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.
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.
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.
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.
posted by ManOfManyInterests at 11:24 AM
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