At General Convention: Mission Anyway

General Convention has taken the bull by the horns when it comes to mission planning. We heard it in the Presiding Bishop's opening sermon as she closed an engaging sermon with, "Can you hear the heartbeat of the Church? 'Mission, mission, mission!'"

The problem is that you to have a diocesan membership card for it to take place, apparently. At least the agenda here in Anaheim thinks so. That kind of thinking will sentence the Church to irrelevancy. When we arrived everyone was given a number to sit at a specified table for conversation. But not me and hundreds of others. This wouldn't be any ordinary chat since the motive was for everyone to learn the art of "public narrative." There would be four fascinating sessions on this.

To be clear, it's not this technique which should be criticized but the muddled idea of what constitutes a continuing group that could feel an urge for such conversation. If you're not in a diocese you're a spectator...so sit down and be quiet.

There are two risky assumptions at work here: First, that the only institution that can muster the energy for such an exercise is a diocese. After organizing the "We Will Stand With You" effort after Katrina I learned that was a dangerous assumption. Often a diocese is eclipsed by a group of motivated parishes or institutions from within its boundaries. And that's the way the Holy Spirit speaks in that terrain. I know this flies in the face of the old adage about the diocese being the basic organizational unit of the Episcopal Church but on the ground sometimes this just isn't so. To leave other groupings outside of the ring of enthusiasm is misguided.

Wouldn't it make sense to allow for those attending from this federal episcopacy to discuss the impact of deployments, domestic violence, family separations, and the alarming suicide rate? I want to cry when I think of the squandered time here considering the passion many have applied to Home Support Team (HOST) Programs.

Second, Conventions usually use bible study as a means of becoming personable with others in the greater church...often it's through the bible study before the Eucharist. Not this time. Some druidic group decided to uncouple the link between scriptural study and new-found fellowship in favor of getting down to business by talking in this "real" way about mission. Sort of a take home goody for important chats back home. Again, the "public narrative" is what gets cheated here.

What's risky is that the Holy Eucharist's potential for motivation is blunted. I don't recall the names (maybe the faces) of anyone for the past three Conventions at my table groups prior to Communion but I do recall entering their lives. In one case we prayed for someone before an operation. In another, for success in a new job. We missed one person when he didn't make it to the service (and the bible study), a good thing because of the serious flu he had contracted; we sought medical attention for him. You felt like you belonged somewhere in addition to where you were from. We seem to be trading all that to equip ourselves with a nifty program.

Now we don't have to set up Convention the same old way each time, indeed, this new style could have engaging consequences if the organization for it didn't read--embarrassingly--like someone had copied it out of a book. I, and hundreds of people not assigned to dioceses sit around watching others talk about mission. Is that odd or what?

But the Holy Spirit finds away...we are meeting secretly at a table with no number and maybe that's the way it should always be. The organization blithely remains distracted and by God's grace we hope to intend important things anyway. +gep