The New York Annual Conference (NYAC) meets annually to set policy. This annual conference meeting – this year from June 8 to 11 – is the one time every year that representatives from every congregation throughout the conference come together and is thus a crucial forum for our witness against the church’s ongoing exclusion of God’s LGBT children.
If you are not an annual conference member (a delegate from your local congregation), please consider coming to annual conference anyway on either Thursday or Friday. We need dozens of volunteers to staff our table, sell t-shirts, help organize the lunch and much more.
Join us at the April 30 organizing meeting to help plan this year’s annual conference witness!
We are excited that Rev. Gregory Dell will join us as our featured speaker during MIND’s lunch on Friday, June 10. Dell is one of the true heroes of the reconciling movement and his support for MIND’s marriage initiative will make his presence with us even more relevant and inspiring. If you are coming to annual conference, please make sure to sign up for the MIND lunch on your registration form.
We have submitted two resolutions to this year’s annual conference.
One addresses the continuing crisis of hate violence. Read the resolution here. It is a follow- up on last year’s resolution on hate crimes and the successful November My Brother’s Keeper symposium. Together with a broad coalition of partners we are “resolved” to work actively to end hate violence and the prejudices that fuel it.
We have also re-introduced our “Ministry to the Marginalized: Welcoming LGBT people into NYAC” resolution. The resolution calls for concrete action in committing the conference to communicate its longstanding support for LGBT people’s rights to LGBT people. It was ruled out of order by Bishop Park last year. MIND challenged the ruling and it was reviewed by the Judicial Council, which declined to intervene on the grounds that the matter was purely a parliamentary one. We have addressed the bishop’s stated objection, incorporated the amendments from last year and further spelled out the details of how the resolution would be implemented. We have every reason to believe it will be allowed to come to a floor vote this year and we think it’s urgently important that the conference pass it so that LGBT in our jurisdiction may know that they are welcomed and not condemned by the people of the New York Annual Conference.