Conference

One month from today World Conference begins. Ideas, concepts, emotions around conference vary from person to person, place to place. It is so interesting how folks think about it.

In one place people say to me things like "you must be really excited" or "I'll bet you can't wait for it" or "are you ready for all the excitement?"

Somewhere else I've been asked "so what are the big changes coming out of conference this year?" and "are you getting nervous?"

Questions implying a whole range of my supposed feelings about the experience have stopped surprising me.

What I am thinking about conference is that this is an opportunity for a large and very diverse number of people to come together to talk and to listen, to consider, to share opinions and maybe even to form new opinions. In fact, it's very important to come with that willingness to be open to new information, differing perspectives, with the possibility that something entirely different from my original idea might emerge!

I've sat in the midst of our elected delegation many times now; I'm very aware that we don't all think alike. We don't even think alike as to the way we "do Conference." I may sit next to you and vote the opposite way you do. But I hope we've both done our homework, got as familiar with the questions as we can (maybe by checking in here ) and then been as prayerfully present as we can possibly be so as to be ready to raise a hand when the time comes.

Will it be exciting? Yes. Will there be changes? Yes. Will I change? Probably. Do I know how it will all turn out? No. Because we still have a whole lot of conferring yet to be done. Are you getting ready?

Posted by Marion