Wednesday Evening, Voting and DQ Closed

Saddest image of the week right here, friends. After a week with my family in which we went to DQ every day, I have not been to a DQ since they left last Friday. OK, so seven days without DQ makes one weak, I get it. So tonight, after dining with the fine folks of the San Gabriel presbytery (thanks for dinner, Ruth, it was great!), I walked one block to the USBank Building at 800 Nicollet Mall, went up the escalator to #205, and this is what I saw. Ah, the agony! Sometime between now and Saturday, I will get to this DQ before they close.

Here is Heather Williams sitting next to Dr. Jack Rogers at our San Gabriel Presbytery dinner tonight at The Newsroom.

I began the morning with the Presbyterians for Renewal Breakfast. Unlike last Saturday, this one actually served food. Whodathunk? It was nice to gather with these folks. Saw Doug Nason there, and he says "hello".

We heard Dr. Andrew Purves speak. He is professor at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary, and Scottish. So he has that delightful Scottish brogue. Here are my notes:

Purves (PFR)
7-7-10

1. Conserving people- we conserve what we love and what is valuable

2. Traditioned people- we do not make up the Christian faith in each new generation, it is the faith once delivered to the saints. We anchor our current expressions of the faith in tradition.

Story of young priest who could not agree with everything in the Nicene Creed. Told to say it until he believes it. Not my creed, but our creed. Not my personal creed, but the creed of the church.
 
Our understanding of Jesus is far too small. Christological timidity. Our faith is too at home in our culture. Encounter with a living Lord, not an argument.

Four historical markers of Christology

A) Incarnation - downward movement - God saves in this way -God acts personally, not just what God  does (mission), but who God is (theology) Can NEVER separate the two.

B) Resurrection- Jesus is alive, raised in the body, not a metaphor. Story of his son's birth announced at hid

C) Ascension- loss of this is fatal to Christian life- means he lives and acts now! Is Jesus in the room this morning? Living reigning acting Lord. Reinvigorate this in your teaching.

D) Holy Spirit- not just the power of the Spirit. Spirit joins us to Jesus- union with Christ, share in his life and his mission. Key emphasis by Calvin- union with Christ. [my comment- otherwise, the Holy Spirit is simply utilitarian, helping us do things.]

Good stuff, for 6:00 a.m. I am finding that I am still on California time, so I am staying up late, and getting up late if I can. But when I need to get up for a breakfast at 6:00 a.m., Lord help me! Our plenary sessions for the GA began this afternoon. We got ahead of schedule this afternoon, and then got a little bogged down tonight.

We tackled some easy stuff this afternoon. Eric Hoy made a great presentation on "Growing Christ's Church Deep and Wide". He showed a video of how one church is doing this. I love that his department is telling stories, and using videos to do it. Eric spoke well, and looks really good, too. He looks very relaxed, and seems to have found a good and productive spot in Lousiville. Click on the link to see some of the videos produced by this department. Here is one shown at tonight, called "Where are the youth?"

Left: your San Gabriel Presbytery Commissioners hard at work. From the right, Jerry Porter (from Covina 1st Presbyterian), Heather Williams, and Dakota Santana-Grace (our Youth Advisory Delegate). There are also TSAD's (Theological Student Advisory Delegates), MAD's (Missionary Advisory Delegates), and EPAD's (Ecumenical Partners Advisory Delegates.) These all vote first on an issue to "advise" the delegates how to vote. Some wag proposed a new kind of advisory delegate: a PGAD, (Peanut Gallery Advisory Delegate). If you don't find that funny, it is because you are not sleep deprived in Minneapolis. I guarantee you, if you were here, you'd find it funny!


The tools of our trade are the voting keypads. Here is a screen shot of one, during our "training". They work well, when used correctly. The voting questions are placed on the video screen. The Advisory Delegates are asked to vote first. Their keypads will glow blue, and given options. Once they push an option, say, "2", their unit will respond with the word "Received". Pushing "2" before the blue light is on will invalidate the vote. And one can always change their vote, as long as the voting is "live".

The AD's are given about 20 seconds to vote, and then the results appear on the video screens. Then the delegates are allowed to vote in the same manner. Whatever fiasco we had on electing the moderator on Sunday night (she was going to win, as the momentum had shifted her way, it may have taken another round or two of voting), the kinks have been worked out. My committee, General Assembly Procedures, was the Guinea Pig group to test out the equipment. What we learned in using the equipment for three days has helped smooth out the techie details. Once a gearhead, always a gearhead.
 
A great way to begin our time together as a large group. Then we got to vote on some issues. We heard a report on PILP (Presbyterian Investment and Loan Program), and the wonderful things it is doing. In my former church in Highland Park, we benefited from a PILP loan. Presbyteries and individuals invest in PILP, and get a guaranteed rate of return. In turn the money is loaned out to churches needing loans for capital improvements or building. It is a great program.


After dinner, we turned our attention to controversy number one, called nFOG. This is a proposed New Form of Government. The contention among the Emergents and those who want to be more missional, is that the current book of Order is more like a Manual of Operations than a constitution. Whereas the US constitution has been amended 25 times (or so), the Book of Order (BOO for short) has been amended over 300 times since 1983 when the northern and southern churches reunited.


So the nFOG proposes a much stripped down form of government, and allows more local control of how things happen. 


I spoke with an old colleague of mine at breakfast today. We worked for Inter Varsity in the Bay Area in the late 1970's and early 1980's. Gale is pretty conservative, and very thoughtful. He had initially been opposed to nFOG. But in the last year, and even in the last week of meeting, the committee has addressed many of the major concerns people have had. It is in no way a perfect document, and we only have one of those (and it has 66 books, right?) Anyway, Gale told me that he likes the nFOG document, and was leaning towards supporting it. This allayed my fears some. 

As I had read it, I, too, liked much of the language. One thing I did not like is that our current BOO begins with a "who", "Jesus Christ is Head of the Church". nFOG begins with the church's mission. Personally, I do not believe we can talk about the "what" unless we talk about the "who". Dr. Purves would have agreed with that. As would Bohnhoeffer. (See his "Creation and Fall")

Nonetheless, after much heated but civil debate, the assembly approved nFOG. by about a 2-1 margin.

What does that mean? Well, like all controversial amendments or votes at the General Assembly, these things will be submitted to the presbyteries for ratification. As has happened in the past, some of these are affirmed by a majority of the presbyteries, and become part of the BOO. Some are defeated, and do not become part of the BOO. 

I am not too concerned about the nFOG, really. But we will have to see how presbyteries vote on it. In its present form, I think it has some way to go before I would vote for it. I think it is about 80% of the way there. But the 20% bothers me. And yet, the majority has spoken, and we are off to the next task.

Well, it is now past midnight and I need to get up for another breakfast tomorrow, this one an Evangelism breakfast sponsored by our friend, Eric Hoy, and the speaker will be my old Inter Varsity boss, Steve Hayner, now president of Columbia Seminary. I am looking forward to that.

Goodnight, dear friends. Tomorrow is Heartbreak Hill day. In the Boston Marathon, there is a place called Heartbreak Hill. From wiki:

Heartbreak Hill is an ascent over 0.4 mile (600 m) of the Boston Marathon course, between the 20 and 21 mile marks, in the vicinity of Boston College. It is the last of four "Newton hills", which begin at the 16 mile mark. The Newton hills confound contestants (out of proportion to their modest elevation gain) by forcing a late climb after the downhill trend of the race to that point. Heartbreak Hill itself rises only 88 vertical feet (27 m), from an elevation of 148 feet at the bottom to an elevation of 236 feet at the top,^[11] but is positioned at a point on a marathon course where muscle glycogen stores are likely to be depleted—a phenomenon referred to by marathoners as "hitting the wall".

The nickname "Heartbreak Hill" originated with an event in the 1936 race. On this stretch, defending champion John A. Kelley caught race leader Ellison "Tarzan" Brown, giving Brown a consolatory pat on the shoulder as he passed. His competitive drive apparently stoked by this gesture, Tarzan Brown rallied, pulled away from Kelley, and went on to win—in the words of Boston Globe reporter Jerry Nason, "breaking Kelley's heart."^[12]

Tomorrow, we will deal with some very tough and emotional issues. It is Heartbreak Hill for the GA tomorrow. Whatever the outcome, each commissioner's spiritual resources will be depleted, and our dealing with one another may not be the best it can be. So pray for me, pray for all my brothers and sisters in Christ here, that we may seek the mind of Christ, seek to honor and worship Him, and live as His children. Goodnight. [SDG-JS]