General Conference Thursday, May 26

Started the day on the 38th floor of an office building a couple of blocks from the Convention Center for the Duke Divinity breakfast. The view was amazing and it's always good to be with Dukies. Got to eat with one of our very best friends from seminary, Kelly Clem. Katie and I also had some great grits which we had wanted to have since we got here. Then it was off to legislative groups. I serve on Church and Society B. We will be dealing with all the legislation that comes forward dealing with maternal health, reproductive rights, human sexuality, etc. I am in the sub-group dealing with reproduction, maternal health, and a few others. Tomorow, we will be dealing with the multitude of legislation on abortion. Today, we talked about our hearts and abortion. I was moved by the two Central Conference (non-US) delegates who spoke of how abortion is illegal in their home countries with resulting bad abortions being performed to the harm of women, especially young women who had been raped. They pointed out how important it is to have "safe abortions." It won't be easy to tackle some of the legislation but I do hope we can maintain our current statement which is pretty moderate. Tonight we welcomed our affiliate friends from around the world. Now, we are receiving nominations for our Judicial Council, like our Supreme Court and our University Senate (which is our body that approves schools, universities that are affliated with United Methodist). After this we will worship. I arrived a little early and the National Choir of Cote d'Ivoire was singing. They will be in worship tonight at 7:30 CT (8:30 ET) if you are near a computer. You can also find previous worships online. Last night was great. Til next time: Peace

General Conference April 25

For more time related posts see Twitter at @RevCindyKarges Right now I am in my Legislative Group, Church and Society B where Hastings, Nebraska born the Rev.Molly Vetter was elected chairperson. After a fantastic opening worship yesterday afternoon we spent way too much time last night and this morning dealing with our rules of organization. Now, we are organizing our legislative groups where we will spend most of the next three days. You can find the legislative materials for each legislative group online at umc.org and General Conference Link. My committee will deal with issues of what the United Methodist Church has to say about society and social issues but the most time-consuming and emotion consuming will be the ones that deal with human sexuality and abortion. .

April 23, 2012 Tampa, Florida

My Take is just that my take: my thoughts, feelings, opinions. Being elected a delegate to the United Methodist General Conference jump started my decision to have a blog. I hope some of the things I write about will lead to further conversations about "your take." One of the things I love about being United Methodist is the global nature of our church. In the short time I have been in Tampa it has been exciting to see the growing diversity of our church. That is why I choose the background for this blog. The way I like to think about it is this: Businesses have figured out who to be global in this "flat" world in which we live. Now it is the United Methodist Church's opportunity to be truly global. I know I will be writing more about this in the next two weeks. I ask for your prayers that we as delegates will be open to the paths that God is aksing us to take together as a church. Peace, Cindy