Scribbles, Scriptures, and the Spirit: Committee Meetings

Or... What Presbyterians Do Best...Decently and in Order
Monday, June 2

Today began with a buffet style, grab and stand, bnreakfast outside the worship area, and then we gathered together to hear author and speaker, Brian McPherson, talk about The Importance of Being Presbyterian. Overall, an engaging and interesting time, and a very piositive one on behalf of who we are: a church on the mend, a church in a healthy transition. He reminded us that it takes fire for renewal. We are in the fire now. Renewal is coming. Scribble coming tomorrow!
After worship/speaker we began the gritty work of the committees.Good news - the microphone issue has been solved, so we can hear OUR group, but NOT the group next door! For me the morning was relatively quiet. We hekld open hearings for Overtures in our committee, which meant ANYONE who wanted to speak - time limit of 90 seconds! A few of the comments which really cause me to take notice:
"We are allowing gay people to be ordained when they don't exist." Wow! Ouch!
After a break, we then heard the Overture Advocate for each measure speak - they were allowed 2 minutes each! This continued until lunch. After a flurry of texting, at which point Luke walked up to me and said it was painful to watch and finished the last of my messages to try and connect with Roger and Linda and Pete for lunch. Success. Luke and Emily took off (Luke was quite handsome at the time in slacks and tie - he had testified on behalf of the YAVS at the Mission Coordinator Committee. Also during one of his testimonies todayt, he had read one of his poems and was approached by a member of the Hunger Committee who asked for permission to usde it! He was appropriately stoked!) Anyway, Roger, Linda and I found a Chinese Restaurant that had a buffet, and Pete joined us there. Good food, but we discovered that "mildly spicy" was blazing! Roger and Linda were hurting because they took the spicy, and my sinuses were completely cleared by the time I finsihed mine!
Back to work. We moved on our first two overtures -- ones that were supposed to be relatively uncontroversial, and then it took forevewr to get through the "decently and in order". People didn't understand that when we defeated a motion, we couldn't take THAT to the general body. We have to approve to disprove if that is what we want! I wish our moderator had just said, "We can't end on a defeated motion!" Eventually we got there.
Then....a member moved to change our agenda so that we wouldn't vote tonight on something that he said in effect makes tomorrow null and void. I thought he was reading too m uch into it, because the recommendations from ACC are actually to disprove ALL of it! After more work on establishing our correct procewdure, we defeated the motion to amend and went on with our job! Resdt of the afternoon spent in small discussion groups to talk through the controversial issues. That was helpful, because I for one spoke more there, as did many others. A good way to prevent a few from monopolizing the voerall conversation.
Adjourned for dinner. After a brief trip to the bookstore where I basically spent my dinner money, I gave Mom R a call since Rick couldn't yesterday and then went to the Subway to grab a smaller dinner. Lunch had provided the nbulk of my meal anyway. We had hoped to meety Rob and Karen tonight, but they had a funeral service to attend, - might not even get to see Karen as she is going to spend a few days with her sister who is up from North Carolina. An hour of quiet time to write and draw before heading back to the Committee chambers.
After dinner the fireworks really started. We were supposed to begin with 08 and 09, but the first immediate motion was in support of 17 (the pro-support affirmation similar to 18 and 24), followed by an immediate move (by the same agenda man) to substitute Overture 2 as the main motion, the parlimentary procedures of which we then debated for nearly an hour. Finally it was defeated to substitute #2 (which was a motion to return to the fidelity and chastity clause). Then....I made an amendment (YES, ME!) to strike the clause in #17 which the Advisory Committee on the Constitution found problematic. My amendment was further amended, and we then had to vote on each step of the way. Finally.....we voted to approve 07-17 as amended and with comments! Whew!! Hopefully tomorrow will go more smoothly as I think we have established a little bit the consensus of this committee.
Back to the room to find my roomie already there. We had an animated discussion of our committee workings as she encountered a number of glitches in moderating her committee. A little coloring of a picture and time to hit the hay!!