I hit the ground running yesterday with an early start. Since I got in late the night before I was unable to register yesterday. Certification and registration opened at 7 a.m. and I was in line waiting to get my badge and ipad. This GC is the first paperless convention and so deputies receive an ipad at registration that has a "virtual binder" loaded on to it with all the material needed for the 10 days. You might hear more on this in the coming days, depending on how well the whole system works. After registration it was off to the Legislative Committee meeting for Prayerbook, Liturgy, and Church Music. The resolutions up for discussion focused on supporting musical leadership within the church, revising translations of the Prayer Book, continuing support of the InterAnglican Liturgical Council, revising the Book of Occasional Services, and creating liturgical resources for Christian initiation. This last one was the most interesting to hear discussed.
The resolution, A065, looks to develop a liturgical resource on Christian initiation. As I understand it, the resolution would look at confirmation and admission to communion in relation to our theology of baptism. This resolution seemed suspect to me. I fear it's intent is to start the conversation about allowing open communion on a church wide level. While on a local level many churches allow people to receive communion without being baptized, creating a church wide allowance would go against what GC has already voted on and more importantly, would go against our theology. The liturgical resource in question would provide groundwork for a future revision of the BCP. This doesn't seem like the way to go about having this conversation and it seems to undermine the resounding approval at last GC of keeping baptism as the avenue through which people come to the table. Anyway, it was resoundingly voted down by the committee. So, for the time being we don't have to worry about this. After that, the committee also talked about the revision of the Book of Occassional Services, which I am very excited about. There could be some great additions and revisions that will help parish clergy to deal with many pastoral situations.
After the committee hearing it was off to the House of Deputies to hear both the Presiding Bishop and the President of the House of Deputies give them opening addresses. Both women did a great job and I appreciate how much they focused on the importance of the church getting out in the world and doing justice and practicing mercy. The PB did a great job challenging us to give up old ways of doing things so that we could see God inviting us into new growth and life. Her final quote, "for Jesus sends us on the only journey truly worth our lives" offers us all some good reflection on where we will put our time and energy.
We then headed in to orientation that focused mostly on how to use the ipads with the virtual binder and how to use the blackberry looking, voting devices. From there it was lunch and our deputation meeting. After lunch the nominees for Presiding Bishop were welcomed to the House of Deputies to give a 3 hour presentation. This is the first GC where the nominees form PB have done a presentation at a joint gathering of the houses. Bishops Breidenthal, Curry, Douglas, and Smith all did an excellent job of presenting themselves and their vision for the Episcopal Church over the next 9 years. The questions that were asked of them spanned a variety of topics and helped all of us to see what would be their focus of mission and ministry if elected. The election will take place on Saturday in the House of Bishops. Once the election is finished in the HoB the election results will come to the HoD where we will confirm the election.
From a personal standpoint, I am most excited about what Bishop Curry could offer the church moving forward. Not only does he offer the energy and outward excitement about the Good News, but he has the chops and experience necessary to lead. When I hear him speak my heart is set on fire with excitement about the mission of the church moving forward. His energy is contagious and I don't think he has one fearful bone in his body. Yet, I trust in the Holy Spirit to help the Bishops of our church to make the right decision for the church moving forward. I ask that you keep the Bishops in your prayers over the next few days so that they might hear how the Spirit is speaking to the church in this time.
After the Bishop's presentation the Mississippi Deputation gathered in our Diocesan Suite to discuss a resolution drafted by myself and another deputy to discontinue the use of the Confederate Battle Flag in public, governmental, or religious spaces. This idea stemmed from an earlier discussion that arose over lunch. After input from the entire deputation, we came up with a satisfactory resolution that will be submitted this morning.
I want to close with a quote from Bishop Curry. As an answer to one of the questions asked of him yesterday, he said "if we don't walk the walk we talk, no body has reason to believe us." I think everyone who comes to GC has a deep love of the Episcopal Church and we all want to find ways to better walk the talk. I see that in what took place in the Committee meeting this morning, where decisions were made about Christian initiation and making sure people of other languages have the same access to the prayer book as english speakers. In terms of Christian initiation, If we want to walk the talk of our theology, then we can't get ahead of our theology because of pastoral reasons. Instead we have to do the more time consuming work of welcoming people into an understanding of who we are and what we believe. We have to have integrity with our faith and hope that people are drawn to us because of our beliefs. I saw the desire to walk the talk in the opening statements of the PB and President of the HoD. They reminded us of how we are suppose to be walking and then challenged us to live into that over the next 10 days. I heard it in the words of the PB nominees as they described their walk of ministry and how they wanted to share that with us and the larger church as the PB. And finally, I heard us in Mississippi trying to walk the talk when we gathered to write a resolution that challenges us to remove signs of racism and bigotry from our public, governmental, and religious life. It's not always comfortable to walk the talk but we ground ourselves in Jesus Christ and therefore the way we walk is always one of life.
I ask your continued prayers for the work of General Convention and for the nominees for Presiding Bishop.
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