 Hello, I'm Mike McKee, the Bishop of the North Texas Conference of the Eye of Methodist Church. In our neighborhood in which we live, there have been several new homes that have been constructed. I've watched the slab being poured and watched the framework happen. And as I've watched it, I began to think, what is going to be in that place in that home? Is that a master bedroom or is the dining room really across the whole house from the kitchen? One really doesn't know what a house looks like until one has the specs in front of him or her. And I didn't have any of that, but I've just taken a little bit of delight, perhaps boyhood delight, in watching those homes being built. And as I've done that, I began to think about the protocol for reconciliation and grace through separation. That is the document recently released by the Council of Bishops. It was put together by a group of persons of diverse theological views and from diverse parts of the world to begin as a response to the General Conference of 2019. They came from all theological camps and they knew that somehow the United Methodist Church still was not in a good place to the issue that people have continued to talk about. In fact, probably to fight about. We've been fighting about people, about LGBTQ people. And everybody has a different opinion about our ministry with those persons. But this particular conversation is about people. When I get to think about that protocol, there are several things that people begin to ask questions and several people have answered those questions. And as I've heard those conversations I'm thinking and have now started saying, that's not what the protocol says. You're making an assumption about what the protocol says. In fact, I don't know what the protocol says other than building a framework for a new home. That's what's happening. Building a new framework of a home. And we now then have to begin to hang the drywall. Hang, put in electrical fixtures and do everything so that we really know what this home looks like. That's what's taking place now. The writing of petitions to put in place the protocol that we give into the General Conference to consider and vote upon. They will be able to change them. They will be able to just adopt them or reject them. But to begin to talk about now things about what is our church going to do, what's our conference going to do. And to begin to strategize about that and just keep this conversation going really robs us from at least trying to enjoy and make use of the home in which we're in. And this is what I challenge you to do. It's in your community there is someone whom God wants to introduce you so that you may introduce that person to the God who loves them and they may begin to know and experience that beloved love of God as we find in Jesus Christ. So let's not use the next few months to ask questions or to give answers that we don't know anything about. We don't even have the petitions before as we will soon. You'll have the opportunity to visit with delegates. But this is the opportunity you have that's most important. It's not about thinking what you're going to do in June or next year. But what about the stranger that God wants you to meet? What about the person whom you can show the love of Christ? Would we spend more energy on that particular charge of our God than we would do strategy about what will happen or is going to happen at General Conference? We don't know what the plan is other than a framework for people who can live in peaceably and go about their work as they believe God's calling them to do. I simply want to ask you, let's just take a breath. Let's be patient and let's know that the Holy Spirit is in the midst of all of this. God bless you and God bless the 9 Methodist Church.