#umcgc Twitter Feed and our Church

First of all I am sorry to anyone who was on the #UMCGC Twitter feed for a bit this day who saw images that were not appropriate. It was not too many (I think I saw 1/2 a dozen or so) but one is too many. These images were created and posted by spammers and no one from the General Conference.

When this happens on Twitter, there are a couple of options. 1) The people can decide to change the way they label (known as tagging) tweets so the inappropriate images do not appear or 2) people can clean up the current tag and report the spammers. 

What was interesting is there were those on Twitter who wanted to split from the original #UMCGC tag while there were others who asked people to report and block the spammers.

Cleaning up a Twitter feed takes time and it is not immediate, it takes about 30 minutes and it also requires individuals to stay on top of it to report every piece of spam that may show up. Additionally, once the feed is cleaned up, there must be a rebuilding of trust among the users to use the original tag. There is a hesitation to look/use that tag in the event that the inappropriate images appear again. 

The group that wanted to break away to start a new tag (#gc2016) forget to remember is that spammers will find that tag as well. Then they will have to create a new tag, only to be exposed to spammers again. 

Unless we are willing to do the hard and continuous work we will always be breaking off to start new Twitter tags. We will never able to have a pure and unified Twitter tag for users that is always safe and following the orthodox intent of creators of the hashtag. 

Rev. Dr. Maria Dixon Hall giving voice to feelings held by right/left at #UMCGC

The Rev. Dr. Maria Dixon Hall is an associate professor of organizational communication/Non-Profit studies at SMU in Dallas, Texas. She is a progressive and has a history that is longer than me. She is a Deacon, African American, professor, and theologian that gives me pause to think on a number of things. She has given voice to feelings that many people I have visited with at General Conference 2016 have stated. 

While Rev. Dixon Hall is a progressive and speaks from that position, I can tell you that I have heard conservatives and other progressives at the conference say similar things. Progressives have said to me, I am with the cause but these demonstrations nudge me away from the cause. Conservatives have said to me, the more I see these types of disruptive demonstrations the more I distance myself from the cause.

And so as a white, heterosexual male I have hesitated to share these personal feelings, however, I can only say "Amen" to the good Rev. Dixon Hall.

Read the whole thing here: Progressives Playing with Fire: Mad Methodists, Berners, & the Myth of Prophetic Arson

The means are the ends at #UMCGC

General Conference is a gathering of rules and a desire for order. It is one that votes in either/or. There are yes or no votes. There are few times when there are more than two options. It is a place that is ripe with opportunities for misunderstanding and misrepresentation. These are not malicious opportunities, it is just the way the General Conference is set up. Because it is a body that values accomplishing something, the focus is on “ends”.

When petitions come forward, there seems to be a level of suspicion of “what is the end game to this petition?” Because there is such distrust among the body, there is a cloud that hangs over the body that showers down doubt and even more mistrust. Rather than assuming petitions are submitted in good faith, the general conference body seems to assume that petitions are crafted to hide their true intentions which have a nefarious ends.

The reality is that one of the things that marks the Church from other organizations is that in the Church our means are the ends.  Other organizations places priority on the ends, what is accomplished, what is completed, what is the bottom line. There are ethical boundaries that guide many in the business world, however “at the end of the day” there is a desire to meet the goal, achieve the goal, arrive at a place, and meet the projections.

The reality is that the Church is one that proclaims that God came in Jesus Christ. To put it another way, Christianity is one that affirms that the means are the ends. How God does what God does is what God does. How we do what we do is what we do. Few will know much of the decisions that are made, but what will be remembered is the actions that are taken. The means we take is the end that people will “know” about the Church.

We can say all that we want that we are a loving people and desire for reconciliation. However nice our creeds are, it is our actions that are branded in the minds of the world. Christianity is seen as a hypocritical and “anti” organization by many outside the church.

When we confuse the ends as primary, we will take any means to achieve them. Let us not forget that our means are the end.