So, What Happened at General Conference 2012?
When I was preparing to start a new church, I learned that a new church is a movement, a group of people working together with passion and excitement. At some point, for that movement to continue it needs to organize. When it does and becomes an institutionalized congregation, however, the movement begins to die because the institution seeks to preserve itself. Churches in that situation, often have lengthy committee meetings that produce very little if nothing. “We met for three hours but we couldn’t decide whether to paint the fellowship hall beige or off-white. So we established a task force to study the issue.” The Sunday after our General Conference concluded, I asked the congregation if they had ever heard of a church meeting where nothing happened. People chuckled. I explained there had been a church meeting but nothing had been accomplished. Of course, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. Still, it’s not much of an exaggeration. Bishop Will Willimon from North Alabama said it...