Reactions to Upper New York Annual Conference 2016

General Conference started one month ago today, and if you were following this blog throughout those two weeks, you may have noticed that it's been noticeably silent for the past few weeks.  To be honest, General Conference was a lot to process, and I promise that in the next few days/weeks I'll post some sort of reaction to all of it.

But that's not the intent of this post.  One week after returning from Portland, I left DC again for a visit home to New York so I could attend Upper New York's Annual Conference.  And while UNYAC 16 was certainly not as contentious as General Conference, that's not to say it did not have it's downsides.  Meeting in the immediate wake of Baltimore-Washington's clergy session's decision to not provisionally ordain one of my seminary classmates as a Deacon in spite of her being recommended for provisional status by BWC's Board of Ordained Ministry simply because she's married to a woman cast a dark shadow over my own experience at UNY's Annual Conference.  Although I did have a glimpse of hope when a Wesley alum member of UNY refused to be provisionally ordained at this session in solidarity with his classmate.  So I do find myself giving thanks for and standing in awe of the prophetic witnesses and ministries of T.C. Morrow and Pat Dupont. 

But in spite of what was happening at the Woodley Park Marriott in Washington, DC, the biggest issue at UNYAC16 was surprisingly not about the inclusion of LGBTQ persons in the United Methodist Church or reactions to General Conference.  There were no clergy who boldly came out during this session of the Upper New York Annual Conference, nor were there impassioned speeches from the floor pertaining to full equality in the UMC as we saw happen at other Annual Conference sessions this year.  No, the big issue at the 2016 Upper New York Annual Conference was the budget.  Specifically, the problem is that the Annual Conference is consistently only receiving something like 73% of its ministry shares on a yearly basis because only 63% of the local churches in the Annual Conference are paying their apportionments in full (think taxes for you non-Methodist folk, except there is no IRS in the UMC who will come after a church who doesn't pay its full apportionments with any more weight than a "gee guys, it would be really great if you would pay your ministry shares...please?").

To be fair, most of the 333 churches that make up the 37% who aren't paying their ministry shares in full are at least paying them in part, and they have valid reasons for not paying in full.  Times are hard after all, and those churches are really struggling to keep the lights on themselves.  However, that doesn't change the fact that there are real consequences to the Annual Conference not receiving 100% of its projected income year-to-year, and those consequences manifest themselves as crucial ministries getting cut mid-year because.  For example, in February of this year, it was announced that the University Chaplain position at Syracuse University (a historic Methodist university, and the largest, if not the only United Methodist-Affiliated University in the Upper New York Annual Conference) had been moved to contingent status in the budget and was therefore no longer going to be funded after the 2016 spring semester finished.  In essence, the Upper New York Annual Conference is no longer able to financially support full-time campus ministry.  

Those of you who know me well know that I was very active in American University's United Methodist campus ministry during my undergraduate experience.  Having access to a campus ministry on site, separate from any local church, and fully funded and staffed shaped and formed my time at AU—perhaps more than any other college experience I had did.  During the budget debates, there were a number of opportunities to give speeches in support of campus ministry, and I'm ashamed to say that I was never able to muster up the courage to speak on behalf of campus ministry from the floor.  And by the time I did muster up some courage and started waving a card to be recognized by the bishop, someone called the question, a parliamentary trick that ends debate and forces the body to vote on what's before them.  So I was unable to speak in support of campus ministry from the floor.  But if I had been recognized, I probably would have said something like this:

Thank you Bishop.  Ian Urriola.  Lay equalization member for the Genesee Valley District, member of Asbury First United Methodist Church.  

We've been talking a lot about the campus ministry at Syracuse University.  I spent my four years of college at a different historic United Methodist-Affiliated school in Washington, DC: American University.   American University falls within the boundaries of the Baltimore-Washington Annual Conference, and those folks have had the wisdom to see to it that there is not only a United Methodist clergyperson serving as a University Chaplain but ALSO a full-time and fully-funded United Methodist clergyperson serving as the full-time United Methodist-Protestant chaplain on American University's Campus.  

Last month marked the 10 year anniversary of my confirmation as a full member of the United Methodist Church.  After being baptized as an infant and growing up at Asbury First, I formally joined the church in May 2006.  Furthermore, December 31st of this year will mark 9 years since my answering a call to ministry that God placed on my heart during my Mission of Peace to Cuba.  And thanks be to God, this past April the Genesee Valley District Committee on Ministry elected to certify me as a candidate for ordained ministry.  And yet, thanks to the power of the Holy Spirit, the only reason I am able to stand here today and give this speech is because of my experience with the American University United Methodist-Protestant Campus Ministry.

There were many times throughout my four years of college when I came close to abandoning my call to ordained ministry.  There were many times throughout my four years of college when I came close to leaving my own local church.  There were even many times throughout my four years of college when I came close to giving up on the institution of the United Methodist Church overall and leaving the denomination.  Most notably, the 2012 General Conference left me extremely disillusioned with this institution and I was ready to email my pastor and say "That's it.  Remove me from your roll.  Count me out.  I'm done."  Don't get me wrong, I still considered myself a Christian, but I just about had it with the United Methodist Church.  But the only thing that was able to stop me was the witness of the Campus Ministry at AU.  Through them, I was able to get a glimpse of how the Church universal ought to be acting: one community, united by love and the power of the Holy Spirit even though we weren't always of one mind (even on issues more pressing than whether Star Wars or Star Trek is the quintessential science fiction experience).  This fully funded campus ministry staffed by a full-time chaplain is the only reason I still call myself a United Methodist.

Autonomous campus ministries—that is, campus ministries that are not connected or tied to a local church—are essential to the life of our United Methodist Church.  During my four years at AU, I witnessed people come to Christ who would otherwise never darken the doors of a local church.  I've seen disciples be made and formed through worship, study, and acts of mercy and justice at this campus ministry.  And I've seen at least one person from every generation of this campus ministry's existence come to answer a call to ministry in some shape or form.  In my experience, full-time campus ministry lives into and fulfills the mission of the United Methodist Church to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world more effectively than campus ministry.

Today, those of us here in the Upper New York Annual Conference will elect to pass a budget in which campus ministry will be considered a contingent expense with our votes today and our dollars throughout the year and years to come.  And in light of that, I think we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the Baltimore Washington Conference for continually supporting a full-time United Methodist campus ministry on American University's campus as well as a deep debt of gratitude for those who have served as the University Chaplain at Syracuse University throughout the years.  After hearing the testimonies of others speaking in favor of campus ministry at Syracuse, I know that my experience at American is not an isolated one.  Campus ministry matters, full stop.