HOLSTON ANNUAL CONFERENCE

June 10 - 13  Lake Junaluska, NC

"Annual Conference" is the official business meeting for all of the churches in the Holston Area (all of East Tennessee, a portion of southwestern Virginia, and a bit of northern Georgia). There are 912 churches in Holston ranging in size from 8 members to 3,400 and each charge sends an equal number of clergy and lay representatives.

Kingston UMC will be represented by Donald Morris and Sue Lynn Johnson-Clergy Members, Patrick Rowan and Alice Moore-Lay Members, and Lillian Proctor--Oak Ridge District At Large member.

During a session of the Annual Conference there are reports from various committees and agencies of the conference, the budget for all conference programs is set, worship services are held, resolutions are presented and voted on, LOTS of hymns are sung and our connection as United Methodists is celebrated. Every year persons are licensed to preach, clergy are ordained (this year there will be 21 persons ordained as Elder and 2 ordained as Deacon-in-Full-Connection) and clergy retire (16 this year). This year one key item of business of the Annual Conference is to elect delegates to the top policy-making

body of The United Methodist Church, General Conference and to Jurisdictional Conference that has responsibility for electing Bishops for the 15 conferences in the Southeastern Jurisdiction in the states of Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia. General Conference will be May 2008 in Fort Worth, TX, while Jurisdictional Conference will be at Lake Junaluska in July of 2008.

For the past several years there has been a special mission emphasis at each Annual Conference session that consists of a "hands-on" project and a special offering. Your generosity this year has provided 42 school kits and $218 for the Bishop's Offering for the Brazil Conference.

Would you like to know more about what happens at Annual Conference? You can go to: www.sejbroadcast.org to see the daily web-cast of the Annual Conference Sessions. Please be in prayer for those of us who will attend Annual Conference-for safe travels, wise decisions, and open hearts and open minds.

Sue Lynn Johnson