 Greetings members of the Central and North Texas conferences. May God's peace be with your spirit today. During my Episcopal address at last month's annual conferences, I shared that work toward unifying the Central, North, and possibly Northwest Texas conferences would begin mid-June. Well, that process is underway and is preparing us to move forward as a unified conference immediately after the South Central Jurisdictional Conference adopts new conference boundaries in 2024. Our region is the fastest growing in the country. We're well positioned to design a unified conference that supports and equips our congregations in their disciple making mission that will in turn invite all people to journey toward the loving, just, and free world God imagines. Our 21st century organizational design will provide the destruction foundation of the Church of Tomorrow that the next generation will receive in value. The goal is not just to reorganize. Our goal is to build a new, more adaptive, agile, faithful, and fruitful way to do ministry that will accelerate our growth and collective missional impact. As I shared in the Episcopal address, we've hired a consultant with deep experience in helping United Methodist conferences work through a unification process and design new support structures that are more aligned, efficient, and effective. Dr. John Wimberley was a congregational pastor for 40 years and has been consulting for the past 11. He began his work with us by conducting 60 hours of one-on-one interviews, personally listening to every staff member of the Central and North Texas conferences. John reports that he was inspired by the skill sets and the passion for ministry our team members bring to their work. Our conferences have also contracted with Caitlin Cognon, a consultant with the General Conference of Finance and Administration of the United Methodist Church, to help us unify our financial and property assets as well. The next step in the process will be for John to hold focus groups in which clergy and lady alike can suggest how a new conference structure could be designed to best disciple existing members and reach new people for Christ. So please join the focus group conversations and add your input and perspective to this important and exciting work. John will synthesize all he learns from his fact-finding discussions and will deliver a report for our consideration by October 1st. From there, a team of clergy and lady from both conferences will review the options in the report, consider the financial projections from GCFA, and make the recommendations to the prospective conferences in early 2024. The team's final report will provide plenty of time for us to consider, discuss, and pray about the proposals before voting for unification at annual conference 2024. So please watch the conference websites for unification updates as they are available. And thank you. Thank you for embarking on this new thing God Spirit is doing through the United Methodist Church in Texas. Be strong, take heart, hope in the Lord is this year's missional rallying cry. Together, we will live into that hope, create new things, and journey toward a good future God imagines, laying the foundations for a relevant church the next generation will receive in value and calling a peace of heaven down today. God's grace and peace be with you.