The morning of first day of GC19 business was spent hearing the report from the Commission on a Way Forward. Speakers outlined the benefits of the three plans included in the report: One Church, Connectional Conference and Traditional. Of particular note to our Conference, during the morning session, Dr. Susan Brumbaugh was ratified to continue her role and excellent work as the Coordinator of the GC Calendar.

After working through some technical difficulty with the voting devices, delegates voted 1 or 2 on each of the petition bundles or individual petitions to prioritize them. Wespath Recommendations, The Traditional Plan, Disaffiliation - Taylor, Disaffiliation - Boyette and the One Church Plan were the top 5 prioritized petitions. Rather than assigning legislation to designated, separate committees, the entire body became the legislative committee. The delegates voted to elect the Chair - Joe Harris of Oklahoma, Vice-Chair - Betty Kazadi Musau of the North Katanga Conference and Secretary - Carlene Fogle-Miller, Florida. The Legislative Committee convened to consider the Wespath Recommendations, which received more than 50% of the vote and will be passed onto the plenary body.

The committee voted to adjourn a bit early to begin work on the Traditional Plan petitions first thing in the morning (followed by the other petitions). For those who may not be familiar with this process, the work of the legislative committee is to "perfect" legislation via amendments, substitutions, etc. It also votes as to whether or not the petitions reach the plenary body on Tuesday. Petitions require a vote of more than 50% to move forward.

Tomorrow morning, the NM Conference Delegation plans to meet before the legislative committee reconvenes at 8:20 am CST. It will be a full, and most likely a challenging day. After today's actions, there are some feeling relieved and encouraged and others feeling hurt and disheartened. Please continue to pray for each other and for our denomination.

We will continue to keep you posted on developments via Facebook, Twitter and Conference email. The page numbers for petitions are listed in the graph below. To access the Advance Edition of the Daily Christian Advocate which contains the petitions, click here.

Thanks to Leia Williams & Levi McKay for photos.