News of the Western Jurisdiction Conference

Episcopal Address Challenges Deeper Hospitality

The Episcopal Address gave a "state of the Jurisdiction" report, highlighting the ministries of each Conference and calling on the West to "practice radical hospitality."

Notes on the Western Jurisdictional Episcopal Address
delivered by Bishop Elias Galvin on Wednesday, July 14, 2004, in San Jose

Ministries and activities of each annual conference were highlighted in this address:

• Alaska has chartered the first Samoan United Methodist Church, in Anchorage.
• In an economic recession 100% of general church apportionments were paid in Desert Southwest, where a new plan for organization has made ministry more effective.
• California-Nevada has a new vision and a new passion. They have over 60 cross-cultural appointments, and are expanding Tongan and Taiwanese ministries.
• California-Pacific is the most diverse, with many languages spoken from California west to Guam and Saipan. Honolulu hosts a "Life After Prison" ministry; immigrants from all over are receiving ministry, along with a specific outreach to the Vietnamese.
• Oregon-Idaho is an inclusive conference from the variety of ministry settings to theology.
• Pacific Northwest has a 3-year academy for pastors new to the Conference, which includes time lived in Mexico. The trial of Karen Dammann has put the conference under special scrutiny which has highlighted the Christian love, respect, and transparency of the conference.
• Rocky Mountain has a new vision/mission statement, a new goal for 12 rural, 12 suburban and 12 ethnic ministries by 2012, and did a service of repentance and absolution for ethnic and cultural divides in the conference.
• Yellowstone is moving to a full time director of connectional ministries, and a plan to financial integrity.
• PNW is partnering with the South Congo Annual Conference, Cal-Nevada is partnering with the West Angola Conference, and Rocky Mountain is partnering with the East Angola Conference.

The Episcopal Address called for members of the Western Jurisdiction to practice radical hospitality by looking at "table manners" and what hospitality is based on. The host, after all, is God, and hospitality is not just courtesy but "Kin-dom Manners and Hospitality." We are called to extend the invitation to those who are different and a different class--the "outclass." "We need to start honoring those excluded and marginalized," he said. Every conference in the west has taken radical actions in this direction, he pointed out.

To "honor" means to accept the gifts brought, to accept who the persons are, to acknowledge God's work in and through these who come to the table. God's prevenient grace is at work in every person.

The West lives in a secular consumer culture which extends to the way people see the church. There is a tendency for the church to be a community of those who are the same. And this led to the proposal at General to an "amicable separation." The issue, however, is "how does this connect with this kin-dom hospitality?"

To be hospitable is to treat with respect, hold in high esteem even as people disagree. The response to the Bishops' Initiative on Children and Poverty has been great, he said, but not many children and poor are included in the communities of faith in the West.

Even so, the Western Jurisdiction conferences are leading the church in the mission to make disciples in times of fear, abundance, and scarcity.