Can we become the church God wants us to be or will we settle for a church that some of our “successful” pastors think we should be? Will we explore the outcomes we discern as God’s will or shall we pursue the outcomes we want that allow us to be the church we want to be? These are hard questions. These are important questions. These are the questions we must address at General Conference, and it doesn’t help when people who are asking them are dismissed as faithless or afraid.
Tonight, however, many of the amendments offered from the floor had a subtext that had little to do with the rules as such (e.g., limiting the ability of bishops to announce a recess because in the past these breaks have allowed gay rights supporters to engage in carefully orchestrated witness). We have a lengthy “holy conferencing” listening session about human sexuality scheduled for tomorrow; I wish we had waited for that opportunity to listen to each other instead of beginning the session with power plays expressed through rule amendments. I suspect that even the proposed “bedtime” will in some quarters be filtered through this “pro-gay/anti-gay” lens… just don’t ask me how!
“In Which Mom Fails to Give the Delegates a Bedtime”byThe Kenagston Family
So there were 18 amendmentssuggested and sent to therule committee who are working as I write to sort it out and they will come back with recommendations tomorrow morning so we can finish adopting them all. If this is an omen of things to come, it is not a good one. Instead of adjourningat 9:30 like we were supposedto, we adjourned at 10:30…hmmm.
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