Hi All,

Hamilton Conference held its 90th Annual General Meeting in Port Elgin this past weekend for the third time we were are the CAW Family Education Centre (now known as the Unifor Family Education Centre).

As is usual we paid respects to retirees and jubilands, ordained and commissioned several to various ministries within the United Church and accepted into our denomination a transfer from the Presbyterian Church in Canada.

A fair bit of time was dedicated to discussing the Comprehensive Review and their most recent paper (whose title was shamelessly stolen from our Conference President's theme), "Trust God, Trust The Body."

We also spent a fair bit of time on Mission Strategy and Support.

We elected a President and acclaimed a President Designate.  Commissioners to GC 42 which will meet in August 2015 in Cornerbrook, NL.

Budgetary concerns meant that we ran a 12 hour business day on Saturday and roughly an 8 hour business day on Sunday.  Both times included worship.

Apart from the Budget and nominations work we passed no motions that would impact the life and work of the Church in Hamilton Conference.

The Right Reverend Gary Patterson joined us on Sunday and delivered two fabulous sermons.  Only one of which I had any theological disagreement with and I wouldn't suggest that disagreement was vigorous so much as it is prinicipled.  I should note that Gary tends towards the Methodist side of our roots and that influences the bone of this particular contention.

At any rate what follows are some thoughts and impressions from weekend.

1)  Table Group names.  We've been recycling names for the past few years as a way of trying to move past the monotony of having numbered tables (we still have to number them so they can be found--we just add the animal names as a touch of whimsey).  I can't remember my designation last year or the year before.  I likely won't forget this years for a while and neither will the rest of my table group.

Table 23 was the "Snakes" table.  I think it is safe to say that anyone with any passing familiarity with Biblical narrative would not find the designation of snake complimentary.

While an argument could be made that I was appropriately placed (having used the stealthy skills of a python to drop on unsuspecting prey during the course of a Conference weekend and thus depriving the Conference Executive Secretary of his mustache--A point which this former Executive Secretary has not forgotten) it appears that the rest of the table felt somewhat maligned.

The time devoted to the Comprehensive Review was, sadly, a shambles.  We were led through the document by the Rev. Kenji Marui (who I first met while I was Camp Co-ordinator at Camp Bimini in London Confernece--making it a legitimate claim that I have had a hand in training Kenji for ministry).  Kenji approached our time as if none of us had read the document and killed valuable time trying to explain things we didn't ask him to explain.

That actually browned of our Current and Past Executive Secretaries who had made it clear that Hamilton Conference was prepared to discuss the document.

We were expected to get through four sections.  My table group didn't get time to complete any one section fully though we did get the bulk of the two sections assigned completed.

I guess incomplete results are considered better than no results.

At our table group we felt that the questions actually presumed buy in to the new model and that buy in was simply not present at our table.

Mission Strategy and Support discussions were very positive and showed area of promise for congregations that actually are willing to move from survival to missional ways of being.

Was it enough to lure folk to mission from survival?  Probably not.

We honoured 10 retirees this year.  Of those ten five were ordained later than I was.  There are a number of circumstances which makes this an understandable fact.  Several of these are second career clergy having decided to answer a call to Ministry after having retired from previous work.  Others have experienced a decline in physical well-being which makes ongoing ministry difficult.

There is a concern in that more and more of our clergy in the UCCAN are folk who enter into ministry after having retired from other work.

I don't have the numbers so I can only estimate that we honoured 10 clergy who have celebrated 25 years of ministry (9 more years and I will hit this milestone).  Almost as many celebrated 50 years of ministry (do the math) and two celebrated 60 years of ministry (again, do the math).

If the trend of second career clergy continues it will not be long before we fail to see any clergy get near the 25 year mark.

Our solitary Commissionand is probably close to my mother's age.

Our solitary admission to Ministry is probably closer to my father's age.

Two of our five Ordinands are definitely younger than I am now.  Possibly even younger than I was when I was ordained.  So they will have a shot at making the 25 year mark.

So what is my concern about the relatively short ministerial careers of some of my colleagues?

Time is a great teacher and time in ministry is a great teacher of ministers.  As the shelf life of the average clergy person shrinks (the average age of Ministers in the United Church of Canada was approaching 56 at last glance) the collective experience of our clergy diminishes.  That represents a significant loss to the Church as a whole.

Their are financial implications to this phenomenon as well and while some are positive others are decidedly not.

We elected 24 Commissioners (12 Lay Commissioners and 12 Clergy Commissioners) to the 42nd General Council which will convene in August 2015 in Cornerbrook, NL.  General Council has asked Conferences to elect Commissioners a year in advance because they expect that we will have more than the average material to wade through by way of preparation.

We will elect a further 9 Commissioners next year (we reserve spots for certain officers of Conference and Youth Forum delegates).  We may have also kept a few in reserve for potential Moderator Nominees.

Our Budget is looking pretty healthy and with some changes in our financial structures we should be able to get away with a minimal increase in our assessments.

Next year we will meet at Redeemer University College (woot woot!).  While staying at the Unifor Centre (formerly CAW) has allowed the Conference AGM costs to be controlled we are noticing that participation from the southern part of the Conference is dropping steadily.

It is a three hour drive (in theory) from my house to the Unifor Centre.  If one decides to opt for infrequently travelled roads where one might not run across OPP speed traps one can make the drive in less time.

Having spent 7 years in NL Conference where it was a matter of routine to drive seven hours to attend District meetings and District executive meetings I do not personally find a three hour dirve to be an obstacle.  Ontario roads are generally in better shape and the chances of my running into a moose in Southern Ontario is close enough to 0% that I will happily play with those odds.

Depending on the time of day Deer aren't really a hazard either.

Still three years in the least heavily populated Presbytery of six means that more people have to foot their own travel costs and clearly they aren't willing to do that.  Something needs to change.  

Ted Smith DLM of Erie Presbytery was installed as our new President and Gord Dunbar OM of Halton Presbytery was acclaimed as President Designate.

I work with Ted a lot at the Presbytery Executive level.  He will do well as President.

I know and like Gord a great deal.  In his address to the Conference he admitted, several times to being "odd" unless he actually meant "awed."  My tongue is still a tad sore for not bringing that confusion up.

Gord doesn't actually take the reigns for another year so I have lots of time to stop biting my tongue.

Happily we have found someone to succeed me as the Chair of the Conference Nominations Committee so in one more year I will resign from this position and find something else to muck up.

Any other questions about the Hamilton Conference AGM will be entertained and the answers to those questions may be more entertainment than fact.

Grace and peace to you.

John