Reflections from Home

The car trip home provided an opportunity to reflect on the Assembly, its worship and its business.

Patti Case gets all the kudos we can send her way. As the planner and production manager, she put together and ran one of the best General Assemblies in my memory. Following the assemblies held in Charlotte (2003), Portland (2005) and Fort Worth, Indianapolis has a long row to hoe. The bar has been set high for the General Assembly in 2009.

Sharon Watkins could not have asked for a better moderator team to serve during her first two years as General Minister and President. I have already told of the outstanding job Bill Lee did in guiding the Assembly through its business sessions. He could not have done so without the support of vice-moderators Carolyn Ho and Charlie Gaines. As parliamentarian, Bill Bailey was indispensible.

I do find myself wondering if sense of the assembly resolutions make sense for this church in this time. The Design, rightly I think, gives the Assembly the responsibility to affirm or reject some operational business of the church from the General Board. However, sense of the assembly resolutions are another matter. They represent the church's effort to take a stand on a variety of issues.

Like any other resolution, sense of the assembly resolutions are debated, then the Assembly votes. In the past, the effort to take a stand based on a democratic majority has set up a system of winners and losers that have left some in the church feeling alienated, no longer a part of the church they have loved.

It seems contrary to the congregational polity of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) to force a vote on such matters. As Stone's Christians and Campbell's Disciples were coming together in 1832, Raccoon John Smith warned that the church must not let opinions be in control. The sense of the assembly resolution seems contrary in that it takes one set of opinions and assumptions, lifts them up before the church and then calls the question.

Debate on social issues of the day is an important practice in which the church should engage. One learning track offered at the Fort Worth Assembly provided just such a forum. It is even helpful to have such debates while the plenary is in session. By allowing debate, we get to hear a variety of voices in the church. Debate allows us to learn and form new opinions. Debate gives a basis to decide what actions we might take as individuals, but a vote implies that one set of opinions represents the view of the church. If I don't agree with that view, where am I left?

We have gotten better. In days gone by, the winners would often break into applause or start singing the Doxology. But we should still exercise caution, lest our opinions become yet one more test of fellowship in a church that claims to hold no creed but Christ and no book but the Bible.

What I'd Like My Church to Learn

Jim Wallis gave an outstanding sermon on Wednesday night to close the Assembly. Like others who had spoken, he called the church back to being a neighborhood presence. We will only be truly in mission with our neighbors when we know our neighbors.

During the closing communion, though, I saw again a habit or practice or norm--whatever we should call it--that distresses me and stands as a barrier to serving our neighbors. If we are going to serve our neighbors, we have to learn to serve one another. That means learning both to serve and to be served.

Wednesday night we shared communion through a hybrid of common cup and reformed traditions. We used intinction, which is a common cup practice. Traditionally, intinction is a practice of having worshippers come to a common loaf and cup, receiving the loaf and dipping it in the cup. Due to the number of people to be served, loaves and chalices were passed among the worshippers.

Passing the elements is part of the reformed tradition. This practice, as intended, demonstrates the priesthood of the believer by calling on worshippers to serve one another. However, over and over again our practice demonstrates our isolation and individualism rather than our living as Christian community. It is all too common to see a worshipper take the loaf and cup in a "serve yourself" fashion.

To be a church in mission, we must live in community with our neighborhood. But first we have to learn to live in community with one another.

Proud to Be Disciple

Assemblies like this one make me proud of my church.

As a general church, the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) operates on a two-year cycle. The General Assembly marks the end of one biennium and the beginning of the next. For this two-year cycle, ending with this General Assembly, we have been blessed with extremely gifted and solid leadership.

Moderator Bill Lee not only preached a powerful sermon, but he guided the delegates over our only true rough patch of the Assembly with poise, grace and wisdom. Strictly following the rules of procedure, he moderated our debate on the Iraq War resolution, which was the most touchy and had the most potential for division. The resolution had already been referred for revision once. Debate was spirited. Our parliamentary procedure was tested.

Eventually, the amended resolution passed. I did not agree with the Assembly's action, but I am nevertheless very proud to be a Disciple. It was not the decision we made that was important. How we made the decision was important.

Moderator Lee consistently reminded us that we were on the same team. Furthermore, he instructed us to cease actions like applauding this speaker or that speaker during debate because such behavior toward one another took us away from a spirit of discernment and led us instead toward a spirit of competition.

After it was all said and done, Moderator Lee led us in prayer. I took the hand of the delegate next to me, whose votes had consistently been opposite my own, and we prayed together. I am proud to be a part of such a church. We don't have all the answers, but we're learning to trust one another with the questions.

I think I read somewhere that we're not the only Christians, but we are Christians only. That's just my kind of church, and we have a powerful witness to offer a fragmented and contentious nation and world.

The Church's Response to the War in Iraq

This morning the Assembly began debate on a resolution sponsored by Disciples Peace Fellowship and others calling for the church to go on record condemning the war in Iraq as an unjust war. The resolution was referred to Reference and Council for review and revision. It will come back to the assembly floor on Wednesday.

The motion to refer the resolution cited the phrase in the resolution that the church should condemn the war on the basis that it is "contrary to the teachings and example of Jesus Christ." This phrasing could be read as a test of fellowship that only those who support the resolution could be faithful to those teachings.

Regarding the resolution itself, some speaking in favor stated that support of the resolution was consistent with Christian teaching that we are to be peacemakers. Concern was expressed over a phrase in the resolution offering support to those who choose not to take up arms, in that we might be encouraging military personnel who live under orders to pick and choose which missions they will support.

Personally, I find the resolution in conflict with itself in that it claims to bear witness to our inclusiveness, yet as written it cannot express a unified voice of the whole church.

For more information on this and other resolutions and actions taken by the General Assembly, please visit DisciplesWorld or disciples.org.

Tonight We Had Church

Sometimes all you can say is, "You had to be there." That's my summary of tonight's worship. Tonight we had church. Don't tell me anymore that Disciples don't know how to worship. Maybe when we're in our local churches it's different, but tonight in the arena the Spirit was present and moving.

Carolyn Bibbs told the story of Saving Station Christian Church in Memphis, Tennessee, a new congregation that targets at-risk children and youth. Tears flowed as she told of more that 1,000 young people who had come to faith in Christ, who had turned away from drugs and from sex before married, who were saying "no" to drug dealers.

Bill Lee, moderator and pastor of Louden Avenue Christian Church in Roanoke, Virginia, walked us back from Emmaus, telling us that we ought to leave better than when we came, challenging us to worship in such a way that even if we miss it in the sermon, we find it in the sacrament

It can't all be said with words. You had to be there.

Tonight we had church.

La paz del Señor sea contigo.

Changes to Reconciliation Mission

The Monday morning business session included a vote on a resolution that makes significant changes to Reconciliation Mission. The resolution identifies thesekey changes:

• The name will be changed to Reconciliation Ministry;
• Staff and administrative support for Reconciliation Ministry will be moved to the Office of the General Minister and President and will be funded out of Disciples Mission Fund;
• The Reconciliation Offering will continue to be taken and be disbursed 50% to Reconciliation Ministry and 50% to the region of origin;
• All funds received through the Reconciliation Offering will be disbursed in the form of grants to congregations, regions, general and institutional ministries.

Although some concern was expressed for placing an additional burden on an overtaxed funding system, the change to the funding structure makes it easier to promote the Reconciliation Offering. Under the revised structure, all Reconciliation Offering funds will provide direct support for local ministries of reconciliation and not for indirect administrative and ministerial support or operating expenses.

For more information on business items and other news from General Assembly, please visit disciples.org and the DisciplesWorld web site.

Welcome to the Margins

Rev. Dr. Carlos Cardosa, professor of missiology at Columbia Theological Seminary in Atlanta, blessed the Assembly this morning with a lecture entitled "Welcome to the Margins." The lecture centered around three questions:

• Is Christianity a religion of the margins?
• What are some of the missional and church-life gifts that we receive from Christianity at the margins?
• Is it OK to be at the margins?

From its earliest formation as a sect of Judaism, Christianity has always found its vitality and energy from the margins. As the church attempts to make itself more mainstream, it also tends to lose its vitality. Dr. Cardosa answered with a firm "yes" that it was OK to be at the margins. The church is at its best in the margins.

One interesting point from the lecture was data that showed the decline of Christianity in Europe, but not in North America. A new religious fervor is building in North America, not so much among the established population but because religious fervor is immigrating into North America, especially the United States.

The Stone-Campbell movement found its formation on the American frontier. In that sense, the movement grew up in the margins. However, part of understanding the seismic shift in our cultural environment is a shift in how we view and understand the margins. This movement grew along a frontier margin, and a frontier margin is unidirectional. It only goes one way. However, the margin today is a border margin, and a border margin is bidirectional. Those inside and outside pass back and forth through the margin. This is a new environment for Disciples and other churches of the Stone-Campbell movement.

Did you know:

that Spanish is spoken by more Christians than any other language?