 Greetings, friends, may the grace, mercy, and peace of Jesus Christ be with your spirit. I served as a Bishop of the Central and North Texas Conferences for less than two months. Yet it feels like we've been walking and working together for much longer. We are already engaged in excellent ministry together, with more still on the horizon. I'm profoundly encouraged by the collaborative, hopeful, and faith-filled spirit at our Joint Cabinet Meetings at last month's Joint Central and North Texas Clergy Gathering and this past Sunday's Joint Conference Celebration of Assignment Worship Service. Thank you, clergy, laity, and congregations for the spirit of cooperation and hope with which we're going about our mission of making disciples of Jesus Christ together. It's hardly breaking news to say that our conferences and the entire United Methodist Connection are experiencing organizational and economic changes and challenges. However, these changes and challenges open new opportunities for us. Just as COVID shutdown pushed us to re-evaluate and reshape how we do ministry and effectively engage with our communities, congregations, and each other, the challenges facing our conference and denomination today also bring the opportunity to rediscover and reimagine the power, promise, and missional purpose of our United Methodist Connection. This season of disaffiliation is calling us to discern afresh how we will be UMC going forward and how we will lay the foundation for missional focused church that will bless and nurture the faith and witness of future generations. But these discerning questions were already being asked long before COVID and disaffiliation. For years and efforts to best align ministry resources to reach new people, more people, and more diverse people with the gospel, church leaders have studied trends such as the social and religious tendencies of the up-and-coming millennial, Gen Z and Alpha generations, the rapidly changing demographic landscape and shifting migration patterns in the U.S., and the emergence of digital and social media as primary communication platforms. And now, given the accelerated decline in church attendance over the past few years, especially because of COVID and the negative economic impact brought by this season of disaffiliation, we know that business as usual is no longer possible. It is certain that conference boundaries will be realigned within our jurisdiction and throughout all the United Methodist jurisdictions in the U.S. by 2024. Not only to sustain ourselves, but to maximize our missional impact and witness. That is why, beginning in March, we will initiate a consultation process to proactively explore unifying the Central Texas, North Texas, and possibly the Northwest Texas conferences. This exploratory process will recommend how to best organize ourselves using adaptive and innovative 21st century best practices that will enable us to effectively reach out and grow our spiritual and moral influence in our evolving mission fields. Furthermore, our exploration work will prepare us to hit the ground running as a unified conference immediately after South Central jurisdiction conference adopts new boundaries in September 2024. We have contracted with consultant John Wimberley, formerly of the Albin Institute, to help lead us through the assessment period. John will work with and interview the cabinet, conference staff, clergy, laity youth, and young adults, focus groups, and unification team members from each conference as we go through the evaluation process. We will keep the jurisdictional boundary committee abreast of our findings throughout the process, and we expect to have the final report from John this coming September. But let me be clear up front, no decision to unify has been made yet. We as conferences cannot make the decision even if we wanted to. Only the jurisdictional conference is authorized to realign the conferences. We are just beginning this exploratory process, so many details remain to be determined. So please watch our conference websites for updates and information as it is available. I hope you are as excited about this initiative and our future as I am. I was a bit surprised when I learned at the 2022 jurisdictional conference I was assigned as a Bishop of the Central and North Texas Conferences. It wasn't one of the scenarios readily considered in the weeks leading up to the conference. However, I couldn't be more pleased and energized by the assignment. And not just because Maya and I are home in Texas, or because of all the fantastic people and ministry already underway in the two conferences. I'm genuinely excited about how much more we will do together for Christ with our abundant resources, experiences, ideas, gifts, and talents, all working in unison in this right for the harvest mission field. We have an incredible opportunity to reach our growing and rapidly diversifying mission field with Christ's powerful, hopeful message of love, justice, and mercy. In the meantime, I invite you to join me in prayer for a fresh vision and the leading of the Spirit. So be strong, take heart, and hope in the Lord as we move forward. Peace.