Tampa: Days 3-5

In a perfect world, there's time to blog.  In mine, there isn't.

Since General Synod 28 started on Friday, I've been getting up early, working hard, staying up late (either with old friends or debriefing with the Youth and Young Adult Delegates from the Connecticut Conference, for whom I'm a "shepherd"), and collapsing into bed.  That isn't to say that I haven't been blasting out lots of tweets and/or Facebook posts, trying to capture the essence of what is going on around here.

Worship has been fantastic!  See below.  Really, take the time to watch this video!


Yesterday was the day that all of the resolutions went to committees and were hammered into shape so that they can come to the synod floor today.  As always, there were lots of people who were all trying to have their say, even though they didn't have anything new to add to the discussion.  My group, which was REALLY well led by Dr. John Ramos, who is a member of my congregation and also serves as the moderator of the Connecticut Conference, discussed a resolution "On Actions of Hostility against Islam and the Muslim Community" and managed to move fairly briskly through the process, though the business, though I understand that my son's group not only took up the allotted three hours, but ran an hour over because folks were arguing over commas v. semicolons or some other such minutiae.

Today, we entered plenary session and have covered a few issues.  This being Florida, we have had some difficulty with the new electronic voting system, as some of the delegates have had trouble with the new technology.  We seem to have gotten it squared away, but not without some anxiety.

In our voting so far, we have approved the ecumenical agreement between the Roman Catholic church and several churches out of the Reformed tradition, whereby we will now officially recognize one-another's baptisms.

So far, I've attended meals sponsored by the Pacific Islander and Asian American Ministries and one by the Pacific School of Religion.  I've still got a Wider Church Ministries dinner tonight and a "Seven Secrets" lunch tomorrow.  What's "Seven Secrets?"  I have no idea,  I expect that it's a secret.

We're starting our next plenary now, getting ready to deal with amendments to the UCC Constitution and Bylaws, dealing with the Unified Governance proposal.