Today has been a mixture of highs and lows for me at General Convention. An upside was our Public Narrative for Mission session. Those of you who know me well, know that I do not enjoy the ‘sharing our story’ exercises that we often use in the Church for ‘getting to know’ one another. That being said, I was highly suspicious of the Public Narrative format. And yet I was surprised how well it worked.
We met in our own deputations and each of us simply related a story – story of self -that helped define our understanding of leadership in the Church. Most of the stories had common themes, especially the importance of mentors who noticed a particular talent or gift and encouraged the development of that talent or gift.
We are still learning the Leadership Art of Public Narrative and I can see its potential value for leadership development in a Church or secular setting. Look for more as a we learn more during General Convention.
While our time together in Public Narrative was encouraging, my time in the legislative hearing on canonical changes and resolutions supporting the development of rites for the blessing of same sex unions (BOSSU) and marriages was less than encouraging. Several members of our deputation joined me in offering testimony against those canonical changes and resolutions before the Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music legislative committee.
In past years, those hearings on ‘hot topics’ usually featured a relatively equal number of pros and cons. This General Convention, however, is very different because the pros at this hearing – and others on ‘hot topics’ – vastly outnumbered the cons. In many cases, it is five to one in favor of the several canonical changes and resolutions.
One reason for these disproportionate numbers is that many of our ‘conservative’ colleagues are no longer in TEC and we have lost their voices and votes. In addition, the ‘conservative’ colleagues here were spread out at other committee hearings on other resolutions of interest.
Keep in mind that testimony does not equal a recommended resolution. I believe the Prayer Book, Liturgy and Church Music legislative committee will take the nearly dozen related resolutions on BOSSU and create one or perhaps two resolutions for the General Convention on BOSSU to consider. It will probably be several days before the legislative committee refines those one or two resolutions. Stay tuned for further developments on these and other stories.