The United Methodist Church introduced me to the joy of conference calls. Initially it was my teammate and co-competitor, Rachel „strangely-warmed“, who seemed to plan her weekly plans around her various board calls. Now, however, I find my own evening plans strangely scheduled around such calls. Since the beginning of January, Monday 5pm EST (11pm here in Germany!) has become an hour set aside for (holy) conference calls with the other members of the Common Witness Coalition.
Now, I have never met the majority of the people who are on these calls, but I must admit, it is quite a cool feeling to be connected with people all around the world, of different ages and all with different regional accents. And at least in my mind, these calls have taken on the feeling of ‘team practice.’ Yes, we are all involved in differing committees or ‘events,’ but we meet once a week to share how we have trained for our individual events in the past week and then together refine the basic skills that we will all need as a team to do well in our individual events, and inevitably, to win as a team.
This past Monday, we trained our basic skills and knowledge of Robert’s Rules of Order, another frequently mentioned and implemented, but seldom explained, phenomenon of the United Methodist Church. Of course, Robert and his rules are often brought up within the circles of Methodist nerds who enjoy discussing legislation and church politics. And now, yes, the basic rules and parliamentary procedure church make sense and I appreciate both the sense of logic that they follow and the sense of order that they hopefully produce. However, the plan of organization and the rules of order for the 2012 General Conference remain a bit above my head. And yes, likely in practice they are clear. But, beyond my experience in church council meetings and at the Student Forum, I haven’t had to learn or obey these Rules from our friend, Robert.
Clearly, I still have a lot to learn. Back to studying.
