The Association of Annual Conference Lay Leaders (AACLL) held its convocation Sept. 26-28 at the Denman Building in Nashville, the home of Discipleship Ministries – and also the home of the Tennessee-Western Kentucky Conference offices. The meeting was in a hybrid format, with both in-person and online attendance; this was the first in-person meeting the group had held since the COVID-19 pandemic.
AACLL is made up of annual conference lay leaders, whom the Book of Discipline says shall be members of the organization, but district lay leaders are also welcome to participate in the annual convocation. TWK UMC lay leader Janice McCallen serves as the group’s secretary and was present for the convocation, as was Stones River District lay leader John Carney. Micheal Pope of the California-Nevada Annual Conference serves as AACLL president.
The keynote speaker for the weekend was Marlon Hall, an artist and self-described visual anthropologist from Houston, whose program for the weekend led up to a “mosaic dinner” on Saturday night, with participants encouraged to use Hall’s plan to organize dinners in their home communities.
The purpose of a mosaic dinner is to encourage conversation and interaction among strangers from different backgrounds and segments of the community. Hall encourages inviting guests who don’t know each other. Before the dinner, participants look at an array of slips of paper, each one containing a quotation. Each participant chooses a quote that moves them or that they connect with in some way. When the participants go into dinner, they are directed to sit next to the other person in the group who has chosen the same quote.
The centerpiece of the dinner was a door, created by Hall especially for the AACLL event and with decorative features of special symbolic importance. Special one-on-one questions and discussion prompts helped to get the conversation going.
More Highlights from the Weekend
Another highlight of the weekend was a field trip to Edgehill United Methodist Church, which serves a diverse neighborhood near Vanderbilt University. The church was founded in 1966 under the leadership of the late Rev. Bill Barnes and was one of Nashville’s first intentionally-integrated churches.
A city historic marker out front pays tribute to Barnes’ achievements as an advocate for civil rights, affordable housing, and other issues, and the city’s affordable housing fund is named for him. The church’s current pastor, Rev. Eric Mayle, talked about the church’s current membership and ministries before administering communion to the group.
The group also toured the historic Upper Room chapel, which is part of the Denman Building complex. Lunch on the first day was in the dining hall at the nearby Scarritt-Bennett center, which Pope described later in the weekend as “that Harry Potter dining hall” for its architecture.
Dr. M. Scott Hughes, associate general secretary of Discipleship Ministries, gave a talk on the use of artificial intelligence (AI) by churches and conferences.
Submitted by John Carney, Stones River District Lay Leader
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