St Francis Friends,
General Conference is fast approaching. It will be held in Charlotte, North Carolina, from April 22nd to May 3rd.
The Desert Southwest Annual Conference will send it’s General and Jurisdictional delegates there to represent the clergy and laity of our conference.
As a Jurisdictional delegate, I will be attending the entirety of the General Conference. During the month of April, I will be sharing information about what is happening at this General Conference and what is at stake for our denomination.
There are three major themes in the business of the 2024 General Conference—“the three R’s” – Regionalization, Revised Social Principles, and Removal of the restrictive and harmful anti-LGBTQ+ language in the Book of Discipline.
I encourage you to go to umcjustice.org and read through the Revised Social Principles. I hope to lead a study on them at St Francis this fall.
I will be sharing and there will be print outs available each Sunday in April about the Regionalization Plan and about the history of the harmful anti-LGBTQ+ language that has accrued in our Book of Discipline over the last 50 years.
Thanks to the work of the people of St Francis and the Reconciling Ministries Network over the years, we are on the verge of changing our Book of Discipline and change the church for the good.
In loving service,
Rev. Mary Klaehn