At the end of last night's session of General Conference, presiding Bishop Larry Goodpaster looked pretty frazzled. He was tasked with facilitating the part of the conference that is usually the easiest–setting the rules by which the Conference would do its work. Roberts' Rules of Order are usually the gold standard for these kinds of meetings, but there are sometimes things that go beyond Roberts that involve some negotiation. At stake last night were a couple of proposed amendments to the rules that would 1) Limit the end time of each day at Conference to 9:30pm so that delegates can actually get some sleep, and 2) barring protestors from being inside the bar of the conference. The debate was, at least to my unpracticed General Conference observational eye, an exercise in political posturing with debaters for and against the motions saying a lot by saying very little.
See, there's a subtext here at General Conference that few talk about but everyone understands. The liberal/conservative divide is present in nearly every conversation. Last night's subtext about rules had to do with who would really control the debate at General Conference and how. There is a deep and palpable mistrust when someone from either a "known" liberal or conservative conference stands at the microphone to propose an amendment. The layers of amendments seem to make it difficult for all the delegates to know exactly what they're voting on. And so, as the afternoon begins, we still don't have the rules in place. Tonight we'll hear back from the rules committee about amendments and next steps and more wrangling will no doubt ensue.
What fascinates me, though, is that all this anxiety comes immediately after we have had two dynamic sermons calling the church to follow Christ and do ministry in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus is talking about kingdom redemption while we're debating the rules for having a conversation. I wonder if all this "grieves" the Holy Spirit because I know it grieves me. Edwin Friedman once said that an anxious system always gives strength and opportunity to the extremists. General Conference would seem to be a classic case. Agendas and counter-agendas will continue to rule the day here, which means the conference feels like being slowly and repeatedly hit with a big stick–not enough to hurt you but enough to cause you a constant dull pain.
I wonder what would happen here if someone decided to chuck all the rules and call us to just worship and pray for the next few days? Heaven knows that most of the things that get decided here (or don't) in the next several days don't ultimately have much of anything to do with life in the local church. I would rather hear more preaching than more amendments. I would rather hear from my African brothers and sisters how their focus on evangelism is igniting a wildfire movement of the Spirit in their countries. I would rather open the Word than the Daily Christian Advocate. We will never legislate our way to health. The rules will never save us–only Jesus can. I just wish we were paying him a little more attention.
