Orlando - Mennocon2017

A focus group during the Future Church Summit addresses a question about our identity as a Church.  Check out PMCer Phoebe Sharp 3rd from the right.  Phoebe was right on with her comments.

Going to Orlando did not start out well.  I got to Boston's Logan Airport early Tuesday morning, but promptly found out that you even have to pay to check carry-ons on Spirit Air. #neveragain.  Then the plane had issues and we were delayed hours.  I missed some important meetings in Orlando.  It was annoying.  On Wednesday morning, I was involved in a panel discussion of pastors who had helped their church communities become welcoming and affirming.  It was very rich and beautiful to hear the stories of struggle, success and failure as the groups of worshipping people tried in their ways to be faithful to God's call in this moment.

The rest of the day and Thursday morning I was able to attend many beautiful and powerful workshops.  Then, on Thursday afternoon, the Future Church Summit (FCS) began.  It was an incredible thing, with 700 people spread out in the huge room around round tables.  Each table had a note taker who used an iPad that would shoot each thought, comment or question over to the Theme Team, responsible for aggregating and reporting out on the community's responses to the many questions in front of us.

It was a fascinating process of conversation and feedback.  It was like doing affinity mapping with almost immediate feedback, but with 700 people.  It was an incredible thing, because it meant that we were, in real time, gaining feedback from an incredibly broad cross section of our Church community.  Not only was it a numerically large body, but it represented many geographies, classes, and theogical inclinations and perspectives.  Just my table had a young Latinx man, an elderly Native American woman, and a mix of young and old, male and female white folks.

Conversation through the time was cordial, and slowly people revealed more about their commitments and feelings.  There was so much hurt around that table, from Tina, the Native American woman who had seen her churches neglected by the rest of the denomination and since seen most of them leave over theological differences, to Brad, who felt that the voices of his rural conservative conference were being unfairly drowned out and sidelined.  Others shared about the experiences of their LGBTQ relatives and their painful experiences of rejection and ostracization.

By the time I left to fly back to Boston, mid morning on Saturday, there seemed to be a growing consensus within the reports form the Future Church Summit that leaned toward a missional and inclusive identity for our church.  I felt encouraged by the conversations I had been part of at my table and those of the larger group.

So I flew back to Boston before the late morning delegate session on Saturday feeling pretty positive. But after I left, a loud minority of voices, all older white men, called the process violent and argued that the results of the FCS should basically be reduced to a status of suggestions as opposed to directive.  Under pressure, those in charge of delegate session short-circuited the appropriate processes of approval for this language change in the resolution.  This was so troubling, because, at the beginning of the process, the organizers showed us the text of the resolution we would be voting on during the final delegate session, which would have made the outcomes of the FCS a directive given to the Executive Board and Executive Director.  So, the reduction of the power of the FCS was not only inappropriate vis-a-vis parlimentary protocol that is supposed to govern delegate sessions, but it also radically altered the premise that was the foundation for the process we had all just spent two straight days engaged in.  It was unfair and unfortunate.  It was a last gasp by those who are losing power in our denomination to maintain it.  And it worked for now.

So many were hurt and angry about this change.  After what was, for the majority, a very positive and creative process that felt authentic and that had gone out of its way to include the voices of so many, the views of a powerful few totally changed the outcomes for the whole group in a way that undid the beauty and power of the summit.

And so, Onward we march, seeking justice and learning to love each other better.  But it was a lesson in the "shrewd as serpents" half of Jesus' famous injunction.  We should have been ready for a power move like the one that took place, and apparently we were not.  But this ain't over yet either.