Ron Bretsch giving a Legislative Committee Minority Report to General Conference

by Heather Williams

Ron Bretsch spoke passionately about a few different moments of General Conference in our conversation together.

I would like to share with you a letter that was the most important piece to Ron.

Vilma Trajkovski wrote a letter about her deceased husband, President Boris Trajkovski.

Boris, the former president of Macedonia and a former minister in the United Methodist Church in Yugoslavia, helped his country choose peace over war and asserted that the perfect peace and rest comes only from knowing Jesus Christ. Appearing in the Daily Christian Advocate, daily newspaper of General Conference, is a beautiful letter that reminds us of our connection and its importance to United Methodists. Through the hard work of Ron and Bishop Heinrich Bolleter, the letter was made available for the DCA.

Ron a fifth time delegate to GC found the Sunday morning worship led by the women one of creativity, the liturgical celebration in dance and in music, a true celebration of the spirit.

Each time Ron comes to GC with the hope that he may make a difference in the life of the church, through the legislative body of the church. And that he did this day. Ron presented a resolution to welcome one million members of Cot d’Ivoire (the Ivory Coast) into the United Methodist Church. The resolution passed and no longer is the Methodist churches in Cot d’Ivoire an autonomous body of faith. They are a part of our family, our global church.

There has been much discussion about the splitting of the United Methodist Church over the issue of homosexuality. Ron feels that it the church is going to split he would rather it be sooner than later. Sooner would help it split more amicably. Furthermore, the Northeastern, North Central and Western Conferences would suffer financially and lose their power if it comes later. There is a lot of pain here that becomes a stumbling block year after year to the ministry we could be doing.

Ron had the opportunity to work with another delegate, Hall Brady, who is from a different theological perspective. Hall and Ron worked together in the spirit of holy conferencing to find common ground. This made the reporting fun and it felt right because it was based on the hard work of the committee.