

Rev. Lambrecht writes: “The passion and anger among those opposed to the church's position has motivated them to unprecedented efforts to elect sympathetic delegates.” Anecdotal evidence from Rev. John Robert Elford’s Facebook post: “Our Rio Texas Annual Conference was full of many good things. One highlight was the election of the youngest, most diverse, most progressive delegations that I have seen in my 30+ years of going to conference.”

A new GC2020 election map prepared by Allen Smith and Scott E. Manning (above) shows results through June 10. They may have captured a classic example of the law of unintended consequences, from the traditionalists' perspective.

Desert Southwest moving forward

Desert Southwest Annual Conference isn’t waiting for more national conversations to happen around the United Methodist Church’s future. According to a letter from Bishop Bob Hoshibata, they’re organizing on their own to begin working out moving forward.

Bishop Hoshibata sent a letter June 7 in which he announced that the 2019 conference session scheduled June 13-16 in Mesa, Ariz., will include the formation of 10 teams to work on Desert Southwest’s own vision for a Methodist future. Bishop Hoshibata wrote in part:

“Since General Conference 2019, I have been hearing many people say: we may not agree about human sexuality, but we cannot stand by and see the church we love destroyed by the extremely punitive actions adopted by General Conference. Many people have expressed a longing for conversation that helps us acknowledge our differences about human sexuality but allows us to find a way forward into a viable future. To this end, many persons have been saying, ’What can I do?’ There is a deep longing to not sit idly by, but to engage in some meaningful action that will help create a positive future for the church. In response to those voices, I am proposing that we create a new effort to involve persons of our annual conference in such action. I’d like us to focus our energy and faith to create the Desert Southwest Conference Way Forward; composed of a number of teams that will address specific actions to help transition into a future which is yet for us to determine.”