Farewell to two United Methodist Church Conferences

By Rev. Mickey McCandless,
Director of Spiritual Care & Church Connections

June 12-14, 2014 was the last time the Rio Grande Annual Conference and the Southwest Texas Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church met in their annual regional conference. Corpus Christi was host to the historic ending of these two conferences that are unifying into the Rio Texas Annual Conference to more effectively make up The United Methodist Church in South Texas.

There were elections of leaders for the new conference, the finalization of the first budget, and affirmation of the mission "to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus Christ for the Transformation of the World."

Delegates to the General Conference in 2016 were also elected at the June conference. We took time to begin planning for ways to implement our new conference and district structure. We celebrated the life of clergy leaders who were retiring, remembered those who had died during the previous year, and celebrated the commissioning and ordination of persons into the full time servant leadership ministry of the Church.

A new day is dawning for United Methodists in South Texas. We look forward with excitement, anxiety, questions, passion and faith to new opportunities to touch people and nurture faith and faith communities.