M. KAY DeMOSS
Senior Editor-Writer, Michigan Area

Ballots taken on Resolution #1 are put in a bank bag. Clergy Assistant Bill Dobbs holds the bag and Conference Secretary Tracy Huffman holds the key. ~MIC photo/Jeremy Africa

The 2015 Detroit Annual Conference was held on the campus of Adrian College, May 13-17, with Bishop Deborah Lieder Kiesey presiding.
Mid-day Sunday the Detroit Annual Conference adjourned on notes of gratitude for yesterday and hopeful uncertainty about tomorrow.   Retirees and ordinands had been feted, a delegation was elected, powerful lessons and sermons about grace were received. But the future was locked inside two blue bank bags sent on their way to Lansing. One contained the ballots that will determine the will of members’ to create a single new conference in the State of Michigan. The contents of the second bag will help decide the shape of United Methodist camping and retreat ministries.   Neither is to be opened until June 10 when two similar bags from the West Michigan Conference are to be emptied and counted, as well.
And so in the closing minutes of the session, Marsha Woolley, Conference Program Chair and Worship Design Leader, invited members to remember Dawson Auditorium and Herrick Chapel as sacred spaces that had witnessed so much over so many years of decision-making and faith-sharing. Preaching and teaching This year’s session added its measure of high moments during worship and teaching times. The opening of Conference in the chapel on Thursday honored the lives of 32 saints gone home to God. In her sermon Bishop Deb said again that after much prayer, listening and questioning, she has discerned a willingness across the Michigan Area to try once more to unite. “Is it time?” she asked. “I believe it is.”

A son of the Detroit Conference now serving the Church of the Resurrection in Kansas City, the Rev. Scott Chrostek, preached on Friday of God’s pattern of doing the illogical. “Our God is a God who chooses slingshots over super powers. He chooses infants not infantries. The entirely nonsensical makes perfect sense to God,” Chrostek concluded. Jorge Acevedo, Conference teacher, and Marsha Woolley, Chair of the Conference Program Committee, share a moment. MIC photo/Jeremy Africa
The Rev. Dr. William Dobbs, clergy assistant to the Bishop, was in the pulpit on Saturday encouraging Conference members to fish in deeper waters. A fisherman himself, he drew three tips from the gospel and his own experience: 1) Take care of your net; 2) You won’t catch people staying in shallow water; and 3) Remember to keep Jesus in the boat with you. “The fishermen Jesus called understood if you are not catching, you are not fishing … The days of no baptisms have got to end. We must not be willing to accept empty nets anymore,” Bill asserted.

Faithfulness and fruitfulness was the theme of the guest teacher, the Rev. Jorge Acevedo, lead pastor at Grace Church, Ft. Myers, FL. His Friday focus offered three principles of faithfulness: 1) faithfulness requires community; 2) faithfulness requires abiding; and 3) faithfulness requires pruning. “Wesley believed you have to train yourself for righteousness,” he said. “Why do I do daily devotions? Because it is a privilege to have God speak to me and because the Word God gives me at 5 a.m. is often the word I give to someone at 3 p.m.” On Saturday he outlined John Wesley’s approach for “practical divinity” and encouraged listeners to go home and “build a system to make disciples.” Calling grace a “flywheel” for his ministry, Acevedo described a model of programs that Reach-Connect-Form-Send. “If the only place people can get into your church is through the front door on Sunday morning,” he said, “you are toast.”

Legislative action LEAD groups processed the legislative items on Thursday night which then guided the voting on two General Conference Petitions and eight Annual Conference Resolutions. As already noted, written votes were taken on Resolution 1 (Creation of a new Michigan Area Conference) and Resolution 2 (Creation of a Michigan Area Board to oversee Camp and Retreat Ministries). These allots were sealed for counting and announcing on June 10 in a live webcast from the Area Ministry Center.
These items were approved:

•  For General Conference: a petition on equalization of Annual Conference Membership; this would base the formula on average conference attendance rather than membership.
• For Annual Conference — Res 3 (Revised Clergy Sexual Ethics Policy for Michigan Area) and Res 6 (2016 Federal Pentagon Spending as amended)
• Full details on the Conference website.

A resolution on establishment of a Michigan Area Communications Commission was withdrawn. Resolutions on Abolition of Nuclear Weapons,  Covenant Broken, and Divestment from Companies Profiting from or Contributing to Israel’s Occupation of Palestinian Land were not approved.
Bishop Deb receives congratulations on behalf of the Michigan Area for 163,436 lives saved from malaria. ~MIC photo/Jeremy Africa Six churches were discontinued and remembered during the Corporate Session: Walled Lake Amen Korean (AA); Argentine and Diamond (C); Iron River Wesley (M); Oak Park Faith and Berkley (DR). High points

Other significant moments included the celebration of the Michigan Area surpassing its $1.5 million commitment to Imagine No Malaria. In fact, 90% of the local churches in Michigan participated and gave $1,634,362 … and counting. The Rev. Molly Turner, INM Field Representative for the Area, was one of two persons to receive the John Buxton Award for Creative Leadership. The other recipient was the Rev. Dr. William Dobbs.

Members of the Conference rose in unity and remembrance on Saturday afternoon at the invitation of the Revs. Ed Rowe and Lester Mangum. A prayer was lifted for those around the nation, “dead at the hands of those sworn to protect.”

The year 2016 was at the center of the Conference lens at several points.   Conference Communications Director Mark Doyal reminded members that June 8-13, 2016, more than 2,000 clergy and lay members from Detroit and West Michigan conferences will gather in East Lansing for teaching, fellowship and worship. “Two conferences, one mission: sending disciples into the world” may be followed at 2016.michiganumc.org.   Director of Connectional Ministries, the Rev. Dr. Jerome DeVine, and others invited the Conference to take the first step on a year-long journey to an Act of Repentance toward Reconciliation at the 2016 Annual Conference. Churches will receive a packet in the mail this summer that will resource them to “breathe a new covenant together” with native and indigenous peoples.

Saginaw Bay District Lay Leader, Ralph Czerepinski, hands in his ballot. ~MIC photo/Jeremy Africa And, of course, delegations were elected for General and Jurisdictional Conferences to be held next year.

General Conf clergy: Rev. Dr. Charles Boayue, delegation chair; Rev. Joy Barrett; and Rev. Melanie Carey. General Conf laity: Jackie Euper, delegation vice chair; Wayne Bank; and Diane Brown. Jurisdictional Conf clergy: Rev. Megan Walther, Rev. Dr. Matthew Hook, and Rev. Laura Speiran. Jurisdictional Conf laity: Alexander Plum, Claudia Bowers, and Ruby Anderson. JC Clergy Alternates: Rev. Dr. Sherry Parker and Rev. Dr. Tara Sutton. JC Lay Alternates: Ruth Sutton and Isaac Garrigues-Cortelyou.  (Full story here.)
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Two Provisional Deacons and seven Provisional Elders were commissioned. One Deacon—Sheryl A. Foster—and six Elders—Daniel J. C. Hart, David Inho Kim, Robert A. Miller, Jr., Anna Mi-Hyun Moon, Joel L. Walther, and Brian West– were ordained.

The Rev. Arthur L. Spafford was recognized as the recipient of the Conference Cane as oldest ordained Elder of the Detroit Conference (who has at least 35 years of active membership and resides within the bounds of the conference).

One Deacon, one Local Pastor, and 14 Elders retired and were honored on Saturday evening. Other goodbyes included transitions on the Cabinet. The Rev. Melanie Carey was welcomed as the new Clergy Assistant to the Bishop as the Rev. Dr. William Dobbs was honored for his wise service in that role. The Rev. Dr. Charles Boayue and the Rev. Elizabth Hill were welcomed as the new superintendents of the Detroit Renaissance and Blue Water districts respectively.

Numbers announced And, finally, some VINs (Very Important Numbers) shared at the 2015 Conference session: And the most important number of all … “One faith, One hope, One baptism.” ~MIC photo/Jeremy Africa

• $53,275 … the Conference Offering as of Sunday midday, to be split between Haiti Hot Lunch and the feeding program and renovations of facilities at the Judith Craig Children’s Village in Liberia.
• 88.4% … the percentage of apportionments paid by the Ann Arbor District, highest among the six; 79.2% reported as the total percentage of apportionments received in 2014; 275 churches paid in full; 32 churches paid nothing.
• 28 … the number of Spotlight Churches on the Crossroads District, highest among the six districts; there were 133 total in 2014.
• 82% …the percentage of Detroit Conference churches AND West Michigan Conference  churches giving to the General Advance, tied for highest in the North Central Jurisdiction.
• 83,145 … membership in the Detroit Conference at end of 2014, down 3,546 from 2013.
• 38,087 … worship attendance at the end of 2014, down 2,672 from 2013.
• 10,650 … church school attendance at the end of 2014, the same as 2013.
• 17,083 … number of Volunteers in Mission serving in 2014, up 28%.
• $400,000 … total grants received from UMCOR to assist Northwest Detroit Flood Recovery.

The members of the Detroit Annual Conference left the Adrian College campus on Sunday afternoon and stepped toward the future with Jorge Acevedo’s benediction in their hearts: “I want to be more faithful. I want to abide in Jesus. I want to be more fruitful.”

 

 

Last Updated on February 2, 2024