Adam Hamilton at Annual Conference

Adam Hamilton was the plenary speaker for two sessions during the New England Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church this year, which took place at Gordon College June 17-20. Hamilton pastors the largest UMC in our country, about 8,000 people, the Church of the Resurrection.

Hamilton spoke on the topics of leadership, worship and outreach. He challenged us to bring the church into the present day, using an example of how music technology has changed in the last 50 years from playing records, to cassett tapes, to CDs, and now to Ipods with MP3s. Does our church look more like a "record" or an "Ipod"? He challenged churches that 50% of attendance AND leadership need to be young adults under 30 in order to be in touch with the changing world (and 50% over 30 to bring a sense of continuity and maturity). Another leadership principle that struck me was encouraging churches, when there is a fork in the road, take the harder and more sacrificial way as this is usually the way that leads to life.

He left us with three questions that church folks need to be able to answer clearly in order to have the passion and desire to invite people to church: 1) Why do people need Jesus Christ? (what makes Christianity unique from other religions)? 2) Why do people need the church? (why can't we just have religion on our own)? 3) Why do people need OUR church? (what does our church have to offer that other churches may not be offering)? We challenge you to answer these questions for yourself and discuss them with others.

Attending the New England Annual Conference this year were Pastors Gwyneth & Jamie, Earle Harvey as Lay Leader, and Merrill Kaiser as Lay Member to Annual Conference.

Other news at Annual Conference included voting on many Constitutional Amendments from General Conference, and welcoming Vermont (from the Troy Conference) into the New England Conference. For updated information about these and other agenda items, please go to www.neumc.org/AC09news