Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
We had a blessed annual conference session and I am grateful for how everyone worked together. There was a spirit of Christian conferencing and an openness to the movement of the Holy Spirit. We have important ministry to follow up on and we will continue to update you on our progress.
We want to continue to improve our annual conference experience for you and others who attend. We have included a survey link at the end of this letter to learn from you how we can build on our successes and work on our challenges.
Regretfully some people became ill during the annual conference session following annual conference. I am sorry about anyone who became ill at annual conference. We are looking into this by talking with the medical staff who treated people in Wildwood, talking with people who became ill, and talking with the Convention Center staff. So far, we found no consistency with food that was eaten. Some who ate offsite became ill as well as those who ate onsite. Some did not eat lunch at all and became ill. Also those onsite had different foods and ate in different areas. The medical staff indicated that they did not believe it was food poisoning but a fast moving stomach virus. We will continue to investigate the causes of the illness and will be addressing this for future conferences. To assist in this process, we need to hear from people, where and what they ate to gain a better understanding. We pray anyone who did become ill will recover soon. We will also look at preventative steps we can take in the future.
Thank you for your many prayers and well wishes for my mom. She had surgery on Sunday and it was very successful. She will be leaving Wildwood in a day or two and rehabbing in Philadelphia.
Thank you for attending annual conference. I invite you to continue to explore the FISH theme in worship and small group studies. For instance the Mosaic Churches will be looking at six Bible stories about FISH this summer. We also want you to connect with the people in your community to make disciples, grow vital congregations for the transformation of the world.
Please click here to take the survey.
Keep the faith!
John Schol, Bishop