Adjourned!

The conference is adjourned “sine die.” It has come to a close, reached its conclusion, terminated, and will not resume in this session. The intensely busy schedule has come to an end and the agenda has been completed. Sounds like it is over, right? Sounds like there is nothing more to do and we could take some time off now, but the work has only just begun.

In conversation with our new Apostle on Friday afternoon, I learned that, following the end of Conference on Saturday, the Council of Twelve has scheduled a meeting on Sunday. On Monday, all Field Officers, including Mike Hewitt and me, begin three days of field meetings. For the first time, we will meet with the international and not the domestic fields.

We have not yet seen the agenda for those three days, but we can be sure that it will include determining what actions we need to take in response to the decisions made during the world conference. By the end of the day on Wednesday, no doubt we will have learned what new priorities will need to be addressed. Then we get to go home and get to work!

Isn’t it interesting that what appears to be an end is, in reality, another beginning? I wonder if, in Luke 10 when Jesus sent out the Seventy, it wasn’t preceded by a conference or a training workshop. “After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go.” (Luke 10:1) Probably that meeting adjourned, and then the work began. The Seventy went out, and later returned with stories and testimonies of what happened. (Luke 10:17). Perhaps they, once again, thought the job was over, only to discover that the work was just beginning all over again! Perhaps it is ever thus in the service of God.

It all makes me wonder: do you suppose that when we get to the end of this life and cross through the veil, we will discover that our work is really just beginning?

Posted by Carman