Social Statement Passed!

Every day is so packed full of speakers and debate, it seems like I can’t possibly begin to write about everything I want to tell you. Today, though, things are pretty much superseded by the fact that we voted on the social statement on human sexuality: it passed, 676-338. If you’re doing that math, that means 66.67% voted yes, which is the exact percentage needed for a social statement to be approved.

I’m somewhat still processing the decision. It’s funny; this vote is the main reason I wanted to come to Churchwide in the first place, but I have a habit of trying to think thinks through very logically and reasonably, so I didn’t realize how emotionally invested I was in this decision until the silent prayer before the vote. I was actually thinking about the rest of the statement at that point, not the heavily debated section on homosexuality, but on human sexuality in general, that is it a good thing and that sexuality is a gift for building relationships based on trust. I’ve referenced the social statement in discussions with friends at MIT about religion, relationships, and how the Lutheran church treats same-sex relationships, and I actually know at least a couple people who have read the social statement. As I sat there, I was suddenly struck by the thought, “What do I tell people back at MIT if the social statement isn’t approved?” Which, okay, is probably a bit unusual, and not what most people would consider to be the most important, but somehow that was the question that really drove it home for me. I’m still working out why exactly it hit me so hard, but I think it’s because I keep hearing about the need for the church to live up to the evangelical part of its name, and that is difficult for me; I’ve tended to keep the church part of my life neatly contained, and it keeps leaking out and disrupting other conversations and parts of my life. (I’ve been told this is a sign that I need to figure out what God’s calling me to do and stop trying to ignore him; I think they’re right, but we can leave this discussion for another time (i.e. when I stop ignoring it).)

Around 4:45, I think it was, we had just finished up the college corporation meetings and Bishop Hanson moved to extend the afternoon plenary from 5:45 to 6:30, in an effort to fit in more discussion on the social statement and the amendments to the social statement. There was some initial confusion and disagreement on how to vote on the amendments (we were in the middle of them), but we finally ended up voting to adopt the ad hoc committee’s recommendations on all remaining amendments, which effectively meant that they would all be rejected, since the ones the committee had recommended to adopt had already been voted on. We returned to discussion of the social statement; at least 50 people were standing at the microphones to speak, but unexpectedly, at least to me, someone called the question fairly quickly. We voted to end debate. We had a moment of silent prayer, then one of the member of the Church Council led us in prayer. We voted using little handheld voting machines, as we’ve done for every vote. We waited with bated breath as the timer ran out on the bottom of the screen, then Bishop Hanson said, “Well, I’m going to show you the results, but–I’m not going to declare the vote yet, you’ll see why.” The bar graph with yes and no appeared on the screen with the percentages and numbers of votes: 66.67% (676) to 33.33% (338). I’m pretty sure everyone was stunned at just how close it was; everyone can truly say that their vote mattered. If anyone in the room had voted differently, things would be very different. But 2/3 is 2/3; Bishop Hanson declared that the social statement was approved, the assembly applauded, and we moved on. (Not entirely without some effort to make sure the vote was counted correctly, asking if it was in order to vote a second time, etc, but not as much as might have occured.)

I have no fancy words about God’s grace touching the assembly, only a brief glimpse of my thoughts and impression of the vote. (At least, nothing’s coming to mind, but it is midnight after a very long day.) Hopefully this helps someone out there reading this, though there is so much going through my mind right now, I could type/talk to you all day and I’m still not sure I could communicate everything I want to about this assembly.

Ironically (or perhaps significantly), a tornado swept through Minneapolis while we were debating this afternoon. It passed by the street on one end of the conference center in which we sat, snapping the steeple of the church next door and grabbing tables sitting on a small plaza there and depositing them on the conference center roof. Thankfully, no one was hurt, and somehow, the tables completely missed the wall of windows on that side of the plaza. By the time we finished voting and left the hall, the tornado was over.

Other things of note today (in no particular order besides as they appear in my sleep-fogged brain):

• report of the secretary (which I quite enjoyed)
• report of the treasurer (which was quite good, though I didn’t find it as interesting, but I think that’s just me)
• greeting from the new president of the Lutheran Youth Organization
• presentation from the Lutheran Youth Convocation (definitely worth watching if the video’s up)
• greeting from a chaplain from the US Navy (I, uh, don’t remember his name, but he was great)
• nominating ballot for vice president
• passed the recommendation on HIV/AIDS Strategy Funding (raise $10 million in the next 3 years); passed 884-41
• passed most of the recommendations of the Memorials committee

Um. There may be more, but it’s not coming to mind. Looking ahead, the big things for tomorrow are a quasi committee of the whole to begin discussing changing the ministry policies and considering a full communion agreement with the Methodist church. Also amendments to the Constitution, Bylaws, and Continuing Resolutions, which includes a great one encouraging more youth/young adult involvement. In the very near future, though, the main thing is sleep.

 

Resources

In case you hadn’t heard, or have forgotten, I’d just like to remind you:

- you can watch highlights from each day or the complete plenary sessions online at the ELCA website. There is also a live video stream of the plenary sessions. This is apparently extremely popular – my dad says there were over 4400 people watching at one point today!

- other voting members from the New England Synod are also blogging! (though perhaps not with quite the same enthusiasm and wordiness that I have)

- the ELCA also has blogs, photos, Twitter feeds and Facebook, should you prefer those

- all documents are posted online at www.elca.org/assembly

- there are a bunch of links in the sidebar of this blog that relate to church organizations of which I’m a member: Churchwide Assembly, the ELCA, the Lutheran Episcopal Minister at MIT, the New England Synod, and University Lutheran in Cambridge

 

Day Two

The presiding bishop, Bishop Hanson, is an exceptional speaker, with a great vision of where the church is going. It was a completely awesome speech, and I would imbed it here,  but it’s having issues, so I’m going to link to it until I can figure out a better way. You should all watch it. He got a standing ovation, and it was well deserved. (Honestly, based on listening to reports at Synod Assembly, I thought I might be bored, but I was completely and utterly wrong.)

Worship today was amazing for two reasons: the sermon and the music. The sermon was preached by a young woman, apparently in her first year of her first call, but she had a true gift with words that captivated everyone in the congregation. The main text was from Micah: “Do justice, love kindness, walk humbly with your God.” The music included a soloist, a man with an amazing voice who could sing spirituals as well as Bach. Today’s service also included two of my favorite hymns, which I sadly don’t know the numbers of in the new hymnal, but they are “We Are Called” and “Let Streams of Living Justice.” The second one is particularly awesome because it’s set to the melody from Jupiter by Gustav Holst. Yes, someone set a hymn to one of the Planets. It’s awesome. (Sadly, I don’t think there are videos of the worship services, but if there’s something you’re curious about, please ask.)

Besides reports, two major topics were discussed at the plenary sessions. First, we passed a resolution approving the Lutheran Malaria Initiative, a joint project with the United Nations Foundation, Lutheran World Relief, and Lutheran Church – Missouri Synod to mobilize against the worldwide problem of malaria. The next two years will be mainly spent fundraising and planning, before beginning a campaign in Africa to educate people about malaria and to distribute nets to protect from mosquitoes. The nets are treated with a special chemical (sorry, I forget what it was) that is nontoxic to humans, but deadly to mosquitoes, and are hung about beds. Africa was targeted as the starting point because it has the highest, most rapid death rate due to malaria. This passed with an overwhelming 98% approval, 989 votes to 11.

Second (note that this actually happened first sequentially, but people who know me will tell you that I often tell events backwards), we had a quasi committee of the whole to discuss the social statement on human sexuality. The social statement, among many other things, allows clergy to bless same-sex relationships, making it a hotly debated topic. When the hour ended, there were over 30 people still lined up, wanting to speak at the mikes. Some of them spoke later, at a smaller hearing, but I’m sure there will be more speaking tomorrow. (Side note: What’s a quasi committee of the whole? Yeah, I wasn’t entirely clear either, before today. What it means is that it’s strictly a time for discussion; people can get up to speak to either side of any issue, but they aren’t allowed to make any motions. Why quasi? Because Bishop Hanson still acts as the chair, which means he can’t debate, so strictly speaking, it’s not a committee that includes everyone, making it a quasi committee of the whole.) By and large, it was good to hear opinions from each side, almost all professing the need to refer back to scripture, the fact we are all God’s children, and the love God has for us and we for each other. I will admit, there were times I  wished someone had phrased something differently or was confused about why someone spoke a certain way, but it was good to allow people time to share their thoughts and listen to others.

Throughout the day, we also watched finalists from the recent ELCA video competition, where congregations and individuals were invited to create short videos around the theme “God’s work, our hands”, which is the theme for this Churchwide Assembly. 20 finalists were picked by online voting, then 2 winners were picked by a panel of 4 judges; we’ll find out the winners at the end of the week, but until then, we’ll enjoy getting to watch all the videos.

One last note: tomorrow afternoon we vote on the adoption of the social statement on human sexuality. Like all social statements of the ELCA, it requires a 2/3 majority to pass. To quote: “The social statements of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America are social policy documents, adopted by the churchwide assembly in accordance with our policies and procedures.” They are meant to guide and teach members of the Lutheran church. This is one of the most controversial votes of this assembly – indeed, we’ve been discussing it for the last 8 years! (To make it sound even scarier: the church has been discussing sexuality for almost half my lifetime!) Please keep all the voting members of the Churchwide Assembly in your prayers as they prayerfully consider and discern our future.

 

Late night tonight. It’s funny, because if you just look at what we acheived in plenary session, you’d be deceived, because we went 2 hours longer than the 2.5 hour meeting time alloted, discussing the Rules of Procedure, and ended up changing nothing. However, most of the discussion we had was really good, eloquent speakers coming from both sides of the debate, which means it was worth having that debate, instead of simply voting. It gave people on both sides a chance to hear the other points. There was a point when it got a little too long, though, people began to get off track, and when someone called the question, over 90% of the assembly voted to close debate.

One particularly funny quote came from an earlier proposed amendment to change the maximum speech time to 2 minutes from 3 minutes and a pastor got up and said, “I oppose this motion as being discriminatory to clergy.” The entire assembly cracked up. It’s good to have a few jokes in a serious assembly.

Relatedly – on the topic of jokes – at the beginning of communion, Bishop Hanson was chanting the prayer (my apologies, I forget the official name of that – it’s right before the “Holy, holy, holy”?) and went terribly out of tune, enough so that pretty much everyone could hear, and as he finished chanting, added on a sung “Forgive me, O Lord” before the congregation started singing the “Holy, holy, holy”. He’s a great preacher and excellent chair, but perhaps not an excellent chanter. (As chair of the assembly, he’s really exceptional at making sure that everyone’s clear procedurally and that we know exactly what we’re voting on, which can get confusing with amendments and all.)

Okay, the next plenary session starts at 8:00 tomorrow morning, which means I really need to sleep. I anticipate long days of discussion – 3 hours of plenary in the morning, 3.75 in the afternoon – but I do think they’ll be really good, if today is anything to go by. (It doesn’t hurt that I like hearing debate and I like parliamentary procedure, strange person that I am.)

 

Day One

*sigh* I wrote an entry earlier, but then the internet cut out, and apparently WordPress didn’t save it in time, so it’s gone. In any case – I’m here! There was a little panic getting to the plane in time (I think it might have been smarter to take the 6:30 am flight and just stay up all night instead of taking the 8 am flight and waking up early), but it worked out okay, and I met up with New England Synod people at the Minneapolis airport, which was cool, since I had no idea they were even taking a similar flight. Sister V and I were even on the same plane and didn’t realize it until we disembarked!

In any case, ran around like mad for the first couple hours: I took a prayer shawl crocheted by a member of UniLu to Goodsoil, then ran over to the Youth & Young Adults lunch, then ran to choir rehearsal, only to learn that when the schedule said choir rehearsal it meant a specific choir, not the volunteer choir. Feeling slightly confused and somewhat overwhelmed, I sat on a bench and took a bit of time to look over the maps and schedule, blog (which I then lost, due to internet fail), and meet the people sitting next to me on the benches. I like meeting new people, but I think I prefer doing it one-on-one, rather than in large groups. We just finished the voting member orientation, which discussed sections of the Constitution (more on that later), the sections of the pre-Assembly report, and parliamentary procedure. 

A couple notes: there’s free internet at the convention center, but it’s limited to a certain time. There’s always internet at the hotel, but you have to pay for it. I’m not entirely sure I want to pay, but I would be limited to certain times online, and possibly that would mean less blogging.

Also, people, please comment with thoughts and questions! As much as I love my parents, it would be great if they weren’t the only people commenting on this blog.

 

Hi, new people!

So over the weekend, which was exciting and will have its own post, I agreed to have this blog sent out a) to everyone at my church, UniLu, and b) to the entire synod. In addition, I said last Wednesday I’d send it to c) LEM, the Lutheran-Episcopal Ministry at MIT. Assuming that this means new people are showing up to read my blog and really have no idea who I am, I’ll go ahead and do what I should have done at the start: an introduction post.

Let’s see: my name is Rebecca Krentz-Wee, I’m a sophomore at MIT studying nuclear science and engineering (and possibly music, as soon as they allow me to declare it). When I was elected a voting member for Churchwide Assembly, I was a member of St. Michael’s Lutheran Church in New Canaan, CT, but then my family moved last year and I joined University Lutheran in Cambridge, MA. (Funnily enough, my parents also attended UniLu as undergrad students and I received first communion there when we lived in Lexington for one year.) I’m an active member of the Lutheran-Episcopal Ministry at MIT, attending mid-week worship there as well as serving on the Student Steering Committee and the Lutheran Board of Directors.

The story of why I decided I wanted to go to Churchwide is somewhat interesting; conveniently, my mom posted it in the comments to another post. To save you all from clicking another link, let me quote:

“It was perhaps a week before the Synod Assembly of 2007, and I was mulling over the many and various resolutions as part of our dinner conversation. I might guess, but I could not predict the voting. Some of the longest as well as pithiest resolutions were on very controversial matters.
You asked, “Who will make the (final) decisions?” When you learned that the biennial gathering had the final say, you followed up with “How do I get to be there?”"

(Note that there I=my mom, you=me) I didn’t remember this exact conversation, but yeah. My mom gave me the nomination form, I filled it out, and the next I heard about it, I was elected at that Synod Assembly.

In case you’re wondering why my mother was mulling over resolutions in 2007, or you think that the name “Krentz-Wee” sounds very familiar – yes, my mother is a pastor. If you’re trying to remember another Krentz – so is my grandfather. And, as it happens, my uncle is an organist, now teaching at LTSP. I am not, however, related to Paul Wee; in fact, the only reason I know the name is because people have asked me multiple times if I am.

Questions? I am, like most people, happy to talk about myself, though I reserve the right to not answer questions.

 

Church Organization

I’d just like to preface this by saying that the church has a much better explanation on their website, with pictures and short blurbs linking to longer pages, but if you’d rather have my attempt at explanation, here it is.

There are 3 levels of organization: congregation, synod, and  churchwide. 3 expressions is what the ELCA likes to call it, in the sense that every expression is fully the church; simply because the churchwide organization includes people from across America (and outside America) doesn’t make it more like the church than a congregation of 4 people. Church is wherever Christians are gathered.

So, congregations are fairly obvious: those are the churches you see everywhere, a specific building and group of people serving the local community.

Synods are the regional expression of the church. They can vary from covering a multiple states (like mine, the New England Synod) or a section of a state (Minnesota has 6, I believe), and anywhere from 30 to 300 congregations. Each synod is led by a bishop, who is in charge of smoothly running administration and supporting ministry of the synod and its congregations. They’re assisted by a synod council and a couple specific bishop’s assistants. Every year each synod has a synod assembly, to celebrate things which have gone well, review what things are going on, and address any issues facing the synod. The people who go to synod assembly include everyone officially rostered in that synod (i.e. clergy, associates in ministry, deaconesses, and diaconal ministers) and (usually) 2 lay members from each congregation (lay = not rostered). (At least that’s how New England does it. I’m sure it varies some by synod. Official churchwide rules require something like 40% rostered, 60% lay at synod assembly.)

Churchwide organizations are everything dealing with everyone in the entire church. Similarly, there’s a national bishop (official title = Presiding Bishop), a Church Council, and Churchwide Assembly. There are also churchwide units, e.g. the publishing house, the board of pensions, and Women of the ELCA.

All big changes that affect every member of the ELCA pass through the biennial Churchwide Assembly. I’m, um, not entirely sure what qualifies as important enough to need to be handled by Churchwide Assembly itself and not passed off to other churchwide units, but I’m sure I’ll get a better idea. At least some of the issues that will come up at Churchwide, we’ll vote to send to a specific group, instead of making the 1045 of us come up with the answer. (At least, that’s what I was told. If I’m wrong, I’m sure someone will correct me.) One thing that I know is handled by Churchwide Assembly: who is allowed to be rostered by the church (to remind you, that’s clergy, associates in ministry, deaconesses, and diaconal ministers). The last time I know that this came up was regarding female clergy, but that was technically in one of the preceding Lutheran churches that merged to become the ELCA in 1987, so I’m not entirely sure what happened. (I’m sure one of my family members will tell us more in the comments, yes?) This is one of the big issues before this year’s Churchwide Assembly, which is listed as the “Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies” in the list I posted yesterday, and recommends rostering people in “publicly accountable, lifelong, monogamous, same-gender relationships.” More on that later.

The people who go to Churchwide are elected every other year at the Synod Assemblies. Each Synod sends a combination of lay and ordained members. Um, I’m pretty sure that describing how many/who are chosen would devolve into me quoting a section of the ELCA Bylaws, and I don’t think anyone actually wants me to do that, so we’ll skip that. (If you really want to know, read section 21.41.11.) New England has 16 people going. I’m not entirely clear on specifics, but the Bishop, Secretary, and Treasurer always go, plus people elected to fill spots like “Female Lay Member at Large” and so on. I was elected as “Lay Member under 25,” or something along those lines.

Questions?

 

2 weeks and counting

By this time two weeks from now, I’ll have had lunch, rehearsed with the choir, watched a news conference, attended orientation, gone to the opening service of Holy Communion, and eaten dinner. Well, I may still be eating dinner, whatever. The point is, in less than 14 days I will be at Churchwide Assembly, the biannual national gathering of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America to discuss in what direction God is calling the church and to decide policy for the future. This will be a very exciting week, as up for discussion are:

• Full communion with the United Methodist Church
• “Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust,” a proposed ELCA social statement
• Report and Recommendation on Ministry Policies
• Possible social statement on justice for women
• Funding of the HIV and AIDS strategy
• Lutheran Malaria Initiative
• Amendments to the ELCA Constitution, Bylaws, and Continuing Resolutions
• 2010, 2011 budget proposals for ELCA churchwide organization
• Memorials
• Resolutions
• Elections

Now, you can follow Churchwide through live webcasts, video, photos, audio, official blogs, Twitter, and Facebook, but my mom requested some way to know what my thoughts as a voting member are/will be, and knowing that she’s probably not the only interested person (and realizing that she could have just come along as an observer; thanks, Mom, for letting me go by myself), I’ll be using this blog over the next month. It’s intended specifically for things relating to Churchwide, i.e. the two weeks leading up to it, the actual assembly, and the reaction in the week or so following.

I think I’ll start tomorrow with explaining how the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) is organized (from conversations I’ve had, it seems like most Lutherans don’t know this), then talk a bit about some of the different actions up for discussion. However, I need to go off  and finish reading Luther’s essay “The Freedom of a Christian” right now, as I’m supposed to help lead a 2-week book group on it at church this Thursday and next Thursday. If you’re really curious, though, and want to start learning things immediately, feel free to go and browse the official ELCA Churchwide Assembly website. Or, you know, the Wikipedia page, if you’re that kind of person. (No, I’m not linking to it. You can find it yourself.)

 

Header

Because it’s utterly not something you’d all know: the image on the left is the ELCA logo, the word’s are the theme for Churchwide 2009, the image on the right is Martin Luther’s seal.