Picture is from Communion service.It is presently 11:43 P.M. local time.
Worship began at 6:00 with a wonderful presentation of music and dance. I chuckled some when even at General Conference the sound system was imperfect with the occasional feedback and on one song the song leader and the person running the video screen got out of sync. Just like our local churches! I was also a bit amused that while we will be voting on creating a new hymnal we don't use them at General Conference. There was a printed order of the service but everything was displayed on the four large screens around the auditorium. Why do we need that new hymnal?
Bishop Huie gave the sermon using the conference theme "A future with hope." I forgot to take notes during the sermon. I remember one example of hope becoming a marshmallow word, such as "I hope I can help" being a way to say "I would rather not." Instead we were encouraged to live into the hope of the risen Christ. A hope that is for something not yet seen but that can be realized.
The first business of the conference was primarily housekeeping. The bar for voting was set as the main floor of the auditorium. They tested the voting system. 90% of the delegate voted that they were present. Leaving 10% who apparently thought it would be funny to vote that they were not present. In bigger news John was voted as the most respected Apostle followed closely by John. Judas got 120 votes. Again, delegate humor.
So with the voting system in full operation it was time to vote for the rules of the conference. TWO HOURS. It took two hours to vote for the rules. There were amendments, questions and referrals. At least one time it took a youth delegate to notice that a whole section of the rules had been skipped. Thank God for YOUTH!
We also heard from the Commission of the General Conference. Apparently they put on this whole shindig. They have a petition to reduce the maximum number of delegates from 1,000 to 600. I am not a fan of this idea. Primarily I object to reducing the number of delegates as we are trying to become a world wide church. Small conferences like the PNW could be reduced to two or four voting delegates and it wasn't all that long ago that we had ten.
We were told that the attendance for worship this evening was about 6,500. I love that they announced that. It could create a game like guessing the attendance at Safeco Field. It seemed like about 4,000 of those 6,500 left immediately after worship.
Finally we witnessed a video and heard from a couple of speakers on the topic of diversity and sensitivity training. Delegates were encouraged to:
Worship began at 6:00 with a wonderful presentation of music and dance. I chuckled some when even at General Conference the sound system was imperfect with the occasional feedback and on one song the song leader and the person running the video screen got out of sync. Just like our local churches! I was also a bit amused that while we will be voting on creating a new hymnal we don't use them at General Conference. There was a printed order of the service but everything was displayed on the four large screens around the auditorium. Why do we need that new hymnal?
Bishop Huie gave the sermon using the conference theme "A future with hope." I forgot to take notes during the sermon. I remember one example of hope becoming a marshmallow word, such as "I hope I can help" being a way to say "I would rather not." Instead we were encouraged to live into the hope of the risen Christ. A hope that is for something not yet seen but that can be realized.
The first business of the conference was primarily housekeeping. The bar for voting was set as the main floor of the auditorium. They tested the voting system. 90% of the delegate voted that they were present. Leaving 10% who apparently thought it would be funny to vote that they were not present. In bigger news John was voted as the most respected Apostle followed closely by John. Judas got 120 votes. Again, delegate humor.
So with the voting system in full operation it was time to vote for the rules of the conference. TWO HOURS. It took two hours to vote for the rules. There were amendments, questions and referrals. At least one time it took a youth delegate to notice that a whole section of the rules had been skipped. Thank God for YOUTH!
We also heard from the Commission of the General Conference. Apparently they put on this whole shindig. They have a petition to reduce the maximum number of delegates from 1,000 to 600. I am not a fan of this idea. Primarily I object to reducing the number of delegates as we are trying to become a world wide church. Small conferences like the PNW could be reduced to two or four voting delegates and it wasn't all that long ago that we had ten.
We were told that the attendance for worship this evening was about 6,500. I love that they announced that. It could create a game like guessing the attendance at Safeco Field. It seemed like about 4,000 of those 6,500 left immediately after worship.
Finally we witnessed a video and heard from a couple of speakers on the topic of diversity and sensitivity training. Delegates were encouraged to:
- Tell the truth about who we are
- Let us listen to each other
- Let us remember that we have not yet achieved the diversity we seek
- Let us demonstrate our respect
The video was well done and I especially the clips from "The Office."
So that's one day done. It is now 12:20 A.M. and wake up is 6:00 A.M. So I can get to the 7:o0 Western Jurisdiction delegation meeting. Yippee! I will have to write my post complaining about how we expect to care for ourselves with this sort of schedule another time.
Peace Y'all!
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