Lobbying - Connecting with Key People

For some of my previous lobbying efforts, I developed lists of 250 delegates to whom I sent by mail general suggestions about how things went and essays on the direction of the church as well as encouragement to vote for my petitions. Most I did not know, though many I did or had been recommended to me by AIA colleagues.

I discovered to my chagrin that even those I knew the best were unable to help my petitions because of the rules of General Conference, especially that once a petition related to a paragraph of the Discipline was passed by a legislative committee, all other petitions related to that same paragraph could be voted non-concurrence without any consideration even if they could have added a different idea. (Rule 31 [2]). And some sat on their hands at crucial points in discussions, leaving my petitions without support.

I figured that for this time, I would let my petitions stand on their own merit and not push any of a dozen or so delegates about any of my petitions. What I did was pick people who knew me pretty well and try to help them with things like the Publix store, how to reach me, how to preserve a petition that didn’t get forwarded to the floor, and any other helpful thing I could do for them. I sent the same materials to staff, reporters, and some friends I knew were coming to Tampa. I copied the notes to the AIA board.

My working list ended up being too short. But word somehow got around and I found a lot of folks in Tampa who somehow got that same information without my help.

I kept them posted of changes and some other things through “Brief notes” by e-mail during the two weeks of General Conference. And I got to see most of them, if only for a few moments.

Of all I sent to them, the one thing that had the most impact was letting them know about the Publix grocery store. It did a booming business while we were there.

Thanks to a $7 purchase at WalMart of a bright red jacket, I could be seen from anywhere in the plenary. That became important when delegates wanted to talk with me or when I sent notes to delegates and had the page point out me in my red coat.

One person with whom I connected is the editor of United Methodist Insight, an on-line publication project providing a wide variety of articles and views of General Conference. She invited me to be one of her contributors and encouraged me to write about what was happening the first week because she was not going to be able to come until the second week.

A friend from Wisconsin who taught at Africa University asked me to make contact with two of its graduates who were coming as delegates. I wasn’t going to do traditional lobbying anyway. So I added that to my agenda and, without my realizing it, it changed what I ended up doing at General Conference.

Lobbying - Studying the Materials for General Conference

Good lobbying requires reading everything one can before attending the conference. Because I was invited to write for the special project called United Methodist Insight (http://um-insight.net), I read most of those essays over the weeks just prior to Tampa.

There were a lot of things to study: key issues, where my petitions were referred, who was on which committees of the General Conference, the rules of the General Conference, the schedule, and who all were delegates.

I could have done that on-line because all the pre-conference materials were posted there (www.UMC.org/2012General Conference). I was able to skim through the lists of delegates and who were on the legislative committees.

But to work through the legislation, I found that too difficult to do on-line (my dufferishness came out). So I postponed all that, deciding to see if I could purchase the hard copies at Cokesbury in Tampa when I got there. They would all be up-to-date where some of the on-line lists were incomplete.

All I looked at from then on were articles in UM-Insight, UMNS Daily reports, and the UMC.org website.

Let me say that after years of mostly seeing fluff and PR materials among the traditional UM news outlets, I was seeing some articles that were very critical and journalistically more sound. That was a refreshing experience. I know several of the news staff and found them to have come through those years with their integrity intact. This was a good year for them.

I confess I spent more time writing than reading. After reading several articles, I submitted comments that were accepted.

One such piece was divided in two by the UM-Insight editor, with the two sections being filled out with more background and data. They were published there and I put them in this blog (see below April 5 – “Where Do We Find God’s Spirit in Our System” and April 11 – “What Are They Ignoring?”) I resurrected an article from 2008 that went into UM-Insight and this blog on April 13 (see “Priorities for General Conference” of that date below). One of my comments on an article in UM-Insight also made this blog as well on April 21 (“No Large Southern Church Left Behind”)

This seemed to me to be an odd way for a lobbyist to prepare for General Conference.

April 30 - United Methodist Insight

My intention to help the editor of the electronic publication United Methodist Insight (http://um-insight.net) with reports on things she would not be in Tampa to cover herself the first week disappeared down that golden street. When I saw her Monday afternoon, I apologized.

She said not to worry about it but to write about what caught my eye.

What a relief. That’s what I did. Who knew what story would present itself?

In fact, one that really moved us was only hours away, when I had supper with the other African delegate Chomee had asked me to meet.

May 1 - Making Apostles

Ben Godsden in UM-Insight (http://um-insight.net/blogs/ben-gosden/the-danger-of-unasked-questions/page-2.html) challenges the lack of definition of the catch phrase “Making Disciples for the Transformation of the World” which is the stated goal of our denomination. I had to respond and did so with the following comment (typos corrected this time):

Making Apostles

I was a disciple in Sunday school. And, given our understanding of education as being a life long endeavor, I am still a disciple.

But I had to enter the adult world. And, thanks to some wonderful Sunday School teachers and leaders at Wesley Foundation when I got to college, I realized that I also needed to be an apostle.

There's a huge difference.

Whether or not I had a lot of gifts and graces, Jesus called me to use them as a means of showing God's love. Transforming the world would take care of itself because that was God's job. Mine was to be His/Her missionary wherever I was.

I've tried to do that by helping in the church because the local church is where fellow disciples and apostles met regularly to upbuild one another. I tried to be a good worker in my various part-time and summer jobs while I was in school. I tried to be a good neighbor. I tried to help on mission projects set up by the church. I tried to do that as a student. Then I got to try it in my vocation, which happened to be as a pastor in the United Methodist Church. I've tried to do it by working with other churches' pastors, by teaching confirmands and giving them mission opportunities, by setting up local church ministries to the city's hospital, county jail, etc., by helping pastors and laity in trouble with the denomination's administrative and judicial processes, and by using legislative and judicial options open to an individual to help move our denomination in directions I thought consistent with a Christian apostle's mission.

In retirement, I have had to focus declining energies and gifts, but I hope you see me hanging in there for a few more years.

Making disciples is not aiming high enough. Making apostles, turning loose God's people to be missionaries where they are and where God takes them, would be a better description of what the church actually does when it follows the Spirit.

No Large Southern Church Left Behind

Rev. Jeremy Smith wrote an article for “United Methodist Insight” under this title. You can read it for yourself at:
http://um-insight.net/blogs/jeremy-smith/no-large-southern-church-left-behind/page-3.html

Having served in the Wisconsin Conference, having lived in the New Orleans area and now in Florida, and having associates from all over the country, I came to the conclusion some years ago that the southern jurisdictions were excellent at politics and the other three were oriented around program. You can see it in the sophistication of respective jurisdictional structures and property holdings.

While it seemed that theology was close to splitting the United Methodist Church at General Conferences since 1984, it hasn’t happened. I believe it is because those who want to control the denomination don’t want to lose the properties (think NYC and Washington DC) and the name recognition.

As Rev. Smith points out, the Call to Action in combination with the hegemony of large southern churches may set up a situation where the power-oriented folks could do what the Southern Baptist Church did, drive out women and those who were more liberal, and take control of the property of the denomination. And to get that power, they are politicizing the burgeoning African church to join their voting block.

What these southern leaders fail to recognize is that among the African leaders there may be an even higher level of sophistication about power. It is no small matter that many conservative Episcopalian congregations give their allegiance to an African bishop.

So imagine if Call to Action passes General Conference and the bishops get their “set aside” bishop only to have an especially astute African get that new post.

Rev. Smith has done us a great service by analyzing the leadership of the drive to pass Call to Action. He did it without mentioning a word about theology. I think the energy of evangelicals is being manipulated as a diversion.

Now if only someone could “follow the money” so that we would know who has been funding this effort.