THE "ANNUAL" ANNUAL CONFERENCE

I leave in the morning for Salina where I will be attending the Kansas West Annual Conference in which I am a member. It will be a busy week as I attend a Board of Ordained Ministry Meeting at 1:30 tomorrow until?? The evening will be the clergy session which will get us started for the conference. Wednesday morning I will have to drive to Wichita to pick up Kim Reisman, our speaker for the Kansans for United Methodist Renewal banquet. I am in charge of the banquet which will be at Grand Ave UMC around 5:30 pm. Should be fun.

Thursday will be busy as we begin debating the various ammendments to the Church's constitution being proposed by General Conference. Pray that all will be civil and that God's will be done. There will also be great plenaries with Bishop Schnase speaking several times. I am looking forward to that. In the evening will be the ordination service which is a great milestone for those who have been working through the process.

Friday morning at 11:00 am I will be preaching for the Memorial Service at the conference. If any of you are in the area, I invite you to come. The rest of the day will consist of the setting of the appointments by the Bishop followed by whatever business we need to do to finish the work of our time together.

Please keep me in your prayers. It is a busy week. Pray that God will be pleased with us as we gather to "conference" together.

Heading East

Tomorrow morning I will be heading for Hutchinson for the Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. Actually, I will be attending a financial seminar for pastors in the afternoon followed by a Board of Ordained Ministry meeting in the evening. The conference starts on Wednesday until Friday evening. Wednesday evening I am in charge of a banquet for Kansans for United Methodist Renewal of which I am the president. Our speaker is the President of the Mission Society based out of Norcrosse, Georgia.
This year we will be celebrating in worship and attending to the business of the church for the coming year. We also will be voting on delegates to the General Conference which will be held next year in Fort Worth, Texas. Please pray for the right people to be sent to represent us. It will be a busy few days.
After the conference on Friday evening, M.L. and I hope to catch up with Todd and Melissa in McPherson and plan to stay the night and then go to the state track meet in Wichita. Kyle and his 4 x 800 relay team qualified at regionals so we are going to cheer him and the team on to victory. Or maybe more realistically, a good personal best as a team. Should be fun.
M.L. then is planning to get together with her sisters for the weekend in Marion while I look for a ride back to Leoti from Wichita. So as you can see, a busy time lies ahead. Hopefully everything works out okay so I'll see you on Sunday. Have a great week!!