About 80 people attended the events at St. Paul’s Church, Chestertown; Trinity Cathedral, Easton; and St. Alban’s, Salisbury. The format was essentially the same on all three evenings. After the bishop’s introduction, participants gathered in small groups and spent some time responding to three questions. The responses then were shared with the whole group. All of the responses are being saved in a file which Bishop Shand will review before responding to the House of Bishops’ request for feedback.
“I can’t believe how far we’ve come in the past three years,” said one seminarian who was part of the diocese’s task force on the Windsor Report. “Everyone was respectful, no one was pointing fingers. We were really listening to one another.”
A priest commented, “In the 17 years I’ve been in this diocese, this is the best gathering I’ve been a part of. There was a sense of the sacred. I’m very grateful for the bishop’s leadership.”
About 80 people responding to 3 questions in small groups. Wonder what the questions were?
I presume that it means 80 at each of the three events — ie 240 in total. Because otherwise the attendance compared to the diocese’s ASA of over 3000 is pathetic indeed, and you would hope that their expectations were not so low as to be so easily exceeded.
It reminds me of years ago when I worked in the Ministry of Transport, the local ferry company, which had a terrible reputation for service proudly produced a survey of passengers which showed their performance exceeded their expectations. It wasn’t until you read the fine print that you found that the passengers expected the journey to be uncomfortable, the ship to be filthy, and the crew to be unhelpful and rude, that it became clear that there were really no expectations for them to exceed in the first place.
Am I correct iin assuming that when I read “listening process” or something of that order, I am reading a rationale for the acceptance of homosexuality? LM