could help you save. (bright upbeat flourish music) a morning and welcome to mosiac. i am ron swisher hosting on behalf of our producer, hugh burrows. i've been a host 15 years now and it has been a great honor to do so . my previous guest was bishop warner brown who is retiring this year. he's been a bishop for eight years . and i had karen here and my theme for

today is the united methodist church and the basic tenants of our church . i thought they might be helpful for understanding that . today one of the foremost method scholars , greg is with us. thank you. >> i know you came from sacramento and it's quite the drive and i appreciate you making the effort. >> it's a privilege to be here, it really is. >> i know that many churches now do not like denominational names, what does it mean to be united methodist ? >> it is consistent with what i believe much of the culture of society is looking for. we try to hold together the notion of spur personal spirituality

with responsibility . we believe that many of us are looking for ways to grow within our spirit and with in our faith . in secular terms, we talk about self-help and in spiritual terms it is better understanding our relationship with humanity and the divine and the influence that has. there is tons of people within society and culture asking similar questions. alongside that , we realize it is not enouan arlooking for something more . we also have a strong tradition of being active socially and social justice is a key issue as well as social responsibility . we believe that to live fully into our personal and corporate spirituality that we need to be good corporate citizens and care deeply about our world and society and we hold those

things together . >> what would you say about people who say they are spiritual but are not religious. >> i hope folks will speak for themselves. they care deeply about questions of ultimate reality and what is the question of life and how do we perceive god and grow fully into that ? there is a human spirituality connection . when they say not religious , what they mean is we no longer feel a connection to an organized religious institution and their is all sorts of reasons for that . one is that i don't believe we have done a good enough job as a church in talking and engaging people and with society and having meaning for them in making that connection . >> going back to what you said earlier with personal piety

and social justice go together? >> they do go together and we cannot have one without the other . the more we grow in faith the more it pushes us into responsible living in community . the more we engage in community, the more our faith grows . we don't understand how you can do one without the other . >> and some of the experience you have with methodism and how you have taught as a scholar in the area, where do you come from originally ? >> originally i come from the south and i grew up in florida to a blue-collar family in a small town in central florida. i have spent about eight years in georgia working in churches . actually, i started my work life as an industrial systems engineer with procter & gamble

and i have science and engineering in my background . i have eight years in georgia and four years in taxes at graduate school and i have been here since 1991 . >> we are impressed with what you have brought to the conference ship and your leadership. and we will talk more about that in the next segment and further about what is happening in the united methodist church as we have had a number of conferences . the general conference, of course and then we will have jurisdictional conferences and so forth and i am glad you are here this morning. >> thank you. >> please join us in the next segment with greg berquist.

welcome back to mosiac . i am ron swisher the host this morning. we have been talking with greg berquist with united methodist church . tell me what does it mean to be a superintendent? >> in my case it is to be in relationship with pastors and churches all over northern california and most of nevada to help them think about how we make ourselves more relevant ,

or relevant once again to society. in particular i function around issues of leadership development. if you know about the literature in the leadership at all , we've made a shift from competency training to other training we talk about as leadership development . we have to talk about the capacity of the leader . >> host: and that transcends religion ? >> yes, it does. much of what i have learned in leadership i learned when i was working at procter & gamble. i have taken that and i have stayed on top of that and translated it an abridged it for the church. as an institutional leadership, there is a crossover. >> yes , when you say the capacity to develop , what changes in leadership do you

focus on now ? >> there is several things . there is a lot of talk about adaptive leaders who can lead through change. there are several things . one is the ability to understand your own commitment and passion for what you are doing and you have probably experienced this . someone could be saying and doing all the right things but they don't have a sense that they are committed . >> host: right, no passion . >> people will see that and they won't follow you. >> host: something you said at the conference that was electrifying was when you talked about the salt and light being spicy and bright . >> right, spicy and bright . one of my critiques of our tradition is we no longer speak for ourselves and we have to be

spicy again. people need to say, that tastes good and makes sense to me and i can be engaged by that. to shine the light on not only the injustices but the places of hope and where we can find the way through. as i was talking at conference , i was basically saying that we need to get outside the doors of the church . our ministry is in the streets and the public square . people want to be in conversation with us and people want to be in partnership as we try to change our society. to add spice on it . >> you touched on conferences and you spoke at the conference and of course we had a general conference impacting our church for the next four years. what took place there ?

>> you know , as in most mainline denominations, we have been talking about issues of human sexuality and about issues of the full inclusion of the lgbtq people within our denomination . it has been about 40 years of conversation and there have been splits over the issue . i think we are trying to see if we can find our way through. we call ourselves united methodist and we pride ourselves on that. this is a complex not only religious issue but a social issue . we wanted to come and do something different instead of strictly following the legislative process and roberts rules of order . we wanted to have a time of holy conferencing . >> host: what does that mean ?

>> it means to be in mutual and respectful and in-depth conversation about here is how i feel and here is what you feel and how do we find a common ground? >> sadly early in the conference we voted against doing that. >> host: that is in explainable to me. >> it is an amazing thing and i can guess there are people whose minds are so made up they are thinking they have nothing left to talk about and i actually had people say that to me. there are people uncomfortable talking about human sexuality and they cannot imagine those conversations. i don't know how we will move through this without doing that . i was saddened by the decision . you have heard me say at the annual conference here that some of us ignored it and chores to do

it anyway . for example in my legislative session as we were dealing with structural issues around full inclusion, we decided as a subcommittee that we would ignore the vote of the whole conference and do it anyway . in a subcommittee with broad theological divide we had some conversations and when we walked out , we felt we had done good work together . >> and some churches may say , why is it still such a major issue ? we came to the conference as possibly separating and splitting as some churches have done. why is it sets an issue where ucc , the united church of christ , and they have made that decision. the episcopalians have made that decision. >> well , i think it is a major issue in our church because we

do put a lot of emphasis on finding unity in the midst of diversity. that is part of our tradition . what we are confronting right now is unity that is not fully an expression and an articulation and embodiment of love of god other than self . i think we realize we will have to begin making hard decisions. >> host: i see . >> and we find that place of mutual respect in our diversity? or, will we have to think of amicable ways of separating which will do as the least amount of harm . >> host: let's come back to that . and i think the bishop set a way forward . >> away forward and we will come back to that. >> host: please continue to join us as we talk about the

united methodist church with greg berquist.

we have been talking about the united methodist church and i hope you see parallels in connection with your own denomination and your own faith journey . we want to continue with that . tell us what will be in the next couple of years. i think the bishop 's has probably stayed off separation or division for a while by making a proposal . >> yes. essentially the general conference said we are not prepared to make the decisions without the holy conferencing that we voted down. the

bishops have proposed a special commission to guide us over the next four years in dealing with these in-depth issues . not just human sexuality , but who we are as a people . reclaiming our tradition and talking about what does it mean to be united methodist in this day and time and in the future? we do not want to make precipitous legislative decisions . the bishops are calling us into that in depth holy conversations that i hope will leave us to a place where we can find unity and diversity in what people call a big ten church or people who cannot do this anymore can find a way out that is as grace filled as is possible. at least we are taking it seriously and we will work at a very hard. i am proud we are able to do that and i

actually look forward to the conversation. >> the core team came up with suggestions after working at it for some time . some things they hope will help not just the methodists but all christians. >> are you talking about the core team at the annual conference? >> host: exactly . >> it reminds us of who we are and what we want to be. the mission is to make disciples for jesus christ for transformation of the world . that takes seriously personal spirituality and piety and faith development for the transformation of the world . taking the social justice issues and being socially responsible . there was abode at the general conference to try to separate it and unfortunately that did not occur because we would not be connected to our true tradition

. >> host: i see. >> we need to see how to live that out not just inside the church but outside . that is a core value here the other thing is we need to be more a more collaborative. i don't mean just in partnership with other united methodist churches but other denominations and community groups trying to make a change in our world. we need to be innovative . things have worked well in the last 30 or 40 years but now some of those things don't work well. maybe do church in a different way . instead of talking about creating new churches, but talk about it emerging faith communities . and to focus on that, what to new places for new people look like? it may not look like the church you and i grew up in . are we able to identify those folks with the same spiritual concerns and

allow them to teach us about new ways of expressing that . >> host: it may be merging new kinds of leadership and may be stronger laity involvement which we hope. >> i hope as well . i no longer teach leadership development just to clergy or laity . i require chert leadership and laity teams to come together to talk about how we need into the future. >> host: there was revival at the church and you were there with leadership and you talked about that . >> i did . there are four things to talk about . we need to focus on our faith and understand it and articulate it. if i can talk about jesus, who is going to? we also need we lookover the next 3- ththe

arpuenergy into that. third, we need to care about the fruit. we should talk about outcomes and have a vision and work towards that . i learned that at procter & gamble and we can do that in the church. finally, you've got to have fire . >> host: faith, focus, and fire. >> right. i borrow that from somebody and i should be giving credit, but i don't remember . it's mine now. >> host: every now and then we give credit, but if it works, we use it . we have one more segment and we will wrap this up. i think this is helpful to all who are hearing . >> i have enjoyed this very much. >> host: please join us for our last segment.

i hope you have been with us. we've learned not just about the united methodist church but about the christian impact and spiritual reality in our lives because of greg berquist . he started off with a question and let's talk about that with the leadership. >> what you said is if i believe the church needs to get outside the doors and into the community, i practice that myself . i try to get out into the community and practice

faith and social justice . the truth is that most people want to talk about. when people discover who i am, people say, tell me about this jesus you believe in and why i should care. if we don't have answers to that question, we come across as disingenuous. for me, jesus is the decisive presentation of god's love for the world . you see that in all inspiring ways because god is awe-inspiring and you can see that in deeply inspiring ways. he laughed and cried and he stood up for justice issues.

we don't have to look for things, they are here and we can point to them and experience them. for me, jesus is a representation of a god i will never fully understand but a god that is an intimate part of life that i can engage as we engage with each other. >> host: own we talk about marcus who passed last year who talked about meeting jesus again for the first time. >> listen to something that surprises you and that you have never heard and ask what difference does that make in your life? if our sacred document does not make a difference in my life so that i do something different , it is no longer sacred . >> how does that make a difference in my life?

>> exactly. i believe in the idea of incarnational theology. as jesus was incarnate among us, we are called to be god's children and living in all of life and pointing tothose moments. >> host: and peterson said , he moved into our neighborhood. >> that's right. he became flesh and blood and moved into our neighborhood. >> host: and that's what we need to do? >> absolutely. >> host: you talked about things we will remember and i remember faith, focus, fruit, and fire . >> yes . >> i invited you because i knew you would bring scholarship and influence but also passion for what you are doing and i commend you for that.

>> i don't know how to separate my mind and my heart in my spirit. when they come together, i have found something important . >> host: thank you for coming here and i appreciate you coming . thank you for joining us. go forth with fire but also faith, focus ro. see you next month.

from cbs news, bay area, this is the morning edition. the bay area is getting a break in the rain but a lot more is expected to arrive this evening. we have the latest forecast. a large tree comes crashing down on a homestead in one person to the hospital. we have a report from the scene. powerlines explode in concord when high winds puts a tree onto them. we have been up date on how long the power might be out. good morning it is sunday, january 8, thank you for joining us. this is a live lo