Bells, Whistles and Then Some

Opening worship at the General Assembly. Time for all the bells and whistles – and then some.

Today was the first-ever baptism at a General Assembly. A cute little girl from a Minneapolis church was baptized up there on the platform by her pastor, with the congregation also in attendance to answer the promises. I wonder if she’ll always be known as the General Assembly Baby? And, I wonder what difference it will make in her life to know that her baptism took place in such an unusual way?

There was the Lord’s Supper, as there always is – along with the impressive logistics of serving several thousand people in a matter of minutes (they do it with a whole lot of communion tables scattered throughout the hall).

“People shall come from north and south and east and west...” Presbyterians from round about the Twin Cities and its environs canceled their Sunday services today, and descended on the Convention Center en masse.

Outgoing moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow gave an impressive sermon, all about the need to prepare for the church of the future. One story he told was of sitting at a Presbyterian worship service somewhere, maybe at a presbytery function or in a conference setting, with a teenage girl beside him. A set of bagpipes started to play in the distance, and she leaned over to him and asked, “What’s that instrument?”

There was a time when that sort of question would have been unthinkable in a Presbyterian worship service, among the proud descendants of John Knox and the Covenanters. Those days – if not yet gone – are going fast, Bruce reminded us. And he’s right.

There was a grand procession, with liturgical dancers and giant puppets depicting animals reminiscent of the Native American artistic tradition. Off to one side, an artist spontaneously painted abstract designs on a giant canvas taped to the floor. An overhead camera recorded her work, and broadcast it to us periodically on the giant projection screens.

Music was glorious, and eclectic – from a wide range of cultural traditions. And yes, there were a few great hymns of the church, and a rousing rendition of the famous organ postlude by Widor.

All in all, it was more than any local church could ever hope to have in one of its worship services – at least, not all on the same day (or even year). But, that’s the point. A national gathering like this begs for all the bells and whistles.

One thing about us Presbyterians: when we set our minds to it, we can put together a slam-dunk worship service.

We Have an Election

“We have an election!” Those were the words of outgoing General Assembly Moderator Bruce Reyes-Chow, as he announced the name of his successor, Elder Cynthia Bolbach of National Capital Presbytery.

It happened on the fourth ballot – rather quickly, actually, considering that there was an unusually large field of 6 candidates.

There was the usual variety of questions – with a few more lightweight, non-controversial questions than usual. It wasn’t until the last question, when a seminary advisory delegate asked the candidates to state, in a paragraph or less, what views they held on the marriage and civil unions issue, that the Assembly could really hear the candidates address a divisive issue.

Then, the Q&A time ran out, and the Assembly got down to voting.

The voting did not go well – for purely technical reasons. The Assembly uses an electronic keypad system to record the votes of the commissioners and delegates, and today’s voting was plagued by technical glitches. Most votes were recorded all right, but there seemed to be problems with a few dozen keypads each time. The overall numbers didn’t quite add up. Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons told the Assembly there should be 712 votes from commissioners if all are present, but the most that showed up on the screen were just over 650. There couldn’t possibly be that many absences, so it seems the system problems were pretty widespread.

Where I was sitting, in the section reserved for presbytery and synod staff, I was surrounded by fellow stated clerks. There was a lot of quiet consternation among our group. We know how important accurate vote counts are, and we also know the virtual impossibility of trying to conduct General Assembly voting by a manual method, such as counting hands or paper ballots. Sure, it could be done, but we’d be up half the night trying to conduct multiple votes on a field of 6 candidates.

A stated clerk sitting near me asked, “Why doesn’t someone just move to adjourn?” His point was that this is what the motion to adjourn is for: to call a halt to proceedings in order to buy time to fix a problem that’s come up. Such a motion would have presented its own set of problems – it would have played havoc with the subsequent scheduling, and could even have resulted in a Moderator’s Reception tomorrow afternoon that would have no Moderator to host it – but I have to admit his suggestion did have a certain logic to it.

Cynthia started out with twice as many votes as any other candidate, and her numbers continued to rise steadily, so I’m sure she would have been the eventual victor, regardless. But, even so, we may never know how accurate the announced vote count was.

At one point after her installation, our new Moderator quipped that she hoped people wouldn’t think her middle name is “Florida” – a reference to the disputed Bush-Gore Presidential contest. A brave attempt to use humor to dispel an emotionally-charged situation.

I don’t imagine the Office of the General Assembly Staff, nor the employees of the company that provides the electronic voting system, will get much of a 4th of July holiday. They’ll need to get right to work testing and re-testing the system, until they’re 100% sure the glitches have been eliminated. They do have a few days to get it right: the Assembly will be going into a couple of days of committee work, before reconvening in plenary session on Wednesday.

Tomorrow morning is the big, stadium-style communion service, followed by the Moderator’s reception, barbecue and fireworks in the late afternoon. Those events take place on Nicollet Island in the Mississippi (the fireworks are the city’s 4th of July display). Heavy thunderstorms are forecast for earlier in the day, so we’ll hope for the best.

A Bunch of Rookies?

I'm posting this from my Motorola Droid smartphone, from my seat in the Presbytery staff section in the Assembly meeting hall at the Minneapolis Convention Center. I have my laptop here with me as well, but there's no wireless internet access in the meeting hall.

The Assembly leadership has been orienting the commissioners and advisory delegates to their task. Part of this was teaching the commissioners to use the electronic keypads they use for voting. There were a few practice questions that were essentially polls.

One question was how many times each of the commissioners has served as a commissioner or advisory delegate before. Here are the results:

First time: 75%
Second time: 18%
Third time: 3%
Fourth time or more: 4%

It's a rather bold and extraordinary practice to put such weighty decisions into the hands of so many newcomers. These numbers are rather typical for General Assemblies, year to year. It speaks volumes about the trust we have for one another, as well as our assumption that there is a common spiritual and theological DNA running through all our ordained offices.

Yes, it's a remarkable organization, this General Assembly of ours!

The Big 4

Here’s the question everyone wants to know, as the General Assembly convenes: What are the big issues?

This time around, there are four, as I see it.

1) Ordination of Gays and Lesbians - This is the perennial issue that’s plagued every General Assembly in recent memory. Ever since issuing an Authoritative Interpretation in 1976, stating that homosexual practice is sinful (but homosexual orientation is not), the Assembly has wrestled with this divisive issue. Over the years, the Assembly has moved ever closer to removing the “sin” designation and allowing sessions to ordain deacons and elders, and presbyteries to ordain ministers, who are otherwise well-qualified but who are in same-sex intimate relationships. In 1996, the Assembly voted to add paragraph G-6.0106b to the Book of Order, which adds the specific requirement “to live either in fidelity within the covenant of marriage between a man and a woman, or chastity in singleness.” The last Assembly voted to remove that paragraph, but it failed to garner the required majority of ratifying presbyteries. That last vote was close, though, and many observers noted how many presbyteries that had long been squarely in the “no” column (on removing G-6.0106b) had switched to “yes.” Many think this could be the year this change makes it all the way through.

2) Same-Sex Marriage - With several states now allowing same-sex marriage, and several others (including New Jersey) allowing same-sex unions as an almost-but-not-quite-the-same alternative, ministers out there in the field are receiving inquiries about officiating at these ceremonies. The Directory for Worship presently defines marriage as “between a man and a woman.” Recent General Assemblies have advised ministers that it is permissible to exercise individual discretion to preside at same-sex union ceremonies, but that care must be taken to declare that such ceremonies are not equivalent to marriage in the eyes of the church. Will there be change on that this year? Few think so, but there will be lively debate.

3) Israel-Palestine Relations - Two study papers are before the Assembly that relate to relations between Israel and Palestine, particularly the harsh conditions being endured by the Palestinian majority who live in lockdown conditions in the West Bank and Gaza. Some of these Palestinians are from ancient Christian churches dating back to the time of Jesus. We Presbyterians are especially attuned to their voice, a minority within the Muslim-majority Palestinian culture. While the General Assembly has no power to change any of this, it does have the power to speak. Some say major news organizations are especially interested in what the Presbyterians say on this and other issues, because they regard us as something of a bellwether for American public opinion in general (it seems that, on a number of occasions in the past, when the Presbyterians have publicly made a change on a tough issue of ethics or public policy, it’s been a barometer indicating that the rest of the nation is about ready to shift, as well).

4) nFOG - Now there’s an acronym only a hard-core church-polity fan could love. “nFOG” stands for the new Form of Government, a proposed total revision of the Book of Order, the portion of our church’s Constitution covering everything except worship and discipline. This is an "insider" issue - of great importance to Presbyterian leaders at ever level, but of zero interest to the general public. Over the years, that portion of the Constitution has expanded in size, so much so that it’s been hard for all but the most devoted students of polity (church government) to keep track of all the rules and regulations. The new Form of Government is a carefully-considered, thoroughly vetted - but still radical - effort to chop that portion of the book down to a more manageable size. It’s akin to cutting the famed Gordian Knot. While the Form of Government itself would become easier to work with, every governing body in the church (sorry, they’ll be “councils” if the nFOG is approved) – sessions, presbyteries and synods – will have to adopt their own local policies manuals, to fill in the gaps left by what was removed in the big revision. While some fear this will result in a balkanization of the church, others applaud the freedom to adapt to vastly differing local situations. This change would have to be approved by a majority of the presbyteries before it takes effect.

The Assembly will be engaged in lots of other work, of course, but these are by far the biggest issues, as I see them.

For a more thorough analysis, check out this July 1 blog entry by Regional Presbyter/Stated Clerk Sallie Watson, titled “Gradye’s Preview” (thanks to my friend Houston Hodges, for alerting me to it, via Facebook).

Save the Last Dance for Me

Here I am in Minneapolis, a couple of days in advance of the General Assembly. The Association of Stated Clerks, our national professional organization, is having its annual meeting. It's good to meet with my colleagues from other presbyteries and synods, share war stories and generally talk with each other about how to do our jobs better.

This morning we heard a presentation by the Rev. Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the General Assembly. Gradye's always got his analytical eye set on developments in the larger church. One statistic he shared with us got my attention, more than any other.

It seems the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life conducted a research study a couple of years ago, in which they queried Americans about their religious practices. The Pew researchers found that, of those who attend religious services at least annually, half these people - 35% of the general public - "say they regularly or occasionally attend religious services at different places, aside from when they are traveling and going to special events such as weddings and funerals." That's only slightly less than the number (37%) who report attending the same house of worship consistently.

Gradye called that statistic to our attention by pointing out that, of all the people we could realistically expect to be sitting in our pews on any given Sunday, just over a third "shop around" on a regular basis, when it comes to religious services.

Wow. So much for denominational "brand loyalty." So much, even, for loyalty to the congregation of which these spiritual buffet-browsers are members (if, indeed, they're interested in settling down and joining a church at all)!

I'd be interested to know how many of the sheep in our fold at Point Pleasant regularly graze in other pastures. Sure, I know of a few cases where the husband is from one religious tradition and the wife another, and they divide their time between two different churches. That, I can understand. Sure, there are some who skip out on summer Sundays to attend the nearby summer chapel that gives tall-steeple preachers the sweet deal of a week of beach vacation in exchange for a recycled sermon from their "greatest hits" list. Some others enjoy, from time to time, wandering north a few miles to sample the old-fashioned camp-meeting flavor of Ocean Grove's Methodist conference center.

Yet, as Gradye suggested to us, these numbers go way beyond the occasional summertime dalliance. The folks the Pew researchers uncovered, in such large numbers, may typically go to one church for the music, another for the preaching, still another for the contemporary service, and so on - with some even dividing their time between a church and, say, a Buddhist meditation center.

My late mother-in-law was one of these. A former Roman Catholic and, after that, a sometime Presbyterian, she liked to sample anything and everything spiritual. She used to describe herself as a "roamin' eclectic." Her tribe may be more numerous than many of us suspect.

Does this mean we've simply got to work all the harder to build congregational loyalty, and keep it - even as we're swimming upstream against a powerful societal trend? Or, should we just throw in the towel, declare "it's not our grandfather's church" anymore, dump our classic Calvinist high conception of the church and get used to the way things now are?

There are no easy answers to questions like these, but they call to mind the lyrics of the corny old pop song:

"But don't forget who's takin' you home
And in whose arms you're gonna be
So darling, save the last dance for me."

Blogging from General Assembly

I'll be attending the entire General Assembly except for the final half-day, and will be using this blog as a place to post random reflections on the experience. Look for my posts to come more frequently than they usually do, and to have a different character.

I won't make an effort to be comprehensive in reporting on Assembly actions. Look to the Presbyterian News Service - not to mention the Assembly's live web-streaming of debates - for that. What I plan to provide is my own viewpoint of the Assembly, based on the personal encounters and conversations I have, as well as what I see and hear of the official meetings and associated special events.

I've been asked to put in some time as a floor parliamentarian, as well - sitting by one of the microphones during several of the plenary sessions, helping commissioners craft the motions they'd like to make. I don't know at this point how much of that I'll be doing, or when - I'll find out more at a training session after I get there - but it should provide a different sort of perspective.

Think of it as a man-on-the-street report - different from the traffic-helicopter perspective of the News Service and the C-SPAN give-us-everything style of the live-stream video.

I'll be attending the Association of Stated Clerks meeting from June 29-July 2, then the General Assembly from July 3-10.

Welcome the WCRC!

During these lazy, hazy crazy days of summer, an important gathering has been taking place in Grand Rapids, Michigan for churches of the Presbyterian and Reformed Tradition.

The newly-formed World Communion of Reformed Churches unites two previous ecumenical organizations: the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (of which the Presbyterian Church USA has long been a member) and the Reformed Ecumenical Council. The new ecumenical body will group 227 member churches representing 80 million Christians in 108 countries.

"The coming into being of the World Communion of Reformed Churches will be a historic moment for the churches of the Reformed family and for the church of Christ everywhere", said the World Council of Churches general secretary Rev. Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, who is attending the uniting event.

"This is a new expression of the visible unity of God's church, and as such it represents both a gift from God and a sign of hope", Tveit added. "I trust that it will strengthen the contribution of the Reformed churches to unity, peace and justice."

(adapted from Ecumenical News, an electronic newsletter of the Presbyterian Church USA)