With a drum welcome from indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest, United Methodists gathered at the Oregon Convention Center in Portland on Tuesday, May 10, for their 2016 General Conference. Delegates of the top legislative body of The United Methodist Church and others joined in a cacophony of “alleluias” in many languages during opening worship.
Meeting May 10-20 here, 864 delegates will consider 1,000 petitions that will determine how the 12.3-million-member denomination orders its ministry, structures its agencies and addresses social justice issues, including human sexuality, for the next four years.
With their global, missional theme “Therefore Go,” delegates from the United States, Europe, Africa and the Philippines opened the session with the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper and an address by San Francisco Area Bishop Warner H. Brown Jr., president of the Council of Bishops.
Read more of Barbara Dunlap-Berg’s story on the opening of this long-awaited assembly. Learn more…
