 And I'm going to open us with a prayer. So let's join our hearts in prayer. Holy one, we give you thanks this day for your creation, for the incredible beauty and abundance and green at this amazing spring season. We give thanks for all the green of our world today, for the scent of lilacs, for the sweet sound of birds, and for the especially sweet taste of fresh strawberries. Walk with us and bend your ear to our conversations this afternoon as we listen carefully to one another and seek to clarify our hopes and dreams for a collaborative new conference here in Southern New England. Help us imagine the possibilities. Help us to be affirming of the work of so many that brings us to these conversations. We give thanks that your Holy Spirit continues to help us discern where we are headed. Help us better understand where you are leading us here in Southern New England. Walk with us, we pray. Continue to help us discern together and inspire us for it is in the powerful name of Jesus Christ that we pray this afternoon. Amen. Well, good afternoon, everyone. We are glad that you are here and are joining us. My name is Ken Salati. I serve as the conference minister of the Connecticut conference and have been part of that together as one planning team for the last several years as we have met faithfully over the last 24 months and even longer than that, some of us have been gathering for this conversation that we are engaged in. And I wanna begin by saying a couple of things. We are really looking forward to your comments and your questions and hope to engage you in conversation about what's being proposed. But let me be really clear. Who's proposing this to the annual meeting? It is the board of directors of the Connecticut, the Massachusetts and the Rhode Island conferences who are bringing a proposal to this upcoming annual meeting that we form a new conference of the United Church of Christ. This is coming to you as a result of the efforts of the last annual meeting that some of you may have been delegates had and have the history of the decision in which last June in 2017, the decision was made overwhelmingly by the delegates who had gathered to continue the conversation and to return this year with a proposal to form a new conference of the United Church of Christ. And that is exactly what you as the delegates are being asked to consider. This proposal includes several different votes that will take place in each of our respective three conference gatherings. We are meeting as one for some plenary work and plenary sessions at the annual meeting. But we will also meet separately as conferences to consider first the new constitution and bylaws of the together as one proposal. Also the covenantal agreement between our three conferences to move forward with a formation of a new conference and a proposal to form a board of directors for the new conference, a 21 person board made up of seven people from each of our three respective member conferences to be part of that. It is our hope and it is our prayer. And we also bring a cultivated expectation that you as a delegate will actually read those documents in advance, come prepared for the meeting to ask questions. And I'm sure all of you on this call have already memorized everything that there is by way of documents and have questions about those. The other thing about forming the new conference that's really important, there are a couple of things I wanna say about that. One is that we are not dissolving the corporate entities of the three member conferences. Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island conferences will continue to exist as corporate entities with respective board of directors. So there will be two board of directors, one that will be part of the new conference and then the existing boards of the three conferences will continue their work. And part of that is because the process, even if we are all to vote in the affirmative in a few weeks in Springfield, Massachusetts at our tri-conference annual meeting, this proposal for a new conference needs to be approved by the general Synod. And that general Synod will meet in June of 2019 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin and a resolution if our delegates say yes to moving forward with forming a new conference. General Synod is the final approval place within the denomination because the constitution and bylaws of the United Church of Christ require any changes to conference boundaries to be approved by general Synod. As a side note, we also anticipate that we will not be the only three conferences coming with a recommendation to change conference boundaries. We are aware of an initiative and at least one other place in the United Church of Christ where that's a possibility. One of the things that as soon as the delegates voted last June that the together as one board, our task team decided to come up with was the why of this proposal. We felt that it was really important to make it clear why on earth would we proposing to change the boundaries of the historic conferences of the United Church of Christ. For the most part, the boundaries of the United Church of Christ, the conference boundaries have not completely but pretty much been the same since the formation of the United Church of Christ in 1957. There have been a couple of places where conferences have tweaked the boundaries. But as far as a initiative like the one that we are proposing and that you as delegates are being asked to vote on and consider and vote on, this is a fairly dramatic initiative in the life of the United Church of Christ. Some would use the word historic that we're coming together in this way. So we wanted to be clear what the why of this conference was. And we were helped greatly in that conversation by some work that Jim Schnerbush, who was a consultant that worked with us and some of you met directly with Jim in a series of numbers of focus groups that happened in January of this year in which Jim posed a wonderful question that actually is a question I think all of our churches could ask themselves. And that is this, five years from now. How will you know that what you did mattered? What would this new conference, what is it about this new conference that is driving this initiative? And we found that to be a fascinating question. I think local churches could be asking themselves the question as leaders of local churches, five years from now, what would your preferred future be as a local congregation? And so we sat around this wonderful group of people with whom we built great relationships through our three conferences over the years that we've been together. And we came up with a bunch of answers because it's the United Church of Christ. And if you put 10 UCCers in a room, you get at least 12 different opinions. But the one that we really lodged our hearts on, I think was this as the answer to the why. And that is five years from now, 10 years from now, we want people to ask the question, what happened here? What happened here in Southern New England? Why is it that people in this part of God's corner of the world are people more loving, more just and more compassionate towards one another? What on earth happened here? So that is the answer that we have settled on as the why of this. You note, perhaps in that answer, that it is broader and deeper than the United Church of Christ. It's broader and deeper than a denominational applause, if you will, or even a deepening of identity within the regions in which we find ourselves, or the geographical region of the world that God has put us in. It really is much more, it runs deeper than that, that we have a responsibility and an opportunity to create something new, which will make this corner of the world, and we would hope and pray beyond that a better place to be. So we've outlined in a document that Barbara will now hold up because we have a little show and tell going here. It's a single page document. It's called Together as One, and it really gives the sort of mission and purpose statements on the values that we believe will hold us together as a new conference. And there are four declarative statements in that document, and these are all up on the website. If you have not seen those, please come prepared to understand more about those. There's also a handy guide online that you can have those conversations about this statement in your local church and with different configurations of folks within the church. But there are four declarative statements that are made. The first is about the local church, and we are part of the United Church of Christ, and nothing that we do is done without the participation of our local churches. We know the local church to be the most important place where mission and ministry gets carried out within the denomination of the United Church of Christ. And we believe that the mission of the local church is to make disciples of Jesus. And that making is not a coercive making, but a welcoming and inviting, a place where disciples of Jesus are nurtured, and that's what the basis of local church communities are about. So we make that first declarative statement, and we begin with the local church because we know how central that is to everything that we do in our respective conferences. We also strive and commit to making God's love and justice real. And when you ask people about the United Church of Christ and those people who have found the United Church of Christ who may not have been raised in the United Church of Christ, why do you like the United Church of Christ? What is it about the United Church of Christ that you value? Besides what I would say is the unconditional expression of God's love for all of God's children. I think right out of the next thing that people talk about is our commitment to making the world a more just and a compassionate place. So that importance of our justice work and our commitments to justice making in the world are an important part and essential part of the creation of the new as we see it. We also believe that God is calling us to be change agents in the world in which we live. I'm not gonna, I'm preaching to the choir when I speak to all of you to say life in the church is changing dramatically. The things that once worked, the church that I was trained in as a seminary and so many years ago has changed radically. It's no longer something where we can just simply say, let's have a nice signboard with the time that worship happens and people will just simply take a U-turn into our parking lots on Sunday morning. So we know that being leaders and being change agents is a part of what it means to be part of a church today. And we believe that this expression is one demonstration of our flexibility and willingness to change and to embrace the future that God has in mind for the church as we move forward. And finally, the last principle or statement that we make within this document is the idea of partnership. We do believe that partnership is the way forward, that not only the value of local churches is certainly a critical part of what we do, but recognizing that we aren't islands, that we do exist to create partnerships. And that really one of the most exciting things for some members of our planning team is the idea if you read the Constitution and bylaws, there's this thing called associate membership. And that gives organizations and churches the ability to become part of this new conference, the ability for people outside of the United Church of Christ to affiliate because they believe that the core values that I've just outlined, they're in synchronicity with those particular values. So it may be that an Episcopal Diocese would take a look at our core values and say, yes, we would love to be an associate membership, associate member of this particular conference or it might be an organization like Hands on Hartford or an organization like 350.org that might say, yes, we would like to align with this particular initiative and this new way of being church together or at least expressing the values that we hold together. So that's a little bit of background about the why of the new conference. And I hope you'll take the time to read that. Our presentation Saturday morning at annual meeting will really be a underlining of the why of the new conference before delegates go off to vote on this perspective. And I wanna say one more thing. And then I think Barbara, I wanna give you a chance to say all the things I missed, but the one thing I do wanna say is we have listened to lots of questions because we've provided, if not dozens, at least a hundred opportunities for conversations over the last several years. And we've heard many of the questions. And I wanted to say a couple of things about what I think are the common questions that are raised. The first is the question or the observation is, what is in it for the local church? What's in it for my church? Which is a very UCC way of thinking about my local church. And we want to make it clear that there will be no mystery in the devising of the new conference that local churches will continue to be resourced. And we would hope in a deeper and a more substantive way moving forward with a new conference that you will know who the person is to contact for questions that your local church might have regarding search and call, transitions, resources, but there won't be any mystery about who you should call and who that person should be. We know there is great allegiance and affection for many of our staff members. And so we wanna make sure going forward that our local churches know that in this new conference, the local churches needs and concerns and desires for resources, we hope will be met in new ways and in ways that already make sense that we would continue. So I wanna say that one word about the local church. And then the second question is around resources. We are not yet proposing a single budget. You won't be voting for a budget for the new conference. We're still because we have not yet been approved as a new conference of the United Church of Christ, there's no way that we could either present a staff or a budget single model until General Synod approves that. That will be the one of the things that the new board should we vote to approve the new conference we'll have to attend to. I will now stop there and give Barbara a chance to say whatever she'd like to say. And then we wanna hear your questions and comments. Thank you Kent and I wanna be sure that everybody who's on this knows that that was Kent Saladi, conference minister for the Connecticut conference and this is Barbara Libby, interim conference minister for the Rhode Island conference. Where to begin? Kent has covered a lot of territory. He certainly talked about this together as one document which talks about living the love and justice of Jesus and the four really significant pieces that have been developed about that. If you have not seen that chart, please go together as one website where you'll find all sorts of resources including but not limited to frequently asked questions document which is six pages in length and has 29 different questions with answers that might be helpful. If you're brand new to this as a delegate and your head is kind of swirling around, you're thinking, wow, there's an awful lot going on. Well, you're right. There is an awful lot going on and this conversation has been going on for a while. Another document that's really just been put together is a financial document, very colorful four page document which you will all get in your packets when you arrive in Springfield on June 15 and 16. But it has a lot of details about the finances and about the different finances among our three conferences. There's also a document on the together as one website which talks about some staffing imaginings that have been taking place. But we're pretty clear that we're not making decisions about changing staffing as yet that that issue will be an issue that will be undertaken by the new, what I call the umbrella board for the together as one try conference and the new conference minister down the road apiece. So as Kent already articulated, there will be plenty of persons that you will contact when you have a particular need and we'll be explaining more about that as the months come along because assuming a positive vote at the June 16th annual meeting of each of our three separate conferences, then we'll start to really continue to flesh out who to call and where to go for resources. So that's kind of what I'd like to add. At this point, I'd like to open up the conversation to you as a participant on this call or on this Zoom meeting, however you've come in. I wanna offer thanks to Tiffany Vale for coordinating this Zoom meeting and these multiple Zoom forums. Let me remind you that we are recording all five of these forums and we hope to make a recorded version available before annual meeting. So if you know persons who perhaps couldn't get to one of the Zoom forums who have a lot of questions, have them look for this recorded, which will probably be a compilation of a number of these Zoom forums. So now it's time for you to participate and for you to give us some questions that we might respond to. If you're listening with your phone, you may ask questions by emailing Tiffany, our associate conference minister for communications for all three conferences, at Vale T, at macucc.org and that's V-A-I-L-T at macucc.org. For everyone else who's here on the Zoom forum, you have a choice. You can write your question by using the chat window, find your Zoom taskbar at the bottom of your screen, click on chat and then you'll see a Zoom webinar chat come up and you can type your question in at any time and you can submit that and then Tiffany will help us. You have to enter it and that's important, otherwise we all don't see it. If you prefer to speak your question online with us this afternoon, click the raise your hand button and to get to that, you wanna have that participants, you click on the participants and they'll come up and then at the bottom of the function participants chart you'll see raise hand and if you press on raise hand, it'll put a little hand up and Tiffany will be able to know that you have a question that you want to ask. So I think we're ready for some questions or some comments or whatever you'd like to ask us about. Tiffany, did you wanna ask anything else or clarify anything else before we get underway? Well, I just, I actually have a question via email from our phone caller, the Honorable Kevin Washington. He sent in a question saying, he wanted to know given the makeup of the new conference board with 21 members, seven from each conference, how much credence will be given to making sure the board is truly diverse in terms of minority leadership, LGTQI, women, experience level, age, all of that. Well, I can feel that first question. I don't know where, oh Kent has gone off my screen. So there he is. But no, there he is. Okay, so I can answer that question, which is to say we've been quite intentional about being sure that the new board of directors is as diverse as we could possibly imagine. We have looked at racial differences, we've looked at age differences, we've looked at male female, we've looked at LGBTQ differences, we've looked at years of experience on various boards or presence in each of the conferences. And as Tiffany already indicated, and maybe it was in the question, each conference is going to be represented by seven persons. And we have been quite intentional about being as diverse as we could possibly be. There's a follow-up question in the chat window about whether the individual conference boards will continue. So I'll take that one. The question about will there be, will there continue to be two corporate entities that would require two separate boards, which is what we're actually talking about? The question will be first for the TA-1 board to begin to decide together with the representatives from each of the member conferences, do they want to make the proposal for a corporate merger? And they obviously can't do that until Synod votes on a new conference. It would then be required of the respective member conferences in each of their conference configurations to determine whether in fact, yes, we would like to become a single entity with a single board overseeing the process. That decision has to be made in two places. One, the decision would have to be made by the together as one board that it would like to make that recommendation to the member conferences. And then the member conferences would have to approve that. And it's really early, too early to speculate as to whether there would be a corporate merger of the three conferences becoming a single conference with a single board. It may not be a decision that will be made from June of 19 to the end of December of 19. If that window is the time when that would be considered, it would have to obviously go to the meeting of the individual conferences for consideration. So the answer to the question is a qualified possibility that once we begin to live differently, act differently, do work even more collaboratively than we currently do, the possibility exists that there would be a single conference that the question of a single board would be addressed and a full merger would be a down the road decision that we have not yet said will happen on January 1st, 2010. The possibility exists that we will begin budgeting that way with the member conferences participating. But again, those are unresolved questions that I don't wanna do any more speculation than I've already speculated. But the plan is not yet to go to a single merger. And part of that is quite frankly, as many of you know, each of our conferences has historic legacy gifts, endowments that have been left to the conferences themselves for particular work. And we wanted to be able to ensure that those legacies would be honored and respected. And so that's part of the reason why we've hesitated to really go for a single conference with a single board and merging the three conferences together. We wanted to do this carefully and slowly and cautiously, recognizing in many ways that we're modeling the national setting which has done pretty much the same thing. We're following that model where they had corporate four different boards and now there's a single board but they've kept the existing entities in place so that legal decisions and legacy gifts could be honored. I hope that answers the question. There's another question in the chat. And Fenton is asking, could you provide more information about the proposed associate members? How would they be selected and approved and what would be their role in the new tri-conference? So if you look at the bylaws itself, it's they're pretty open-ended around the associate member piece. Our best guess about that would be, it would be the board that would receive the request of a body and you notice the language on what an associate member, it's not an individual member. So pay attention to the language there. I don't have it right up in front of me so I apologize, I should have it at my fingertips. I'll remember that next time. But the approval for who those associate members would be moving forward would be a board decision. So the board would receive a request from an entity saying we'd wanna be associate members of this new conference and the board would be the approving body. And their role is really, they would not be, some of our churches have associate memberships so this may be language that some of you are more familiar with than others which basically is a nod to all those people that go to Florida for the winter and wanna have a membership in two places. In this case, they would not be able to vote in our meetings or make any deliberate, any decisions regarding assets, resources, any of those kinds of decisions that the board would have purview over but they would be able to participate as they saw fit in our activities as partners. So that they would not have an official role, they would not get a seat on the board as an example and they would not be able to make any deliberative decisions regarding the conference itself. I hope that answers Anne's question. I would just add to that that the language in the why statement reads, we encourage local congregations and other ministry settings inspired and guided by the Holy Spirit to form covenant partnerships with all who work for the common good in their local communities and throughout the world. So it's pretty wide open and so it'll be interesting to see how that develops in emergence over time. So I saw a couple of people practicing earlier raising their hands but I don't see any hands raised right now. We do have another question from our phone listener. He says, as a new delegate representing my church, is there a separate session for new delegates or what would you recommend as a learning mechanism for the conference doctrine and policy? Let me answer that. Yes, there is a special welcome and training for new delegates and I believe, I don't have that schedule right in front of me but I believe it's Friday afternoon, somewhere around 2.30, is that somewhere between 2 and 2.30 in the afternoon, there's a new delegate orientation and that should be very helpful to someone who's brand new to this process and you'll be with other folks who are also new and yes, that's definitely an opportunity for you to avail yourself. Ah, there's a note from Debbie Kirk at the conference office in Connecticut who says, yes, there's a new delegate orientation at 2 p.m. on Friday afternoon. Thank you, Debbie. That brings clarity to that and it's about an hour and then you'd move on to hearings where you have an opportunity to listen to observations and training about the together as one, the financial aspects and the resolutions that are coming by each of the conferences. So please be there on Friday afternoon as a new delegate. That's gonna be a very fruitful time. So we have a hand raised, Anne McNulty. I'm clicking on you to unmute you, so we should be able to hear you. Yes, actually, can you hear me? Actually, it's Henry McNulty and as Whitney, we're both delegates. Okay. And Anne and I both remember when Barbara, you were at the Cheshire Connecticut Church as an interim a few years ago. It's good to see you again. The odd thing is you don't seem to have aged in all those years. It's a miracle, it's a miracle. Thank you, thank you. Can I talk to you later? No, thank you. Here's my question. In the time of discernment over these past years, there have to have been people who in discussing with this said, I don't like this idea. This is not something I think should happen. And they must have had objections. And I would like you for a further, for a larger part of this discussion to if you could articulate some of the reasons that people have told you, they don't want this to happen. Thanks. So I'll begin with that. Thank you for your question. I think one of the questions or even objections is the perception that this geography, expanding the geography will create further distance between the local church and the conference setting. There is worry that somehow the perception in creating of the new Henry would somehow create a gap or a widening distance that some people say exists now. And that this idea of expansion of the boundaries of the conference would create this deeper chasm between the local church and the wider church. So I think that's been articulated. It is not actually, to be honest, a new articulation in my experience in the United Church of Christ. There has always been some perception that the local church, depending on its involvement in the wider church feels a distance between what it's up to in a local setting and its connections to either an association or the conference or the national setting. And so I think that's been one of the frames or at least the worry that by going larger, if you will, there would be a gap or a widening of a gap of perception between the local church and the conference setting. And the other question is also a geographical question. Will we now have to, oh my God, have to drive to Framingham instead of driving to Hartford or just pick a place in the geographies? So my experience in the United Church of Christ is the smaller the geographic distances, the greater the distances appear. It's like that thing with a side view mirror, objects in the mirror seem further away or is it closer? I always forget which way it works. So there's a, there's a worry that, oh my goodness, now we're gonna have to get in our cars and drive farther to an annual meeting. Like we now have to go to Springfield instead of going to say Hartford. You know, of course, they're like 18 miles apart, but so there's been some worry or concern about geographical distances created. So I think those are at least some of the, I hope that addresses what we have heard as a resistance is really from the local church setting and whether this will create some distance in creating the new. Barbara, do you have other? Yeah, I think I would add that I think initially, persons from each of the conference express concerns about how the endowments of money that were left to each of the separate conferences would be protected that no one would be able to access those in a way that was inappropriate. And I think one of the things that we have tried to address is that concern about being sure that each of the endowments and each of our separate conferences would be carefully respected as to the nature of the language that was used to create those endowments, the gifts that were given and each of our three conferences really utilize money that people left many, many years ago and which have grown and become incredible sources for doing ministry. And I think that issue has been a concern. I think that people are more convinced than now than they used to be about the fact that with a conference that's comprised of three equal numbers of persons from each of the three conferences, it's clear that there are representatives from each of the three conferences who will be clear and careful about the use of those endowment funds. So I know that that's another area where there had been concern. I think another, this is brilliant to ask us why people critique it. That's good. I like that question, Henry. I think that the critique that this is simply rearranging the deck chairs on the Titanic, that the narrative of decline that we're paying attention to sort of structural tinkering, if you will, and the concern that this is missing the question of what the church needs to adapt to in the times in which we live. And I mean, my hope in prayer, people ask me like what can we pray for around this together is one thing. And my prayer is that this is not a rearranging of deck chairs and this is in fact a missionally movement driven initiative to deepen our impact on this area of the world in which we live. And our churches are tremendous resources that we would hope in doing this we would be modeling a new way of being church together a new way of depending on each other for building assets that we already have in place. We are an amazing group of people and our churches do amazing work, but we don't often think together about corporately what kind of impact or influence we might have on the area of the world in which we find ourselves. The other thing that's been articulated is actually not within the structure of this conversation, but outside in the across the United Church of Christ. There is some concern. And I always find this is always sort of I always see people's heads turn sort of sideways when I say this about our part of the country in the United Church of Christ in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Rhode Island. We are very, very well known, if you will. We're on every corner. We're in most of our communities. We have lots of resources. We have many assets because of that. We are considered to be strong conferences by the rest of the United Church of Christ. So the concern that has been articulated is if these three conferences come together, what will that mean to the rest of the United Church of Christ? What would this assembly of resources in such a small concentrated area? What will that mean to the whole church? And I'm reminded that one of the things we will, should this be voted in the affirmative that we will need to be mindful of is the impact of this on the whole church. And to those who have much as required, that those of us who have the assets and the resources to be able to do what we're able to do on each of our respective conferences, we would be able to do that not only in this geographic region, but also in a way that is not power over others but to sort of share our learnings of coming together in a new way and maybe be a model for the rest of the church. Not in, we know it all kind of attitude, but we're trying an experiment here and we hope that it works. I think that's another question that's been raised within the life of the wider church. What impact will this have on the entire United Church of Christ? Barbara, do you wanna say something about the Rhode Island piece and the questions raised around that? Well, I think what I would, yeah, and maybe it's sort of in the context of serving Rhode Island, which is a smaller conference and the notion of expanding out beyond very long time boundaries of state and conferences. I wanted to name the sense that basically, folks don't always adjust to change really quickly. That change is hard, that there's always a fear about losing something or about having to do something in a new way. You know, we often use the phrase that in churches we've always done it that way. Well, I think there's an edge to that. Even if things aren't always working right, the fact that we've always done it that way is comforting to some. And so I think one of the places that we've seen some reticence happen has been among folks who weren't sure when we talked about doing conference in an entirely different way. You know, exactly what that meant and that that might mean, ooh, you know, it might be uncomfortable. And I think there's some truth to that. You know, it may be uncomfortable, but we think that it's worth the discomfort to try this. We have a unique opportunity in the life of church, Big C, that one of those 500 year tag sales or rummage sales is they like to, it gives us an opportunity to try something new. And that's pretty exciting, but the underside of is that that also means that some people get a little uncomfortable with the change, with the fear that they're gonna lose something in that process. So I'm very grateful for Henry and Anne's question because I think that it has allowed us to articulate in a way, you know, some of those things that people have expressed concern about and I appreciate that opportunity. I don't see any other hands raised. I haven't gotten any other email questions. We don't wanna end too soon. We wanna give you a chance. Perhaps there's a question that you've just been dying to ask since last year's annual meeting or somewhere in the midst of these conversations. You've had a question that, you know, you didn't think maybe you'd raised, but you know, this is the time to do it. This is why we're here. We've got the time set aside. So we would love to respond to whatever question or concern you may have. What's on your hearts? No hands. No hands. No chats. All right. Kent, did you wanna say anything more? That's always a dangerous thing to ask. I know, I know, but I give you opportunity here, you know? No, I know that there are introverts in the group that are gathered here and they're just waiting for the right moment to ask their questions. So we wanna give space for people to do that. Let me also say if you're not able to, if you're not able to ask a question in this forum and that you do have a question that you wanna pose to us and you wanna do that privately, we're available by email to just ask the question. And Shelley, I mean, excuse me, Rachelle has just said, let's get on this. Stop spending so much time with structure. I'm with you, Shelley. We've got to countdown for the days. Right, right. I think some of us have spent an enormous amount of time on this and we get pretty excited about the possibilities involved in this. And we too would like to move on, but we know there are still people with questions and concerns and a bit of reticence, a bit of fear. So if you know any of those and can encourage them, I'm gonna read some of my notes here at the end. We wanna thank both Kent and Tiffany and me for being on board for this Zoom. We appreciate your questions. We appreciate your interest and your investment in this important initiative. If you still have questions and we suspect that some of you may, please have a look at your conference's website and click on the Together as One logo on the front page of your conference website. In Under That Together as One logo, you will find so many different documents and so many potential answers to potential questions that you have. We hope you'll avail yourself of that. We also encourage you to remind folks in your congregation how important this annual meeting is on June 15 and 16 in a couple short weeks. So we encourage you to ask prayers for your church as we move forward into this, highlighted in the prayer request time and be sure that there are delegates from each of your churches attending these meetings. If you're clergy, we hope you'll remind your delegates to be sure to get there and get some additional delegates if that's possible to come. Tomorrow, no, let's see, this is Wednesday. Friday, June 1st is the last day for registration. So we hope that folks will register in advance that is so important for the planning committee and all of the folks who make meals and put together packets. So please register in advance, that's very helpful. Let's see, we do want to remind you that when it comes to voting on the resolutions and the actual votes that take place at each of these conference meetings, that only official delegates and clergy can vote. So be sure, if you want to come as a delegate, be sure to check with your pastor to see if you can come as an official delegate so that you can vote. Let's see, please make sure that your congregation has registered or your delegates have registered, that's important. And we certainly look forward to seeing you at our joint meeting on June 15 and 16 in Springfield, Massachusetts. Anything else Kent? Yes, Jan has a question. Ah, good, okay. Wondering about imagining new committee and commission structures that help us do church in new ways. Praise God for your question and wondering. Yes, of course. One of the things that's for me really exciting about this proposal is that there is an opportunity for us to reimagine the conference setting and kind of the resources that we've traditionally committed to, the things that we value, but also to do some imagining and dreaming about what new the church of the future might look like. And that's gonna engage us, as Barbara said, from moving out of our comfort zones, because quite frankly, institutions exist to perpetuate themselves. And the question of what is it, what is it we might be able to dream of and imagine, that's gonna be, I mean, the new board is gonna have the opportunity to engage our churches and leadership in ways that we can create the new together. You know, you don't wake up in the morning very often and say, okay, we've had these institutions that have been in place for hundreds of years and now we're gonna do something new. We're gonna wake up in the morning, we're gonna try to do something new. I'm really excited by that. There's gonna be great resistance to that as Barbara's already named. And we will make a way and we'll make mistakes as we try to create the new. And thank God we'll make mistakes because then hopefully we won't make the same mistakes over and over. But I do think, yes, obviously an openness to how the Holy Spirit is moving in ways that we have not quite yet caught up to in our midst and how it is that we might realign the resources and focus of church communities in some new ways. Who's doing some new things? How do we establish the best practices that are out there? Whether that be new ministries that are emerging, either among us or not in our, not in our denomination but elsewhere. How can we be aware of what the new might look like? And how can we embrace and even provide resources for the new to happen? So yes, of course we would love to be able to create new ministries and new ways for the church to be engaged in its mission and ministry. Barbara, do you have any comments about that? I just think one of the opportunities is to do things in a different way. And that, it doesn't feel like that comes along very often on such a grand scale as the idea of three conferences getting together. We have remarkable resources, people resources, financial resources, and to take advantage of this, this is not about decline, this is about creating something new. And I think that's a remarkable opportunity and one that's quite exciting. So I think, you know, I think the advantages weigh out the, overweigh the disadvantages, but I'm excited about the opportunities.