Wyoming Conference meets in final full session
Published: June 10, 2009
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Teens at this past week’s Wyoming Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church put on a skit Saturday to help attendees think about how to “rethink” church with a youthful perspective. From left are Alex Miller of Clarks Summit; Kristine Mead of Montrose; Lianna Hall of Endicott, N.Y.; Geoff Stark of Binghamton, N.Y.; and Chris Grassi of Scranton. STAFF PHOTO/ROBERT BAKER
Representatives of Susquehanna County’s 28 United Methodist Churches joined hands with those of some 260 others across northeast Pennsylvania and a southern tier of New York last week for the 158th annual Wyoming Conference.
The event, held at the University of Scranton and Elm Park United Methodist Church, provides a yearly opportunity for the church's representatives in the region to conduct business.
It was the last full conference gathering before the body known as the Wyoming Annual Conference is dissolved next summer.
One of the themes of this year’s conference was to “rethink church” not as a noun within four walls one morning a week, but rather as a verb seven days a week.
Rev. Susan Hassinger was the presiding bishop and led worship and Bible study on Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings.
She borrowed from the Old Testament book of Isaiah and recommended that attendees not look mournfully on the past but rather think more about the possibilities of serving God for all time.
The conference is to be split along state lines with the body’s present Pennsylvania churches joining up with the United Methodist Church’s Central Pennsylvania Conference, which stretches from York to Mansfield.
A non-binding resolution was passed to name the new configuration the Susquehanna Conference because of the River that runs through both regions.
An official vote on a ‘new’ name will take place on July 10, 2010, the proposed date for a unifying conference.
The New York churches in the conference will be part of a new ‘upstate’ New York configuration that has yet to receive a proposed name.
The Rev. Beth Jones, who has served on a vision team binging both Pennsylvania bodies together said that the boundary changes would have no effect on worship or faith practice within local churches, but might help people rethink the bigger picture of serving a God beyond boundaries.
During the 3-day gathering the churches also passed resolutions opposing an expansion of video gambling in Pennsylvania, and keeping the base minimum salaries of pastors at their 2008-9 level in deference to the present economy.
However, the body was generous in other ways, creating hundreds of health kits that would be used for disaster relief efforts. Attendees’ churches also raised more than $38,800 for mission work in Haiti and Zimbabwe.
The body approved a resolution for the sale of Abbott and First United Methodist Churches in Wilkes-Barre and using the assets to create a Field of Grace faith community with the Rev. Marcelle Dotson as its first pastor.
On a sad note, the Conference said goodbye to Rev. Deborah Rose of Montrose who will be retiring as of June 30. She has been at Montrose since 2004.
The new Montrose UMC pastor will be Rev. Jane Pykus. Other Susquehanna County UMCs getting new pastors this year are Franklin Forks with Andy Anderson, and New Milford and Heart Lake with Andrew Weidner.
Gibson and South Gibson were two Susquehanna County churches that are to be supplied by a new pastor by July 1, but whose name was not known as of the end of conference.
At Union Dale, lay speakers will be used each Sunday with sacramental oversight handled by Keith Benjamin, the pastor at Carbondale.
Pastors returning to their posts in the county for another year include Jane Bensley (Springville and Dimock); Lloyd Canfield (Thompson and Ararat); Anita Jordan (Forest City and East Ararat); Margaret Knapich (Clifford and Lenoxville); Donald Littleton (Great Bend Community); Margaret McCarty (South Montrose Community); Beverly Murphy (South Auburn); Philip Richardson (Hop Bottom, Brooklyn and Kingsley); James Rouse (North Jackson and Susquehanna); Mary Jean Simonin (Little Meadows); and Richard Spering (Fairdale, East Rush, Rush and Retta).
