Preparing for Annual Conference (June 15, 2026)

Good morning friends.

As promised, today I am writing on a Monday morning in addition to the usual Saturday reflection. This week I am preparing for the Western North Carolina Annual Conference, which will meet here at Lake Junaluska, just west of Asheville.

Lake Junaluska is an assembly that hosts all kinds of conferences, is adjacent to the Great Smoky Mountain National Park, the Qualla Boundary of the Cherokees, and the city of Asheville, and is a kind of spiritual home for many of us. My wife Pam and I are both trustees. Junaluska made it through the pandemic, when people were not attending large gatherings; the season of disaffiliation; and Hurricane Helene. The hurricane did damage to Junaluska and closed major road systems surrounding it, and at the same time the assembly became a host site for search and rescue workers from across the United States.

Yesterday I took our daughter’s dog, Ladybug, for a walk around Lake Junaluska.

So the pre-meetings begin today. I will let you in on a mindset that actually helps me to preside over this gathering of about fifteen hundred people. Here it is.

I came to this same annual conference, as a clergy member, for almost thirty years, beginning with my candidacy for ministry, and including my ordinations (Deacon, 1983; Elder, 1986–yes this is the 40th anniversary), and all the subsequent years until I was assigned to Florida upon election and consecration as bishop. I would come to annual conferences, and while I knew the bishops, appreciated them and at times interacted with them to some extent, I never actually gave much thought to the role and functioning of the bishop. I liked them, respected them, and enjoyed their leadership. But in that long season, my thoughts were really about something else. I looked forward to seeing people, especially friends I rarely saw. It was and is a kind of reunion.

And that is confirmed by the writing of Russ Richey (may he rest in peace) in his The Methodist Conferences in America. Charge Conferences, he argues, are about revival. General Conference is about polity. Annual Conference is about community. It is the connection in the flesh, people in proximity to each other.

I came to those annual conferences to see people. I looked forward to the breaks, the meals, sitting with friends and mentors (like Elizabeth Graves, Duke Ison and Bob Tuttle) and seeing people I admired (like Tom Langford or James Fowler). This was teh Annual Conference for me.

So this realization is freeing. Most people are not bishop-centric. They are here to draw strength from and find joy in each other. My role is to try to facilitate that.

(I am aware that in a divergent culture people arrive at conference for many reasons and with diverse objectives. I am telling my story. It is one that resonates with many people.)

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I have for years had a simple goal for Annual Conference in terms of the outcomes. I want people to feel closer to God, closer to each other, and more informed and happier about being a United Methodist by the time they depart. Everyone will gather, some beginning today. I will have lunch with extension ministers on Thursday, then the clergy session, and then dinner first with retiring clergy and later with our local pastors that evening.

On Friday, Bishop Latrelle Easterling will preach our opening communion service and later in the day Bishop Christian Alsted will lead us in Bible Study. I will ask the historic questions of the incoming ordinands, with whom I have had a retreat and a pilgrimage this spring. We will adopt a budget for the coming year and present Rev. Meredith Martin as our proposed new treasurer and director of administrative services. We will celebrate the 100th Anniversary of Duke Divinity School. The retiring clergy will pass the mantle to the incoming ordinands. And we will vote on a proposed Covenant Relationship with the Ukraine-Moldova Provisional Annual Conference.

That is a lot for one day. The next day, Saturday, will be no different.

We will hear the report of our Conference Foundation and work on petitions. We will learn together in settings related to the uniqueness of particular churches: rural, large membership, historically black, hispanic, first, experimental, inclusive, college, cross-cultural, suburban, etc. And then we will have the Memorial Service with Rev. David Beam preaching. We will have a monitoring report, learn about creation care, celebrate work done in disaster recovery, recognize deaconnesses and certified lay ministers, and continue engagement with petitions.

Our offerings will be for an Equity Fund to Repair Historically Black Churches and the Ukraine Partnership. And our music throughout the weekend will be led by Dr. Melodie Galloway and Vocal Space.

On Saturday evening we will have the Service of Ordination, Commissioning and Licensing. Deacons and Elders are invited to process and wear red stoles. I will preach in this service. The next morning we will have our Service of Sending Forth, which includes the making of clergy appointments for the 2026-2027 year. After that has concluded I will greet anyone I have not yet had a conversation with under the large oak tree next to the Harrell Center. We will then be adjourned.

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My purpose as presider is, as much as possible, to include as much of the work that can be done by the conference within a forty-eight hour time frame. I will do my best. If you are a person who prays and feels led to pray for me, it is that I will preside with patience, that I will be a person of peace, that I will not suppress speech and at the same time that I will help the body (conference) not to do harm to itself.

So here is another mindset that I carry with me into these meetings, one that has been shaped by an extended personal experience with conferencing. If I can be a person of peace, I can help the body (conference) to function and do its best work. Persons will naturally bring their fears, anxieties and angers. I have those as well. I need to be in a place of peace to lead in the midst of this. This painting is a visual image of me for that:

The painting “Peace, Be Still”, by the Chinese artist He Qi.

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My hope, when all is said and done, is that we will be closer to God and to each other, and more informed and happier about being United Methodists.

Each morning this week I will grind the beans, remind myself of who I am and my purpose, and thank God once again for the gathering of my people.

Before I was their bishop, they were my people. I chose them and they chose me. And by the grace of God I was sent back to them to serve in this way.

I will be in the middle of presiding on Saturday morning, but my intention is to at least check in with you and share an update. Thank you for reading, subscribing, recommending and sharing. Mostly thank you for your friendship and the connection.