General Assembly 2005 - Part 2

I woke up early on Tuesday (not by design, I assure you) and wound up being the first delegate in the Assembly Hall for Tuesday's business session. The most anticipated moment of General Assembly (GA) was the election of Rev. Dr. Sharon Watkins as the new General Minister and President (GMP) of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). The election of any new GMP is a historical moment for the denomination, and this election is especially notable because of Sharon's gender, but the more important thing is that the assembly was in overwhelming agreement in her election. In fact, in what I see as a testament to the progressiveness of the denomination, very little has been said about her gender. Nobody (that I have heard about) is asking "are we ready for a female GMP?" It goes without saying that we are.

After the election, I decided that anything else that could happen in the business session would be anti-climactic, so I went to wander around the Exhibit Hall. It turns out I missed the election of our new moderators, etc., which I regret, but you can't do everything. Anyway, I didn't wander long in the Exhibit Hall before I ran into my pastor, Rebecca Zelensky, and we traded our ideas and experiences over the past couple of days. We're both very excited about expanding the Elders' role as spiritual leaders of the church. She was very interested in my idea for a residential student center. I was more than interested in the Education for Ministry program that she told me about, which is "A Program of Theological Education from a Distance" offered by The University of the South.

While JT was off at the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry painting his face with Gracie (his newfound soulmate, apparently), Margaret and I went to a workshop on the future of the liberal church. It was an open forum that DisciplesWorld asked Lisa Davison to moderate. We started by trying to describe what the term "liberal" meant to us. We stated the obvious -- that it has multiple meanings and that the term has been "hijacked." Unfortunately, I don't think that we ever tried to agree on how we would use the term during the workshop, and I think that led to some miscommunication. Still, it was by far the most intellectually stimulating event of the assembly for me. I won't try to summarize the whole workshop, but I will mention a few things that we particularly important for me.

• I really appreciated Lisa's story about when and how she was called to voice her ideas more publicly. Anybody who has something to say but thinks that they can't make a difference because they are just an "ordinary person" could hear her story and be inspired to action.
• A hypothesis was put forth that because we expect our members to think for themselves, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) is more appealing to older people. I responded by acknowledging that there is probably some truth in that idea, but that it is also a generalization, and that there is a real danger in focusing too much on the generalization. There are lots of spirtually-hungry young people who need to hear the message that it is possible to be a Christian and still be a critical thinker.
• A seminarian who is pastoring a new Disciples congregation identified himself as an "evangelical Disciple," and indicated that many of the workshop participants had said things that were demeaning to him. One person had referred to the Christology of some of the evening worshop sermons as "repulsive" (apparently because they included some some sort of reference to Christ being something other than totally human). I wasn't surprised to hear that that comment was offensive. However, I learned that my own use of the term "evangelical" was probably inappropriate, in that I have tended to presume that "evangelicals" are less informed regarding biblical scholarship. In my defense, I claim that the media also makes this overgeneralization, but I intend to be more careful in the future.

On Wednesday, I did not wake up early. I arrived during the debate on the resolution denouncing hate speech against homosexuals, bisexuals, and transgender individuals. I was not surprised that there was some debate. The substantive part of what I heard related to the use of the term "spiritual violence." The resolution passed easily. To be completely honest, the most memorable part of the discussion for me was that Dick Hamm, a former General Minister and President, sat next to me. He mentioned that he needed to find a restaurant for a lunch meeting, and I gave him a recommendation. I hope his meeting went well.

A resolution calling on Israel to tear down the dividing wall was debated during the same business session. Emotions were high on both sides. I was left with the feeling that not enough discussion had gone into the resolution, but the resolution passed fairly easily. I found out later that there had been protesters around the convention center all week, and especially that morning calling for the defeat of the resolution. I never saw them. After the resolution passed, all of the blogs linked from the DisciplesWorld site were visited by a combative opponent of the resolution asking "what the [Disciples of Christ] are afraid of." A website that has "UCC" in its URL but apparently has no official connection to the United Church of Christ denomination denounced the resolution. The media has reported on the passage of the resolution. We must at least be talking about the right issue if we're making some people unhappy and getting attention from the New York Times.

After lunch, I finished the book Wired For Ministry, which I plan to review for DisciplesWorld. After the afternoon business session, I started Prayer for People Who Can't Sit Still, which I also plan to review.

The closing worship service included the historic installation of Sharon Watkins as our General Minister and President. I look forward to telling JT later that he was "there when." He seemed to be pretty intrigued by the laying on of hands, which is moving under normal circumstances, and somewhat hard to comprehend when it involves 5000 people. Rev. Dr. Watkins gave an uplifting sermon. The most remembered line is sure to be that "we are a church whose time has come." I believe it, and so I believe that she is the right person to lead us. There is something else, though, about that worship service, and indeed about the entire assembly, that I will never forget. Basking in the glow of the celebration of our new leadership, we celebrated the eternal leadership of Jesus Christ by sharing in communion. And for the first time, JT celebrated too.

General Assembly 2005 - Part 1

My family and I are in Portland, Oregon for the General Assembly (GA) of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). It's my second GA, but the first for the rest of my family. We came a few days early for a much-needed vacation. Besides just spending time together without any particular schedule to keep, we have enjoyed seeing Multnomah Falls, the Oregon coast, and the Oregon Zoo. We also helped the local economy by visiting Powell's Books. I simply can't describe it. And there is a reason -- I never made it out of the first room. But I still managed to spend over $150. That'll be a recurring theme.

As I write, the GA is in full swing. As a brand new elder in my congregation, I spent Saturday at the Elders' pre-assembly conference. I took a lot of notes, but the most valuable part of the day was that I feel I passed the sanity check with flying colors. I believe that my congregation has a good understanding of the role of elders as spiritual leaders, and that we are moving in the right direction in terms of making that leadership more visible to the congregation.

Charisse Gillett's message for Saturday night's opening worship service made my wife, Margaret, and me realize that we had become in unintentionally disconnected from the denomination, in that we did not share the sense of crisis that many apparently do. We decided that this is because it has been a very eventful couple of years for our congregation, and that has consumed our attention. Having had a couple of days now to reflect on Charisse's message, I now see that for us it began a process of reconnection to the denomination, and I pray that we will be able to share that with our congregation.

Sunday was a very full day. We began by worshipping at First Christian Church, one of the local congregations that so graciously invited the masses attending GA into their church home. Everything about the church was wonderful. I especially appreciated the warm welcome we recieved, the beauty of the sanctuary, the insight and eloquence of the offering message, and the fact that they handed out the sheet music for the praise songs. At my insistence, we got to the church a little after 7:30 so that we would be sure to get seats. We got the best seats in the sanctuary and got to hear the choir running through their final rehearsal.

We chose First Christian because we wanted to hear Verity Jones' sermon. She spoke on having the courage to follow God because we love God, not because we expect God to protect us. One of her sentences haunts me, because it so succinctly captures one of my greatest fears. I can't remember her exact words, but the essence is that there may come a time when we can't distinguish between patriotism and Christianity.

We got to sit with William Wagnon (Verity's husband) during the first service, while our almost 5 year-old son JT and their identically-aged daughter Gracie were reunited after having not seen each other in a year or so. We got to sit with Verity during the second service, at which Alvin Jackson preached. Both his message and his delivery were excellent, as one would expect. I will confess that his passionate style is different enough from what I am accustomed to that I was occasionally distracted from his message. Along those lines, I was amused when JT pointed at his picture and whispered to me, "that's the man that yelled."

Sunday continued with an open forum to meet Sharon Watkins, the nominee for General Minister and President. I have heard only good things about her, and I thought she answered all of the questions well -- some of them superbly. She mentioned that she will be looking for ways to take advantage of technology to facilitate better communication within the denomination. I hope to have a chance to help with that.

The rest of the afternoon was devoted to a panel discussion of the events surrounding the bankruptcy and restructuring of the National Benevolent Association. I will make no attempt to summarize the discussion here, but I'll say that I thought the panel was very effective.

We took Gracie to dinner with us, so that Verity and William could go to a dinner event. She and JT were absolutely adorable together. Then I spent about $150 at the Cokesbury press booth. Margaret was giving me a hard time about how I was going to get all the books home, so one of the things I bought was a zippered shoulder bag.

Sunday night's worship was essentially a well-deserved tribute to our outgoing General Minister and President, Chris Hobgood. He came out of retirement to take the position which Dick Hamm stepped down two years early. He took the position even though he knew that it was going to be a rough couple of years for the denomination. To say that he is passionate about social justice would be a criminal understatement. I wish him shalom.

Margaret and JT were exhausted that night (JT fell asleep in his clothes in less time than it took me to undress myself). We didn't set the alarm clock, and as a result missed most of the morning sessions. We arrived in the middle of the discussion of the NBA report, but didn't really learn anything that we hadn't learned at the panel discussion.

We went to Chipotle for lunch (Margaret has to get her fix whenever we're out of Terre Haute), and then split up for the afternoon. JT went to child care, excited to play with his "girl friend." Margaret tried to go to Michael Kinnamon's workshop, but couldn't get into the overflowing room. I went to a workshop on campus ministry, which has me inspired to develop a Residential Student Center in Terre Haute.

As I was leaving the workshop hotel, two local girls who were stopped at a traffic light whistled at me, said "Boy, we like you!", told me I had nice legs, and asked me to walk in front of them. Now, either they have a fetish for overweight, pale, balding men, or they were giving me a hard time. Either way, I'm buying a bicycle when I get home.

I couldn't get into the second workshop I wanted to go to (I was late and it was apparently moved, but there was no indication where), so I spent another $100 at the Cokesbury press booth. Then I talked to Verity about writing book reviews for Disciple's World and met up with Margaret to go to the Higher Education and Leadership Ministry dinner. That gave us a chance to talk to the guys who ran the campus ministry workshop, as well as a chance to learn some Disciples of Christ trivia. Apparently, Alexander Campbell was NOT born in Scotland, but in Ireland. What's up with that?

Monday night's sermon was given by Lisa Davison, an Old Testament professor at Lexington Theological Seminary. I very much appreciated her call to embrace the unique character of the Disciples of Christ. I wish that she had said more about how we can make our voice heard over that of the less progressive voices that currently dominate.

Sorry for the (really) long post. I wanted to get "caught up" so that I can blog in closer-to-real-time for the rest of the GA.

Chose a name

I've been thinking seriously about blogging for a couple of months now. It took me a while for me to come up with a name, mostly because I haven't decided what to do when I grow up. My primary occupation is "Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Software Engineering," so according to American culture, that's my identity. However, I'm also a husband, a father, a leader in my church and the campus ministry organizations in my town and my state, an advisor to a fraternity and several other campus organizations, a researcher, an officer in the Air Force Reserves, and many other things. I expect to write about many of those things at various times, and I wanted the name to reflect the eclectic nature that I anticipate for the blog.