Annual Conference

Beloved in Christ,
Last week, Michelle Manis and I attended the Annual Conference of the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Methodist Church in Spokane Valley, WA. Michelle is the lay member to Annual Conference from our congregation and I am the clergy member. Each local church in the conference sends one lay and one clergy member. In addition, clergy appointed outside the local church and retired clergy are also members of the Annual Conference and lay persons who wish to attend may apply to be “equalization” members from particular demographic groups such as youth and young adults, so the overall membership of the Annual Conference is approximately half lay and half clergy. Much of the business of our regional church takes place at Annual Conference, including the fixing of appointments for the coming year by the bishop, as well as retirement, memorial, and ordination celebrations and time to learn from experiences in other places. More detail on some of that will be covered in Michelle’s report from Annual Conference during worship on July 19.
 
Here, I want to highlight one transition that took place that will affect us directly. You may remember that last year, the Sea-Tac Missional district became the forerunner in a transition to a new model of superintendency. After Sea-Tac spent a year learning the new model, all the other districts are now adopting it as well. Instead of having one district superintendent for each district, there are now three superintendents for each district. Each superintendent serves approximately 1/3 of the churches and committees in their district and the borders between districts are more fluid than in the old model. In addition to being superintendents, those serving in that role are also part-time pastors at local churches. The reasons for the shift include lightening the load on each superintendent, inviting more voices to the cabinet table to inform the bishop on decisions that affect the conference, and allowing superintendents to specialize their work with committees rather than work with all of them.
 
Since we, at Haller Lake, are near the geographical border between Sea-Tac and Puget Sound districts, we will be interacting with the superintendents from both districts. We said good-bye to Rev. Mark Galang, former superintendent in the Puget Sound district, who was with us during our Palm Sunday Church Conference and instrumental in helping us navigate the process of signing the MOU with Habitat for Humanity. His farewell from the churches in Puget Sound included the gift of a baby yoda, which you can see in the pictures in this newsletter. Our primary superintendent is now Rev. Joe Kim, who is also pastor at Bothell UMC. In addition, we will relate to the other new Puget Sound superintendents Rev. Pat Longstroth and Rev. Joel Aosved, and to the continuing Sea-Tac superintendents, Rev. Elizabeth Ingram-Schindler, Rev. Shalom Agtarap, and Rev. Ferdie Llenado, as needed. We anticipate that there will be a learning curve for the new superintendents, but that soon we will have frequent helpful input from them as we move ahead in our work together.
 
Many Blessings, Pastor Laura