First of all, thanks for following me to my new home in the blog world – Word Press. Should be fun!
Woke up way too early today with General Convention 2012 on my mind. Probably because this weekend at the Diocese of Mississippi’s Annual Council I am again running for GC Deputy. I’d like to return, and mostly because I think we need to drastically change how GC operates. We start by refocusing what GC should be about. I truly believe that participants at GC have become entrenched and buried so deeply into the legislative mire that it has become, that they can’t see we’ve moved away from the mission and ministry of the church and allowed our time and energy to be diverted. The Presiding Bishop warns us of “suicide by governance”, and that comes from worshipping process and canons more than we worship Jesus. GC is full of people authoring resolutions that really have no bearing at all on the mission of the church, especially our church, with often a false sense of power and importance that our gravely worded resolutions have to speak to the world.
As example I give you the “Committee of the Whole” fail from GC 2009. Our President of the House of Deputies (PHOD), honorary doctor Bonnie Anderson, decides to use a rare parliamentary procedure called the Committee of the Whole, so the entire House of Deputies can act as one committee to discuss, of course, issues around sexuality, while we spent the entire time at GC completely ignoring the report from the State of the Church committee which lays out in alarming, truth speaking words how as a denomination we are shrinking and how if we do not address this we will soon disappear, how we must get excited and put time, resources, energy, and education into mission and evangelism, how our national church offices distract from mission, etc., etc. The report was eye opening and vital, yet NEVER discussed on the floor of the House of Deputies. THAT’S what we need a Committee of the Whole to talk about.
At our Annual Council we have a resolution to support our Bishop in his efforts to reform GC. I am totally on board with that, and would love to see some meat added to it, with specific proposals, suggestions, and ideas. We need new thinking, new passion for mission, and a new awareness that making ourselves seem important by authoring and debating resolutions that mean nothing to most of the people in the pews and do nothing to promote the Good News of Jesus is a dead end.
It’s time to turn this battleship. I hope I get a chance to be a part of that.