House of Deputies were busy today passing several amendments to the Canons and then adding some, amending more and the story went on and went. There were some funny moments and some silly stuff. But all in all it was a very productive day.
One of the important and notable ones were how to deal with Sexual abuse of minors.
There were more conversations about communication and information technology. The HoD found it to be important and passed to adopt it.
One of the very important pieces of legislation was the reaffirmation of a D037 restoring funding for Christian Formation of Children and Youth, a major priority for our church. I am glad that we have found a way to bring that back into the budget and tell the world we mean to support young families, youth and children as much as value long time, older and faithful members of our congregations.
We elected 12 members to the Church Pension Group today.
While there were so many very interesting, wonderful and sometimes silly stuff that went on, it was fascinating to find the church in action with one purpose, to bring the reign of God among us. Christ was alive in all.
In the morning I sat in a group that talked about small congregations and their anxieties. There were lots of suggestions and thoughts shared by different leaders from different congregations. It was a wonderful meeting simply because we are a live church.
Here is a website that might help all those who are in smaller congregations with resources and other information. http://archive.episcopalchurch.org/congregationalVitality/109389_121110_ENG_HTM.htm or go to http://archive.episcopalchurch.org/congregationalVitality
If you are a small church, you may want to find here what are those things you might want learn about growing your congregation.
In the evening I was blessed to sit with a lot of people who talked about the sanctity of relationship. There were lots of people who were very anxious about the proposal for same gender blessings. While there were concerns, I found the church to be caring of one another in the way they approached the issue.
I found myself wondering about the fear we all carry within us when it came to same gender issues? I kept asking myself what is that we are afraid of? Why are we fighting so hard about same gender blessings, same sex relationships and more? Why should we withhold a blessing from anyone? It is hard for us to accept because we have competing realities all around us including some who quote the Bible on onside and some who will damn us to fire for an eternity no matter how we decide on the issue.
So, I am going to pray hard as to understand why are we afraid? What is it that stops us from entering into the business of blessing one another? Are we afraid because of the other? or ourselves?