Fruitful Friday

Got to sleep in this morning (until 7:30), however, the day took off from there–so much so that I forget to eat breakfast. I realized this only at lunch time after I woofed down my lunch. I was nervous about testifiy before the committees. I am not sure why I was so nervous, and stand up in front of people all the time, yet somehow, I was nervous about standing before these committees.

Seeing thru the FOG (Revising our Constitution)
The first committee I stood before was the Church Polity (the committee I served on 2 years ago). I spoke out against 05-11 and there various amendments. The thrust of the overtures was to create a "FOG (Formation of Government)" Taskforce. Here are the main thrust of my arguments:

Brothers & Sisters, our constitution and particularly our Form of Government is not the problem. The problem isn’t that Form of Government is too complicated. The problem resides that we are moving away from it in our practice and the theology behind it.

GA after GA (and countless commissioners) have poured their blood, sweet, and tears into the formation of our constitution and Book or Order. Let us not cast aside, what is a good and functional document–a Form of Government and constitution–a document that is loaded with thoughtful reflection and discernment. This is a document which drew me to be a pastor in the PCUSA.

A small group of individuals that form a taskforce will not produce a document that has spent decades and decades of discernment.

Is this taskforce really going to produce a compelling and unified Form of Government, or will we have to spend decades and decades fixing their omissions and oversights. The taskforce will either produce a rewritten Form of Government that is not altogether different than what we already have (which would be a waste of time) or it will produce a Form of Government that is radically different and has not had the benefit of years of tweaking and common discernment.

We don’t need to spend our time, resources, and energy on revising the Form of Government. We need to spend our time and resources fulfill and living out the gospel of Jesus Christ. Our denomination is not in a decline because of our "structure and institutional impediments" in our form of government. Save yourself energy and time, save the energy and resources of future GA’s and commissioners that will have to fix and correct the FOG taskforce omissions but I urge you to defeated this overture and please do NOT create a FOG taskforce. The last thing we need is another taskforce. Thank you.

There were many people that spoke out against this overture. The committee will deal with it tomorrow morning and the forces (COGA, ACC, etc) of denomination are going to try to shove this overture down the throats of the committee and the assembly.

One God, Three Faiths? No!
The second committee I testified after lunch was Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations. I testified against 07-1 on Affirming the Abrahamic Covenant with Jews and Muslims. I was still nervous, however, I felt more empowered and confident in what I was doing. Here is my written testimony:

Brother and Sisters, I urge you to disapprove this overture on Affirming a common Abrahamic Heritage. I have spent time in two different ministry locations ministering and dealing with Muslims and Jews in different contexts. I want to affirm that we need to build bridges with all people, but we must not throw the primary confessions of our faith, namely: Jesus is Lord.

We do not worship the same God as Muslims and Jews–and they would agree with that statement. We need to affirm there is one God, but that God has revealed himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Jews and Muslims deny the Lordship of Jesus Christ. They deny Jesus. When you deny Jesus, You deny God.. Same God? No! If you deny Jesus, you deny God, you deny how God has chosen to reveal himself to the world.

I encourage you to read the full section in the Confession 1967 that they overture quotes in their rational. 9.42 states futher that The gift of God in Christ is for all men. The church, therefore, is commissioned to carry the gospel to all men whatever their religion may be and even when they profess none.

Brothers and Sisters, Jesus Christ is the image of the invisible God (Colossians). He and the Father are one (The Gospel of John 14 & 17)

The gospel of Matthew tells us to , "Seek first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness." Righteousness more properly could be translated as Justice. The foundation of peace, justice and righteousness in the world is based on who Jesus is and what he has down for us. The theological underpinnings of justice for us is Jesus. We need to seek justice and peace in the world, but we do it in the context of Jesus and our mission in the world.

We need to build bridges so we can be like Paul on Mars Hill and carrying out the gospel to all people whatever their religion. But this is NOT the overture to accomplish our mission in the world. We are sent to proclaim that Jesus is Lord and confess it with our lips (Romans 10).

I urge to vote to disapprove the overture 07-01 on the Abrahamic Heritage. Let us be a denomination that with that holdups the Gospel of Jesus Christ, The Lord and Savior.

Church Orders Committee (Marriage Issues)
I floated to observe the church orders committee and their discussion on several overtures affirming the practice of sexuality only in the context of a marriage between a man and a women. All three of this overtures fail to get out of the committee. The closest one lost by 4 votes. Did I mention that Rob Gagnon (www.robgagnon.com) is on this committee. It is the foremost expect on the Church, Bible and History of views of sexuality. He is such a powerful speaker that when we speaks on issues and challenges the assumptions of other committee members they do not even engage his agruments. He even challenges and overwhelms the ACC (the Advisory Committee on the Constitution–who are the supposed advises on the Constitution). It is a hoot to watch him engage in the dialogue and debate of this committee.

I am a little discourage about the actions of the committee, however, the assembly can reverse the decision of the committee next week. Basically what happens is all the overtures get set to several different committees (which the commissioners are broken into). The committees deal with all these issues and makes a recommend to the whole assembly, who then makes the official decisions. 95% of the time the Assembly will agree with the committee, but at times the do not. So there is still hope. The good news is that a horrific substitute motion was defeated in the committee which stated that we need to affirm all sexual desires and orientations.

Social Issues
I am sitting in the social issues committee waiting for my dinner partner and listening to them debate whether we should take a stand on credit card companies predatorily practice on college students and campus. The good news is I got to catch up on my blogging material–otherwise snorefest!

Professional Pharisees
As I sitting in another committee waiting for them to discuss the Per Capita (church tax), Mark Tammen, Associate Stated Clerk, and in charge of the constitutional office just referred to himself as, "a professional Pharisee." Those were his words and said it in the context of the GA procedures committee relected him as Associate Stated Clerk. He said it jokingly, but I don’t think truer words could describe the Office of the General Assembly (OGA). Pharisees were people that had it partially right, but where they fell short was their application of the Law. Jesus had to recenter and rebuke the Pharisees. (On a Side Note, Tammen is one of the main forces behind the idea FOG taskforce which I spoke against earlier in the day).

Per Capita
The Baltimore Overture asks that GA mandate sessions pay per capita. The history of per capita is it always is voluntary, but important. More accurately the overture gives each Presbytery the power to mandate sessions to pay per capita. Per capita is the church’s tax on each church, which is determined by the number of members each church has. The overture advocate basically stated that his proposal is local option of each presbytery in regards to per capita. If this overture passes it would shift the power of the a church’s finances to the presbytery instead of the session of the church. This is subtle change in historic ethos of the Presbytery church. What is next, control of the decisions of the session by the presbytery, particularly who a session ordains or a congregation chooses as its elders? The ACC (Advisory Committee on the Constitution) representative stated that the GA decision can bind a presbytery on per capita, and a presbytery should then be able to bind a session to pay per capita. Would that same logic apply to ordination standards for presbytery. Can the GA bind the presbyteries on standards? I hope so, but the ACC in its agreement with the PUP report says the exact opposite in regards to ordination standards. Great news, the committee overwhelming defeated the overture.

Les Strikes Back
The computer system LES reared its ugly head several times during the day. During the Polity committee it went down several times. At one point, a resource person asked me to turned off my connection because there were too many wireless connections and it was straining the system. Which then exclude me from the committee business–because LES was the only way I was accessing the information. Can you say Open Meeting Policy? Eventually LES failed completely and the committee switch over to paper. I will say when LES is operational it is pretty slick way of distributing information, although I do like paper versions to take notes.

Partial Birth Abortion
Got word today that the health committee approved a statement against partial birth abortion. This is fantastic news! It was a close vote, but the margins over the past years have been swaying against abortion. We will have to wait to see what the plenary will do with this overture, or if there is a minority report.

What I learn today from God.
Trust that God. I believe wholehearted that God is going to reveal his way and path for us even in the most impossible situations. So when things look the bleakest-God finds a way. I have felt the Holy Spirit working deeply so far at GA–in me personal and in the community. We need to pray fervantly for protection against the evil one as he will attack, especially when the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ is being proclaimed.

Prayer Requests
-Protection from Evil for GA
-God continue to show the way
-empower the commissioners to be bold and seek the Truth
-Saturday is a big day for committees, a lot of important work will be done.