By Kate Hyder
Bishop Mary Virginia Taylor told the 1640 members of the SC Annual Conference gathered at Florence from June 8-12 that churches can no longer afford to conduct business as usual. It's time, she said, to focus on "what we need to do to equip ourselves for making new disciples, providing renewed opportunities for strengthening existing disciples and discovering once again what God's real call is for our church in ministry and mission to the communities where we are placed.
The theme of the conference was "In the Wesleyan Way-Principles, Passion, and Practice." We had three early morning communion services to start each business day, three worship services, three special services (one to honor retirees, one to memorialize those passing on since last conference, and one reward recognition service), numerous business sessions, and many, many voting opportunities to elects delegates to Jurisdictional and General Conferences in 2012.
Lay delegates elected nine laity and the Clergy elected nine Clergy to represent South Carolina at the 2012 General Conference in Tampa, Florida. Among those elected were Carolyn Briscoe from the Anderson district and also our District Superintendent, Susan Ray-Leonard. We also elected nine laity and nine clergy for the Jurisdictional Conference which will be at Lake Junaluska in 2012. Rubielee Addison was elected from the Anderson District.
Offerings collected during conference were: UMCOR disaster relief -$18,422.47; Imagine no Malaria-$12,869.22; youth scholarships- $13,581.48; and SC seminary student scholarship fund-$14,001.53.
In legislative action, the conference passed legislation on immigration reform, redistricting evaluation, and six petitions to present to the 2012 General Conference. The conference approved the 2012 budget of $17,175,808. A new structure for Connectional Ministries designed to better connect the local church with the conference also was adopted. Numerous reports were presented and approved.
Sunday before the Bishop preached a Pentecost Message there was an ordination service and the Bishop commissioned and ordained 31 people as provisional or full deacons and elders in the United Methodist Church. Among them was her daughter, the Rev. Mandy Taylor Young.
Annual conference 2012 will be held at the Florence Civic Center on June 10-13. This conference goes back to the old format of Sunday to Wednesday.
