GC Talk
After the Sunday service yesterday at my home church, someone asked me for a report on General Conference 2015. Although I’m a trained reporter, I struggled to respond quickly and articulately. It’s not easy to convey the significance of all that happened during GC15 to someone who wasn’t there.
I could not have re-created the moving music of the GC15 worship team. I could have mentioned the powerful sermons and devotionals, but I wasn’t sure where to begin in passing along the many insights I received. I tried to share about my time in one of the conference’s nine strategy groups, but then I thought of the eight other groups’ work I wasn’t mentioning. I could have mentioned the GC15 mission trips, but one of the missioners already had shared during the worship service about her life-changing experiences in Haiti.
I face a similar dilemma in compiling this Light + Life issue, which offers a look back at GC15 and a look forward to how the conference’s outcomes will impact the Free Methodist Church – USA and our global family. GC15 participants may question why some exciting details of the conference didn’t make it into print, and other readers may mistakenly think this issue isn’t relevant to them because they didn’t attend GC15.
Space and deadline constraints prevent this issue from being a comprehensive record. The strategy groups have produced a wealth of research and resources that will continue emerging in the coming months. Expect to read more from the groups in future editions of this magazine and the new FreeMo Journals (fmcusa.org/freemo). We don’t yet know every edit to the “Book of Discipline” that will result from the conference’s legislative sessions, but those details will be revealed in the near future.
In the meantime, keep reading for snapshots of how God moved in Orlando and the ongoing impact for the “Whole Church.”
Downloadable PDF: Light + Life September 2015
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