25 Mar Update on the US National Conference

Registrations for the 2007 US National Conference have been streaming in continuously. Over 100 were added in the past week, bringing us up to 380 registrations as of Friday, March 23. Persons from 88 different UB churches (including one UB church in Canada) are now registered for the May 31 – June 3 conference in Huron, Ohio.

Of the registrants, 100 are ministers, and 70 are the spouses of ministers (there will be special workshops designed just for pastors’ wives). We also have 52 children registered.

March 15 was the deadline Bishop Ron Ramsey set for churches to return the National Church Covenant. As of March 23, 144 of the 209 possible churches had returned the covenant, so we’ve got a ways to go there. The Discipline calls for cluster leaders to organize congregational meetings in churches that have not returned the covenant by April 1, to determine if their intention is to not sign the covenant and withdraw from the denomination. If some other reason has prevented you from returning the covenant, please let the bishop know, so that time and effort isn’t wasted in organizing congregational meetings.

As of March 22, we were still waiting on election results from about 60 of our churches (the deadline for reporting was March 15). In addition, 44 pastors had not submitted their annual reports for 2006 (for this, the deadline was March 1).

We’re anticipating a superb experience at the US National Conference. It will be unlike any previous UB gathering, and certainly far different from any previous national conference or general conference. The early registration period lasts until April 1, after which registration rates go up $10.