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Including Adam Hamilton's Teaching Sessions, The Service of Gathering and Remembrance, The Episcopal Address and more...
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2015 Annual Conference begins  A discussion about the work of the Design Task Force and proposed changes to clergy health benefits began the 172nd session of the Iowa Conference.
Nearly four hundred people attended an orientation session at the Iowa Events Center, the site of the 2015 annual conference.
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 First Lady Racelder Grandberry-Trimble opened the Laity Session at the 2015 Annual Conference Session with prayer and words of encouragement for lay members of the Conference.
"I am excited and enthusiastic about the kingdom of God," she told those in attendance, "and because of that I am also excited about his kingdom people."
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Laity session filled with prayer, song, recognition and remembrance
 The Laity Session of the 2015 Annual Conference Session filled Saturday morning with prayer, song, laity recognition and remembrance before the Conference's formal opening.
Bridges 2 Harmony Roosevelt High School Gospel Choir blessed and inspired the crowd with a full set of beautiful music. |
Late Conference Lay Leader remembered 
The remembrance of late Conference Lay Leader David Decker was a "bittersweet part" of the Laity Session at the 2015 Annual Conference.
Conference Lay Leader Margaret Borgen said at the Saturday morning session.
"It's sad because Dave Decker is not here with us," she stated. "It's sweet, because we smile with every memory."
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Conference memorial service: On behalf of a grateful church, thank you
 The Service of Gathering and Remembrance at the 2015 Annual Conference Session was one of gratitude toward those who passed away this year, and also a call for those who remain to look beyond death. The hymn Give Me Jesus brought the faithful to worship for the service, followed by Bishop Julius Trimble reciting Words of Grace from Scripture, Matt. 28:1 CEB |
Episcopal Address-Have you received your invitation?
 Have you received your invitation? "Jesus has extended to us an invitation," Bishop Julius Trimble told Iowa Annual Conference Session attendees at the outset of his episcopal address. "Jesus invites us to come close and then go out," he said. "RSVP saying yes is not always easy, but absolutely necessary, if we profess Jesus Christ as our savior and put our whole trust in his grace."
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 The financial health of the Iowa Annual Conference has made a marked increase in the last year, according to the Treasurer's Report at the 2015 Annual Conference Session.
Conference Treasurer Terry Montgomery gave his report along with presenting a working budget to Conference Session attendees, emphasizing the substantial oversight undergone by the Conference.
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The 2016 budget of the Iowa Conference will be significantly smaller than the 2015 budget. The new financial plan is 7.52% small than the one in effect in the prior year.
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Conference Artist-"My work as a visual artist depends on your willingness to see"
"  My work as a visual artist depends on your willingness to see," explained Conference Artist Rev. Ted Lyddon Hatten as he thanked the Annual Conference attendees for participating in the artistic process with him. "It is a conscious act on your part."
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 The Iowa Annual Conference celebrated 21 individuals in their next level of ministry at the 2015 Annual Conference Session with the Service for the Ordering of Ministry.
The Reverend Rodger C. Prois, Bishop of the Western Iowa Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, offered the ecumenical greeting for the Sunday morning service.
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Acknowledging the hurt is necessary in working toward unity - Laity Address 
The Iowa Annual Conference's Lay Leader spoke candidly about the predominant dividing issue within the Methodist church today in her laity address during the 2015 Annual Conference Session, offering suggestions on working toward unity. "God gives us each minute of our life and gave us Jesus to follow," Margaret Borgen said, first sharing an anecdote from her youth. |
God's invitation for his disciples to follow him is not new, Rev. Lilian Gallo Seagren told the retiring clergy celebrated at the 2015 Annual Conference Session retirement recognition service. They were summoned after the resurrection to love, she said.
"Peter and the others were invited to relive this "Follow me" with an invitation to love," Rev. Seagren said.
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Renowned pastor tells Annual Conference - Radiate possibility, focus on people and be ready for change
 Annual Conference Session attendees were treated to a leadership revival at the Sunday night session of the Conference.
Pastor and author Adam Hamilton of the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, KS was invited to present his three-session program "Leading Beyond the Walls" at this year's Conference.
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 Nearly 60 people gathered to focus on "Tools for Increasing Your Church's Vitality." Sponsored by the Communications Ministry Team of the Iowa Conference, the Monday morning breakfast session featured Caitlin Congdon, Manager, the Training & Development of United Methodist Communications. |
Conference and "hundreds of volunteers" celebrate 25 year Iowa Nigeria Partnership
 In one of the most rousing ministry celebrations seen in recent memory in the Iowa Annual Conference, a great dancing processing brought offerings to celebrate the twenty-five years of the Iowa Nigeria Partnership (INP). "Partners in projects and friends" gave praise for what Bishop Trimble called "one of the longest running partnerships in the church."
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 Create worship that is exuberant, joyful, exciting and has a welcoming spirit, he suggested, try to include greetings that add a sense of community and reward regular attendance by having a way that makes people want to show up. Rev. Hamilton continued, explaining how to prepare sermons that connect. "Teach people something that they didn't know before," he said.
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Adam Hamilton and Conference Director of Communications, Art McClanahan, had a conversation between his second and third teaching sessions at the 2015 Iowa Annual Conference session.
Rev. Adam Hamilton is the senior pastor of the Kansas-based Church of the Resurrection, the largest United Methodist Church in the whole country. This year he joins us here at the Iowa Annual Conference to offer a series of teaching sessions on leadership, preaching, and missional outreach to inspire Iowa's own pastors and lay leaders. Rev. Hamilton's visit to Iowa is actually part of an ambitious 10-year project in which he has set out to reach all of the UMC's Annual Conferences in the U.S.
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 Rev. Dr. Beverlee Bell made a presentation to the Iowa Annual Conference on Action Item #400, Board of Pension and Health Benefits.
"Medical insurance is the big news," said Rev. Bell "and the future of insuring pastors."
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| Greetings from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary
"We are in this together with you," said Dr. Lallene Rector, President of Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary in Evanston, Illinois. Rector encouraged all churches to help young people discerning their call to ministry.
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"Education is the most powerful weapon you can use to change the world," said Markus McKinney, a student of Rust College in Holly Springs, Mississippi.
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Iowa Conference donates more than
$3 million to Heifer International
 Iowa United Methodists have given more than $3 million to the efforts of Heifer International in recent years. As of 2014 the generous support has helped thousands of families and their communities to move beyond hunger. And Cindy Sellers Roach reported that that doesn't include donations made my your congregations directly to Heifer.
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Conference embraces loving God's children
 Sometimes, when you are living in a rough situation or going through a rough time, you need a good story to take you away, to give you power, to help you dream about changing your own story.
The Iowa Conference hopes to help thousands of children do just that through a reading initiative called Change a Child's Story.
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| Fighting poverty with kid's books and quality time
"We estimate that there are 8,000 kids that are living in poverty in the state of Iowa that are not reading at grade level," reveals Clint Twedt-Ball of the Poverty to Opportunity Task Force, an initiative that aims to reach out to every one of those kids on behalf of the United Methodist Church.
Clint was just at the 2015 Annual Conference session, where he presented the task force's intentions to attendees. "[We] announced that our goal as Iowa United Methodists is going to be, during the next year, to give away half a million books. And during the next two years, to give a million hours of time to support kids and reading."
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 Listening to the Conference for four days, Rev. Rebecca Fisher, LDM Evangelism & New Ministry Development was led to ask, "How do you make a disciple?" She posed the question during the Tuesday morning Bible study of the 2015 annual conference session.
Fisher began with a prayer, "God, open our eyes and ears so that we can see clearly and hear you and our hearts and minds to your Spirit."
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Conference elects delegates
Iowa Conference elected its delegates and alternates to the 2016 United Methodist General Conference and North Central Jurisdictional Conference in the course of twelve ballots.
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Iowa commitment to Imagine No Malaria celebrated
 "I have an incredible story of celebration for our church that you, members of the Iowa Conference have shaped," said Sheri Atland, campaign director of Imagine No Malaria. "Today, together, our grassroots actions are uniting and informing the people of our church and beyond our doors to the communities that we serve."
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 St Paul's UMC, Waterloo and Bettendorf, Quad Cities Korean UMC received the first One Matters Discipleship Awards to be presented to Iowa Conference congregations.
Created this year by Discipleship Ministries (formerly the General Board of Discipleship), the One Matters Discipleship Award is presented to select churches that are in transformation and making disciples of Jesus Christ.
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| Conference expresses support for Connectional Table
The 2015 Iowa Annual Conference session expressed its support of the United Methodist Church's Connectional Table proposal to the 2016 General Conference that the denomination take a more open stance on homosexuality.
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 Four special offerings were received during the 2015 session of the Iowa Annual Conference with a preliminary total close to $44,000.
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 Legislation proposed for consideration at the 2015 Iowa Annual Conference session was divided into twelve sections, by topic. Some were approved on the "consent calendar," which means that they were approved by the nearly 1600 members of the annual conference without discussion or amendment. Several items were lifted from the consent calendar and debated. A few were ruled out of order and withdrawn from consideration.
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Thank you for taking time to complete the 2015 Annual Conference session evaluation. Your feedback is valued as we work together to have an excellent experience. Please complete this survey by Friday, June 19, 2015. |
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