Almost Done, but Just Getting Started

I have to admit that I am pretty beat. Nine days of legislation, one day before all of that for training and whatnot, and the day I actually got here. That is a lot of days to be gone and it sure is a lot of days to be here. There is just so much going on all the time that it is really just exhausting.

There is so much to do, and the only way to get through it is to have long days. But we have fun too. Today when the President of the House of Deputies gave us a contest. She's done this for a few days now, but this is the only one I have actually participated in. It is a Twitter contest called #RulesofDisorder and we are to come up with a Rule of Disorder instead of the standard Rules of Order, cause that's way more fun! I had two ideas, and I hope I win. I'll find out tomorrow. But I said....s "@HODPlatform At any time, any three Deputations may call for a vote by either a thumb war or rock-paper-scissors #gc78 #rulesofdisorder" and "@HODPlatform queue order will be determined by arm wrestling #gc78 #rulesofdisorder"  We'll see what happens. 

Just as in all the days past The Episcopal Church had made some strong statements about social justice. Importantly, today the Deputation from Honduras stood to read a statement from their Bishop and other regarding the actions to make marriage available to all of God's children. You can see the statement here http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2015/07/02/18-bishops-sign-minority-report-on-marriage-equality/

It is so important to the life and mission of the Church as a whole to allow the voices of the monitory to be heard. It is only though love and tolerance that we get to stay together as a Body of Chirst.

The Bishops have also crafted a response to that previous statement. Read it here http://episcopaldigitalnetwork.com/ens/2015/07/02/mind-of-the-house-of-bishops-statement-communion-across-difference/

It is clear to me that we have to hang together. It is not about agreement, because clearly that is not exactly a hallmark of The Episcopal Church, but it is about Jesus and being united in love for one another. That, we can accomplish. I for one am grateful for the presence of folks in the House of Deputies who have opinions different from mine. They challenge me to think about my beliefs and either support them rationally or abandon them. 

Our Chaplain in the House of Deputies, Rev. Lester Mackenzie, has lead us in an amazing musical prayer on an almost daily basis that reminds us that "we are one together!" Even today, the entire House gathered close together in the front and sang it prayerfully together. That is what this whole thing is about! 

Please allow me to also share with you some of the photos I took at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral during he lunch break. Currently, they are showing an illuminated hand written bible commisioned by the Benedictine Abbey, St Johns in Minnesota. Wow were they beautiful!!

What We Believe

There is so much legislation rolling around out there and what it all comes down to is what we, as The Episcopal Church believe in. I am really not any kind of ecclesiastical authority, but I know what I've seen here at General Convention. I know that we elected a man to be our next Presiding Bishop who is totally committed and enthusiastic about evangelism. Yeah. I said evangelism. This is not something that the Episcopal Church is historically known for, but here we are. We want to share the amazing Good News of Jesus Christ with the brothers and sisters we don't know yet. We want to get the word out there! What a strange and wonderful thing.

We also believe in Mission. Specifically the 5 Marks of Mission (see here for more information: http://www.anglicancommunion.org/identity/marks-of-mission.aspx). These are the things that the whole Anglican Communion has committed to! What a cool thing! We agreed on something! But seriously, our budget is formatted around these Marks of Mission, and so is everything else really. Everything we do as Episcopalians flows from these 5 ideas. Particularly from what I see, the Third and Fourth Marks of Mission.

I can tell we believe in those two because we have passed resolutions that align The Episcopal Church in a particular direction, that being against a culture of racism, against gun violence (and toward some common ground about legislation in regards to military type weapons and background checks), against a mass incarceration system, and against the death penalty. Maybe it's more important to say that we believe in Baptism and how we are all called to live out the call of Christ in our own lives by respecting the dignity of every human being. We can't do that if we are okay with people facing squalor, oppression, or death. It's impossible to be in favor of the death penalty and preach a Gospel of life and transformation. They are diametrically opposed to one another and The Episcopal Church has mysteriously figured that out.

Today we proved that we have figured something else out too. If we are to respect the dignity of every human being we must also mean our LGBTQ brothers and sisters. And if we are truly being respectful, we cannot exclude them from anything. Including marriage!  Today we agreed resoundingly as a Church that if you love someone and you are willing to swear before God and your neighbors that you will love that person forever, then you can use the same rite of marriage as everyone else! No more separate but equal. There was near consensus on the issue with 94/108 clergy orders (aka dioceses) and 90/106 lay orders voting in favor. That is a pretty clear choice. There were arguments that this decision would further fracture our relationship with the Anglican Communion, but we have taken a Christ-like approach and allied ourselves with the disadvantaged and have stood up to the world and declared that everyone is deserving.

We also clearly said that we need to look farther into this issue of marriage and see what is going on for people like me who live with their life partners outside of marriage. That is not marriage, but what is it? The church as made no statement about that living arrangement whatsoever. We are clear about the fact that there is so much more progress to be made and we are not even nearly there.

We also believe that if we streamline out polity and government, we will have more money to achieve these 5 Marks of Mission and we have resoundingly decided that we will allow the leadership to identify areas of need and create Task Forces to address them rather than having a cumbersome 75 Standing Committees that indefinitely exist regardless of the needs of the world. Now we will have more money to run Task Forces that will be more able to address what the world is calling for.

We believe in Christ and trying to be like Him. We believe in Justice. We believe in Equality. We believe in Sustainability. We believe in Service. But most shocking of all we believe in Evangelism.