GC 2016: Day one (May 10)

The bishops line up for opening worship

Drummers from the Grand Ronde peoples

The day's choir enters the worship space

The bishops gather to consecrate the elements for communion

 Bishop Warner H. Brown, Jr. preaches the opening sermon

The work of the General Conference of The United Methodist Church began this afternoon with an exuberant worship service that truly represented the global character of our denomination.

The business portion of the day began to work through the 'nuts and bolts ' needed to conduct institutional affairs. The rules however quickly bogged down in Robert's Rules of Order and the schedule was side-tracked resulting in a longer session for the day.

The new voting method, electronic tablets, hit a snag but it seems to be a better method than the previous way of holiday up colored cards which needed to be counted by hand.

Tomorrow's business will hopefully resume with more focus resting on the ministries of the church and less on how we vote on those ministries.

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