A Presidential Day

Our day began with solid music – the orchestra and 80+ voice choir of The Church of the Resurrection in suburban Kansas City. The counterpoint was provided by a wonderful band called Unido in Christo from South America (sorry, I don’t remember the specific country – see the new summary on the General Conference website). In addition to these two adult groups, we also were mesmerized and energized by the Hope for the Children of Africa choir. The preacher for the day was the presiding bishop of the ELCA, Bishop Mark Hanson, formerly Bishop of the St. Paul Synod. This was the ecumenical service that occurs each year on one morning of General Conference. Bishop Hanson preached about our baptism and the demand that Jesus places on our life. The great commission and the great commandment are imperatives, not offered to us as subjunctives.

Before going on further about today, I want to drop back to last night’s (Monday) debate on the creation of a task group to move toward the approval of a new hymnal by the 2012 General Conference. While it is typical that we have a new hymnal about every 20 to 24 years, it was the younger delegates that were opposed to looking toward a new hymnal, not older delegates. Their position tended to be that it would be out of date before it was published and that the need to produce a bound volume did not appeal to their generation. It was an interesting discussion about how the hymnal has been a tool for faith development. The haunting question remained even after the debate ended and the task group was created: Will a printed hymnal in the 21st century continue to be a strong tool for faith development in children, youth and young adults? The current hymnal has been one of the best selling items for the Publishing House. Will this happen again? I don’t believe anyone knows the answer to this question.

The rest of the morning and half the afternoon as well as all evening has been spent in debate of calendar items (items brought to the floor by the legislative committees). In fact, as I am writing the evening debate is underway. Currently the first hour has been spent on debate of the formula for establishing the number of bishops in the U.S. jurisdictions. Until now, the minimum number of bishops for a jurisdiction has been 6. Currently it appears that the new minimum will be 5 which will result in every jurisdiction losing a bishop or at least be at a level one below what they could currently have. This means the West will drop to 5, the North Central (our jurisidiction will drop to 9 as well the Northeast dropping from 10 until 9. The Southeastern and South Central jurisdiction could each have one more than they do and that extra (unfilled) position will be lost. This is being done to allow more bishops in the parts of the world where the church is growing – Africa and the Philippines.

The last half of the afternoon session consisted of an address by Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, President of the Republic of Liberia. A woman in her middle 60’s (by my guess) she is an economist and a business woman by training. She spoke with strong conviction and told much about how her upbringing in a Methodist church and attending a Methodist secondary school has been responsible for her success and her sense of morality and vitality in working on the problems of her country. She called the church to work together with the countries of Africa and the rest of the developing world to combat poverty. She is convinced that working in partnership this can be accomplished. President Sirleaf is the first democratically elected female head of state in all Africa. She told us that the United Methodist Church in Liberia runs 133 schools where 27,000 students are enrolled, we have a leading university, four mission stations and a healing ministry that is well known in Minnesota – Ganta Hospital. In addition, there are three clinics in other parts of Liberia. She maintained that the Church has been in the forefront of the fight to give democracy a stronger life. It has also given voice to the voiceless, shelter to the homeless, and education which instills hope, honesty and hard work. She held the conference in the palm of her hand for approximately 40 minutes before it stood and applauded and sang while she greeted each of the bishops individually, taking another 10 to 15 minutes. This concluded the afternoon session. (Note: If other notable actions are taken during this evening’s session, I’ll report it in tomorrow’s blog post.)