First day of conference features powerful messages, new lay leader
The first day of the 2024 Pacific Northwest Conference began Thursday afternoon with an opening worship service. The service got the conference off to a good start with familiar hymns and a strong message from Bishop Cedrick D. Bridgeforth. A liturgical response blending the traditional song “Are we yet alive?” was particularly moving. Rev. Grace Ncabani M’Mujuri served as liturgist for the service, and a group of musicians, capably directed by Rev. Joe Lee, led the congregation through the service’s musical moments.
Bishop Bridgeforth’s sermon focused on the Gospel message (John 4:4-17) that the annual conference theme, “Being Well,” is based upon. The bishop encouraged attendees to take care, noting some of the exhaustion leaders and congregations feel. He shared some insights the cabinet has developed from traveling to meet in every district across the Greater Northwest Area over the past year. In many places, churches serve as an essential part of the safety net that keeps vulnerable persons in their communities afloat.
Speaking about engagement with the M.I.L.E., Bishop Bridgeforth humorously contrasted ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Methodists, noting that ‘bad’ Methodists were taking risks and not waiting for permission. He encouraged ‘good’ Methodists to look outside the window, look for a need, and then “open the door and step outside.” Talking about how Jesus’ engagement with the woman at the well transformed her, and Jesus as well, he continued, “Don’t be a good Methodist! Don’t! We don’t need any more good Methodists.”
Turning back to the theme, the bishop said, “Beloveds, our theme is ‘Being Well;’ it is about us taking a pause, looking for those spaces and places where we can care for ourselves and those around us … We want to check in on ourselves, and on each other. We’ve been through a hard time.”
At the end of the day during the Memorial Service, Rev. Katie Ladd reflected on the same gospel story, pointing out Jesus’s important work in re-membering the body. Rev. Ladd shared how saints, including several of those being remembered in the service, took on the work of bringing people together, despite and sometimes because of their differences.
“They agitate and stir us with their wisdom … and they leave us with work to do.”
Reflecting on the church post-General Conference and discussing the chalice broken at the 2000 General Conference, Rev. Ladd shared that it wasn’t time yet to pretend that we had put that symbolic chalice back together again.
“We have work to do, and it is holy work.”
The day’s plenary was primarily a mix of opening motions, instructions and procedural items to lay the ground for the work to come. Conference members received a report from Rev. Joanne Coleman Campbell, who serves on the Council on Finance and Administration (CF&A). Rev. Coleman Campbell and Bishop Bridgeforth reminded the body that the budget was not before them to make space for conversations about how values and mission as we consider funding for the annual conference and collaboration across the Greater Northwest Area. Upon the recommendation of CF&A, members overwhelmingly voted to approve Brant Henshaw as Conference Treasurer for the upcoming quadrennium.
After the plenary concluded, in-person clergy moved into a gathering while lay members held their Laity Session. During that session, lay members elected a new conference lay leader from a pool of three candidates. Falisha Hola, a young adult lay member from First Tongan UMC of Seattle, was selected to follow Nancy Tam Davis, whose term is ending after eight years. Hola is the first young adult and Pacific Islander to hold that position in the PNW Conference.
“I’ve always been passionate about advocacy and representation because many of the spaces I’ve been in, even in our own conference, are places I’ve been the only young person or Pasifika woman in the room. At times I felt uncomfortable, and a sense of imposter syndrome, but I learned how important it was to be in these spaces.”
