What’s the difference between LDS General Conference & Community of Christ World Conference? A LOT! Deb Luce says not everyone attends CoC Conference, there is much more debate, and it lasts a week instead of 2 days! Find out more!

World Conference

GT  00:28  So one of the things I would really like to do–of course, we’re here in Missouri for World Conference, which is quite different…

Deb  00:36  it’s wonderful

GT  00:37  …than LDS conference. I’d like to talk about [differences.] I’ve posted a couple of videos already, just really short ones about hey, here’s what I noticed. It’s a little different. For especially my LDS audience, but even [others], I’ve got evangelicals that listen, things like that. Can you talk about what are the [diffferences?] I don’t know. It sounds like you’re not really that familiar with LDS General Conference. But if you were to explain that to somebody who didn’t know anything about the Community of Christ, how would you explain World Conference to people?

Deb  01:14  To somebody who’s never been here?

GT  01:15  Yeah.

Deb  01:17  Well, there’s people from all around the world.

GT  01:22  Yes.

Deb  01:23  We have that to Haitian delegations. We have people from Africa.

GT  01:28  And you can tell by the way they are [dressed], especially the women, the colorful dresses.

Deb  01:32  The way they dress. Yes.

GT  01:34  They’re really cool. I like them.

Deb  01:34  The Polynesians, and it’s just amazing. And there’s just such a presence. I get goosebumps again. It’s just such a presence. It’s so exciting to be in the presence. And then, there’s over 2000 people, I think they said, we had over 1900 delegates.

GT  01:55  That was delegates? That wasn’t just people?

Deb  01:57  I think. I think.

GT  01:58  I think that was total people. [There were 1400 delegates and 500 observers.)

Deb  02:00  But then, this year, it’s even more exciting, because we’ve got the technology. And so they are Zoom-ing in people from other places.

GT  02:11  Honduras was one, I know.

Deb  02:13  Yeah, yeah. And so, but we come together, as brothers and sisters of the family of God, and it’s just [cool.] Our congregations back home, you’ve got six or eight people. Here, you’ve got thousands. And then you got these people that sing. We both talked about The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning. I couldn’t sing.

GT:  Same.

Deb:  It was just so overpowering with the Spirit. And it was just amazing. And that’s what it’s like. And then there’s people that this is the only place you’ll see them.

GT  02:51  Because they live in Tahiti.

Deb  02:54  Yeah, just exactly.

…

GT  06:36  So, yesterday/Saturday was the first day of the conference. And I remember I went in there. Typically LDS General Conference, the apostles and some 70s get to speak up, and maybe they’re General Relief Society President, and people like that. And basically, the audience just sits there and listens, Then they say “Amen,” at the end. But in World Conference, it’s much more interactive. They have nine. Are there nine, microphones?

Deb  07:16  There’s 10 or 11.

GT  07:16  Okay.

Deb  07:17  I know, because he called somebody at lectern 10.

GT  07:19  Okay, I counted nine, so there’s at least 10. But it’s weird, because it’s kind of parliamentary. “Okay, here are the rules that we’re going to talk about. They’re listed on page 44, (or whatever it was.) Does anybody have any amendments to the rules?”

GT  07:38  And somebody did. So they got up. “The Chair recognizes (whoever) to speak.” And then that person spoke. Then “Do we have anybody that seconds that?

GT  07:51  “Yes.”

GT  07:52  “Okay. Now, does anybody oppose?”

GT  07:54  “I oppose.”

GT  07:55  “Okay. So over at lectern 2, you’ve got five minutes.” There was literally a countdown clock.

Deb  08:02  Yeah, they did.

GT  08:05  “Okay, so what do you guys think? Do you want to vote?” And so typically, you’d raise your hand and then, “Who’s opposed?” Unlike LDS, rarely do you have anybody opposed. But one of those [votes], it was like half and a half. And I noticed in the rules it said, “if you can’t tell who won, we’re going to actually count votes. I don’t think we’ve done that yet. But I’m sure that some of those votes, especially 1984 must have been [close.] I guess they didn’t count that one either. It wasn’t that close with women and priesthood resolution.

GT  08:10  “Okay, state [your] objection.”

GT  08:30  But can you talk about some of the resolutions that are coming up this week? Do you know? I should have brought my program. Do we have it? We can take a quick pause if you want.

…

GT  10:08  Yes. Because this is so [different.] The amazing thing here is, these are put forth just by lay members. Right? You don’t have to be an apostle to do this or anything.

Deb  10:21  Usually they come from jurisdictions like mission centers or a region, like the North Central Region or something like that. So for example, the climate emergency, it comes from the British Isles Mission Center, which is in the United Kingdom.

Deb  10:38  And then they give us a summary, and they do all the resolutions, and then they come up with all the, the whereas-es and all that.

GT  10:38  Okay,

GT  10:39  There’s a lot of whereas, whereas, whereas, whereas…

Deb  10:49  Then it comes right down to the resolved, which is just basically what we’re going to be voting on. So we’ve got the climate emergency and the recommendations. They want to remove section 116…

GT  11:01  Oh, let’s talk about that one.

Deb  11:03  …from Doctrine and Covenants and they want to put it into the historical records.

GT  11:07  Okay, so section 116. That was a revelation given to Joseph Smith, III. Right?

Deb  11:14  I think so. I think it was in 1865.

GT  11:17  1865. Okay, so we’re right in the Civil War times.

Deb  11:20  Right. And it had to do with where they were talking about the races.

GT  11:26  Right. [It was about] whether we should ordain blacks, but he didn’t use the word black. He called them negros, because that was the common terminology of the day.

Deb  11:34  Right.

GT  11:35  Which is kind of politically incorrect now.

Deb  11:38  Yes. And so that’s one.

GT  11:41  So, there’s a resolution to move that section to the appendix to basically de-canonize it. Right?

Deb  11:48  Yep, to remove it from the Doctrine and Covenants and put it in as a historical record, as opposed to the Doctrine & Covenants.

Daily Impressions

I visited the weeklong World Conference in April 2023 and gave a daily recap of events. Here’s what I thought in realtime! Check out my visit!

GT  01:19  And so the first thing is, I noticed, well, first of all, World Conference is not free. That’s the first difference. It cost $200 to register. Anyway, it’s good. So I also got the program. And I was shocked, at how large it is. See how thick it is? There it is, the Community of Christ program. And so I thought I would just give my impressions every day.

…

GT  02:53  I remember actually, I was a little bit late. And so when we got there, they were talking about what to do if there was a fire. They even said, when the fire alarm goes off, this is what it will sound like. They actually had it go off. And then they were talking about exits and things like that. And I was like, “Boy, they never talked about that in our General Conference. They even talked about what to do with an active shooter, which I thought was really interesting. You’d never heard that in LDS General Conference. GT  03:24  They passed a few resolutions. I remember one of them had to do with changing how the Board of Trustees was for Graceland University. People dissented but that passed by a wide margin. Anyway, so that was the first [session.] That was from 10 AM to noon.

…

GT  02:09 Hey, everybody, here I am. I’m at the Community of Christ Temple. I just finished day one of World Conference 2023. I thought I would give you a few impressions. So the day started out. Oh, I can’t switch my camera view. The day started out with the discussion and information sessions. No, I didn’t go to that. The opening legislative meeting which was different, very different from the LDS General Conference in a few ways. Number one, they passed some resolutions, and people dissented. It is a little bit more Parliamentary.

GT  02:53  I remember actually, I was a little bit late. And so when we got there, they were talking about what to do if there was a fire. They even said, when the fire alarm goes off, this is what it will sound like. They actually had it go off. And then they were talking about exits and things like that. And I was like, “Boy, they never talked about that in our General Conference. They even talked about what to do with an active shooter, which I thought was really interesting. You’d never heard that in LDS General Conference.

GT  03:24  They passed a few resolutions. I remember one of them had to do with changing how the Board of Trustees was for Graceland University. People dissented but that passed by a wide margin. Anyway, so that was the first [session.] That was from 10 AM to noon. And then we went to lunch. I went with Deb Luce. She is going to be a guest. I’m going to interview her tomorrow. Actually, I’m excited about that. She’s an evangelist and the Community of Christ, what LDS would call her a patriarch or matriarch. I actually asked Deb weeks ago if I can call her matriarch and she said, “No, that makes me sound too old.” So anyway, I had an interesting lunch was with Deb and I’m looking forward to that interview. We’re going to get together tomorrow. I’m talking about that.

GT  04:17  Then, let’s see. At two o’clock was the legislative meeting again, except for it was really, this time it was more of an award ceremony. I don’t know if I can splice in a video but it was almost [a ceremony. This African man led it. And there was singing and clapping. We don’t do any clapping. Oh. But there was a lot of clapping and standing ovations and that sort of thing. But the second session, it says in the schedule, I’m looking at my schedule, so I can remember. It went from two to 4:30. But it went from 2 to about 3:15. We were going to take a half hour break. Go walk around. So, I remember walking around. My hip is hurting me. So that was good for me to walk around. But anyway, it was more of an awards [ceremony], like people retiring, and people who’ve done good service and different awards, stuff like that. So then, after the half-hour break, there was more legislation. I can’t remember what that was. It passed. It was not [controversial.] I don’t know. It wasn’t like really [exciting.] I think the exciting stuff is next week. So anyway, that was interesting.

…

All right, here’s your day six update from the Community of Christ World Conference. Apparently, there was a resolution that the people wanted to apologize for past racism within the Community of Christ took a day and a half to get through all the amendments and everything. Very, very time-consuming, frustrating, I think, for all involved. But the weird thing is, and so they voted on it. They passed the resolution. Everybody went to lunch. They came back from lunch. And I guess President Veazey got up there and said that they had spoken with their lawyers. And they couldn’t do the resolution for legal reasons, and they weren’t going to debate it anymore. And they were done. And they were moving on. So that was a big surprise.

I did talk to someone. I said, why couldn’t the lawyers just tell them right off the bat that we can’t do this? Apparently, they wanted the people to have their say. They said what they wanted to say. And so the idea was, we want to let the people say what they want to say. But I know a lot of people were like, we just wasted a day and a half on this. We could have moved on to something else. And I totally get that. But so anyway, that’s just more of Community of Christ stuff.

What do you think of Community of Christ World Conference? Do you like the feedback given to the prophet, or do you prefer the LDS ways? Do you like the idea of members putting forth resolutions for the leaders to consider, such as de-canonization of certain sections of the Doctrine & Covenants