Texas Annual Conference Meets in Bay City, November 1914 The Texas Conference of the MECS met in annual session in Bay City, Texas, this week in 1914. The items considered in annual conferences have changed very little since the founding of the denomination in 1784. The highlights of annual conferences through the years have been the ordination of new members, remembrances of those who have passed on, receiving reports of the various boards, commissions, agencies, etc. Listening to representatives of the church instituions beyond the local church such as orphanges, schools, publishing houses, etc. have also been a constant as well as receving financial reports and setting a budget for the next year. Although committee reports have been a constant, the committees authorized by conferences have changed through the years. Some such as Education, Missions, and Fiance have been constant. Others, many others, have been added through the years, including the one on which I serve, Commisssion on Archives and History. It was created only in 1968 by the Uniting Conference which created the UMC. In 1914 some of the most interesting reports came from committees which no longer exist. They include the Bible Cause, the Committee on the Spiritual State of the Church, and the Committee on Sabbath Observation. As we read reports from those committees we sense a struggle to adapt to changing conditions. For example the Bible Cause deemphasized the need for English language testaments and Bibles and focused on supplying Spanish, French, Italian , and Czech Bibles to the immigrants coming to Texas, It was assumed that English language Bibles were cheap and abundant but that immigrants from Catholic countries had been denied Bibles in their own languages because priests discouraged their parishioners from read the Scriptures for themselves. The Committee on the Spiritual State of the Church was mainly interested in keeping the revival fires buring brightly. Its members were old men who remembered the good old days when Methodist were known for their emotional excesses. Methodists were known for their shouting loudly and often during the revival services, but that practice was in great decline. They interpreted the decline in emotional religion as a decline in spirituality. The Committee on Observance of the Sabbath was fighting an uphill battle. By 1914 Sunday afternoon had become a favorite time for baseball games, theater matinees, and railroad excurions to favored locales. In Houston, for example Sylvan Beach was a favorite Sunday picnic spot. In Beaumont the mineral springs at Sour Lake were a favorite excursion destination as were Rosborough Springs at Marshall. The Committee condemned all such Sunday afternoon diversions that kept Methodists away from an afternoon of Bible reading and prayer in anticipation of the Sunday eveing worship service. Who knows? Perhaps they were right. Perhaps we need to reconstitute the three committees mentioned in this blog---