(upbeat music) . good morning. welcome to ""mosaic"." it's a prefer ledge it host on behalf of our producer and cohost less beth eckdale. i have been a host here for 15 years now. it's been a great honor it do so. my previous guests, i had a bishop, warner brown, who is retiring this year of the california-nevada conference. he's been our bishop for eight years and 16 years. i had rearend karen olivido, a senior pastor at glide. both talked about methodism. that is why my theme for the day is united methodist church. they mentioned some of the

basic tenants of our church, and i thought they might be helpful to understanding that. today, we have really one of the foremost thinkers and scholars of u noted meth dimple, greg burquist with us. great to have you, going. >> thank you, ron, great to be here. >> thank you for taking your time. you came from sacramento. it was quite a drive. >> yeah. >> i appreciate you making an effort. >> it's good to be here. it is. >> if i wanted to be a part of the meg defendant church, many churches don't like denomination. no napes. >> yes. >> what does it mean to be part of the united meth defendant church? >> what it means to be united methodist is consistent with what i believe much of the culture of society is looking for. >> uh-huh. >> we try to hold together the notion of personal spirituality with social responsibility. we believe that man of us are looking for ways to grow within our spirit and our faith, you

know, and in successular terms, we talk about self-help, you know, personal growth and in spiritual terms, it's better understanding of our relationship with humanity and with the divine, what influence that has and there is to bes of people withinsoet and culture that are asking similar questions. alongside of that, we realize that that is not enough. we're look for something more and so we have a strong tradition of being very active socially. social justice is a key issue for us. social responsibility. we believe in order to live fully into our own personal spirituality or corporate spiritual et, we have to be good, corporate citizens and care deepby about our world and society. we tree to told these two things together. >> how does why the fit when people say i'm and are thual but not religious j. what they're saying is, i believe, i

prefer for folks to speak for themselves, but in listening careful is that they care deeply of questions of ultimate reality. >> uh-huh. >> and what is my connection to life and god. how will we perceive god. and how do i grow more full into that and i think there is human spirituality connection. >> uh-huh. >> what they say, when they're not religious, they mean they no longer feel a connect to an organized religious institution and there are many reasons for. that one of it, i don't believe we're doing a good enough job in the church and talking about who we are, getting outside of the doors of the church and engaging people in questions of spirituality. engaging people with questions to society that have meaning for them and making that connect. >> uh-huh and going back to what you said earlier then. >> uh-huh. >> personal piety and i would say, social justs is those combinations? >> they go together. >> they go together. >> we believe that you can't have with without the other.

>> uh-huh. >> the more we grow in faith, the measure it pushes us out into responsible and just living community, and the more we engage justice within our community, the more our faith grows. >> i see. >> and woke don't why under sustained how you can do one without the other. >> yeah. >> and i mentioned that some of the experience you have is method. and you have talked and been a scholar in that area. >> yes. >> and where do you come from originally in. >> originally from the south. >> uh-huh. >> and i grew up in florida to a blue collar family and a small town in central florida. spent about eight years in georgia working in churches. >> uh-huh. >> and i started my work life as a engineer and worked for proctor and gamble. and about eight years in georgia and four years in texas

and graduate school. i have been here since 1991. >> and we have been impressed with what you brought to our conference. your leadership. >> and your title is conference superintendent leadership. >> yes. >> and we're going to talk about that more in the next segment and further about what is happening in our church. we have had a number of concerns. >> yes. >> and the annual conference. of course, the future is jurisdictional conference and so forth. >> i am grad you're here with us this were nothing. >> thank you. >> please join us in the next segment with greg burquist.

. >> welcome back to ""mosaic"." i am ron issue is wither, the host this morning. we have been talking to greg burquist talking more about the methodist church. tell us further what it's like to be a superintendent? >> the superintendentencey in my case is to be in relationship with pavors and churches all over northern california and most of nevada. to try to help them think about how do we make ourselves more relevant or vigilant, again, to sot. in particular, i function around issues of leadership development. >> uh-huh. >> and which is, if you know

with the -- about the literature and leadership at all, we have made a shift from simply competency training or straight-ahead leadership training. we talk about it as leadership development. and that who have to develop the capacity of the leader. this we need to be sure -- . >> and that transcends religion in. >> it does. it does. >> and much of what i learned in leadership, i learned while was at proctor and gaapble and i have taken that and stayed on top of that and translated it and a bridged it for the church. >> u nurse,. >> institutions, institutions are leaders. right? >> and there is i crossover. yeah. >> and so, when you say the capacity to develop. >> right. >> what are some of the major changes in leadership that is focused on now? >> there are several things. there is a lot of talk about

adaptive leaders. leaders who can lead through change. >> okay. >> and one is the ability to understand your own personal commitment. and passion for whatever you're doing. you probably experienced this. >> that is good. >> you can have someone saying all of the right things and doing the right things, but you don't have a sense thatotally committed to it, right? >> no passion. >> no passion. >> and what we too much you is if you're not passionate about something, don't lead change. people will see that and not follow you. yo something you said that was electrifying when you talked about the salt. >> ia job, and the light. were you spicey in. >> spicey and bright. >> okay. >> and wolf of my critiques is that we no longer spoke for ourselves. and the thing is that who have to be spicey again. people are looking for something to go, wow, that tists good and makes sense to

me. i can be engaged by that and to shine the light on not only the unjust us in our community but the places of hope and where who can find a way through. as was talking at conference, i was basically saying we need to get outside of the doors of the church. >> right. >> and our ministry is in the streets. it's in the public square. and people actually do want to be in conversation with us and they want to be in partnership as we try to change our society. and to add spice into yet again and to shown the light on the things that we really need to so. >> and -- . >> absolutely. >> you touched on conferences. >> uh-huh. >> you speak at the conference and we had a general conference that affects our church the next four years. >> yes. >> what took place that was highlightd? >> we, as in most main line

denominations, we have been talking about issues of human sexuality. >> uh-huh. >> and issues of the full inclusion of lgbtq people within our denomination and that is about four courts of conversation. >> that's true. >> and some denominations are split over the issue. i think we're trying to find a way through and we call ourselves united methodist. and pride ourselves on that. this is a very complex religious and social issue. what we were he is that we were going to come and do something difference, instead of strictly following the legislative process and following robert's rules of orders that wonder going to try to engage a time of what we call holy conferences. what that really means -- . >> that is good. >> yeah, is to be in mutual picture isfuldeth conversation this is what i

feel and he's why. how do we find a common ground in between? >> the sad part is that very early on in the conference, we voted against doing that. >> and that sunexplainable to me. >> it's an amazing thing. i can guess. there are some people whose highway patrols are so made up that that were thinking i have nothing left to talk about and i had people say that to moo. there are some people so profoundly uncomfortable with talking about how sexuality, they can't imagine having those kind of conversations. i don't know how we're going to move through this without doing that. >> talking about it. >> yeah and was sad knowed by the decision. but, you know, you heard me say the why, the annual conference here. some of us isnorred it and choose -- ignored it and chose to do it. even though we were dealing with structural issues around

full inclusion, we decided as a subcommittee, we were going to ignore the vote against holy conferencing and did it anyway. >> uh-huh. >> and we had in a subcommittee that brought thee on logical divide, significance conversations and when we walked out, we facility we did good work together. >> and some people hearing this pro believe say why is that's major issue? even though we can do the conference and understand, possibly, separating and splitting soviet as some churches have done. >> right. >> and why do you think it's still a major issue where they have made that decision, episcopalians out of great pain have made that decision. >> and well, i think it's still a major issue in our church. we do put a lot of emphasis on fining unity in the midst of diversity. >> okay. >> and that is part of our

tradition. >> uh-huh. >> and i think what we're confronting now is unity that is not fully ab expression, articulation or embodiment of love and god, other and self and is not a unity. >> i see. >> and i think we're realizing that we're going to have to begin making hard decisions. >> can we really find that place of mutual love and respect in our diversity or are we going to have to face the fact that we may have to think of amicable ways -- amicable ways of separating to do us the least amount of harm. >> let's come back to that and i think the bishop said something about a way forward. >> a way forward. >> let's come back to that. >> thank you. >> please join us as we continue to talk with greg burquist about the united methodist church.

. we've been talking about the united meth defendant church. i hope you see locals in connect with your own faith journey and won't to continue that. tell us what is going to be the next few years? i think the bishop's city said off of the separation for awhile. >> yeah. >> or division boy making a proposal. >> and exactly. essentially what the general conference said was is that we're not prepared to make the sticks without that kind of holy conferencing that we voted down. and see the bishop's responded to us and they have proposed a special commission that will guide us the next four years dealing with the depth issues. not just about how sexuality, but who we are as a people. >> uh-huh. >> and reclaiming our tradition and talking about what does it mean to be united methodist in this day and time and in the

future? we don't want to just make a precipitous legislative decision. the bishops are calling us into that kind of depth holy conversation that hopefully, will lead us to a place that we can fine the unity and diversity and talk about that. some people call it a big-tent church. >> uh-huh. >> or if there are folks who can't do this anymore. they can find a way out that is as grace-filled as possible. >> i see. >> at least we're taking it am p t do tt and i lorwto >> ath team came up with soming is. -- some suggestions. >> right. >> and some of the things they said that might help us all -- not just methodist but christians. what were some of the core values? >> we're talking about the core team in our annual conference. >> that's right and that is key. it's reminding us of who we are

and need to be. one is that the denominational mission statement is making disciples of jesus christ for the transformation of the world. if you think about it, making disciples of jesus christ is talking about taking seriously personal spirituality, poety and faith development. taking -- piety, faith development and -- judge especially separating the two. >> there is a vote at general conference trying to separate. unfortunately, that didn't occur. at that point, we would have no longer been true to our decision. judge right. >> and whoever saying to be faithful in churches in california and nevada, we nod to understand how that means w just inside the church but outside and in respectful, loving ways. that is one of our core values. >> uh-huh. >> and the other, we need to be more and more cohas beenraitive. and i don't mean just in partnership with other

churches, but other denominations and other faith traditions and community groups that are trying to make's change in our world. we're trying to be innovative. things have worked well the last 34 years. some things do want work anymore. >> being open to doing new things in. >> uh-huh. >> and instead of talking about creating new churches, talk about creating emerging communities. >> okay. >> and to focus that, what do donow places for new people look like? it may not look like the church that we grow up in and are we open to over those folks who have the same spiritual concerns and social concerns and allowed them to teach bus new ways of expressing that in. >> and it mean emerging all kinds of different leadership? >> absolutely. >> and maybe stronger laety involvement, which we hope? >> and i hope. as responsible for leadership

development. i no longer teach leadership development just to clergy or just to laety. i require the teams to come together and talk about how we're going to lead into the future together. >> in fact, i think when who had our revival two years a row in the church. >> yeah. >> you were there in the first one and did leadership around it. >> i did. absolutely. i talked about. i think there are four things to focus on. our faith. >> faith. >> understand who we are. >> uh-huh. >> and a irtechulate it. if i can't talk about jesus, who is going to? >> right. >> and we need to focus. why. >> right? >> uh-huh. >> and we need to, you know, to be sure we understand those are the key thing we need to look at the next three to five years and put our energy into that. >> okay. >> and third, we need to care about the fruit. right in. >> okay. >> and we should talk about outcomes and have a vision and work towards that. learn that at proctor & gamble. it works. >> uh-huh. >> and you have to have fore.

>> oh, good. >> you have to care about it. >> faith, focus, fruit and fore. >> i like that. >> absolutely. absolutely. and i borrowed that from some. i don't remember from who. i should be giving someone credit. >> it's yours now. >> and that is mean now. that is what we do sometimes in approaching. >> yeah. >> every now and then we give credit to the fear some. if it works, we use it j. absolutely. >> we have woke know more segment and we have to wrap this up. it's been helpful to all hearing. thank you. >> i have enjoyed this very much. >> please join us in our last segment.

>> jesus is a representation of a god i will never understand and who is an intimate part of my life that i can engage as we engage each other. >> i see. >> and made me think of marcus borque who died last year. >> yeah. >> and the great scholar, talked about meeting jesus again for the first time. >> absolutely. >> and even when i reach scripture -- and i am preparing to that. you hear the scripture, regardless of how familiar it is. and less tone something that surprises you. that makes you wonder. you never heard the first time and ask what difference does that make in your life. >> how does that scripture impact your life. >> and the way you see it and

deal with it. i believe that jesus was incarpated month us, we're called to be god's people and children living in all of life and pointing to the moments of god that we see. >> i think peterson said he moved into our neighborhood. >> into our neighbor. yeah. >> and he became flesh and plod and moved into the neighbor. right? >> and that is what we need to do. >> exactly. absolutely. that is great. >> as you said during the break, you try to tell people things they can remember. >> yeah. >> and i am sure they're going to remember that faith, focus, fruit and fire. >> yeah. >> and you brought some fire here. >> thank you. >> and i can tell the energy is one of the reasons i invited to. some scholarship, experience and passion for what you'ring to. and i commend you for that. >> yeah. >> and thank you. i can't -- i don't know how to separate my mind and heart

and spirit. >> amen. >> and when they come together, i think i found something important. that is what counts. yeah. >> thank you for being here with us. >> thank you. >> appreciate it. >> appreciate you coming. >> yeah. >> and thank you for joining us. go forth and into have some fire. also, have some faith and some focus and some fruit. i am ron swisher. so you next month.

live from the cbsn bay area studios this is kpix 5 news .>> right now on kpix 5 , we're learning of a bay area army veteran who gave his life to stop a robbery. plus a rash of pet that's continued this morning. what the owner of a french bulldog was doing when it was stolen. and it is a 49ers takeover is the faithful flood la. it is one win away from being back in the super bowl. good morning it is sunday january 30th, i am devin fehely, let's check the weather with first alert meteorologist