Assembly on Friday

Note: since I am writing and posting the next few blogs close together, the e-mail version may arrive containing a few of the postings. Please scroll down so you can read them in the proper order. Thank you!

Friday, June 8th, was the first day of the New England Synod Assembly. It was scheduled to start at 1:00 in the afternoon but people were supposed to arrive earlier to register and learn how to do the new electronic voting we were using this year.

When we (myself and the couple I was riding to the assembly with) discussed what time we should leave we had decided on 8:00 am. That would get us to Springfield in time to drop our stuff off at the hotel (probably not get in in our rooms since they more than likely would not be ready yet), grab some lunch and then get to the Mass Mutual Center for registration.

We received an e-mail on Thursday afternoon that stated there was a police officer killed in the line of duty in Springfield the previous Monday. The funeral was scheduled for Friday, the 8th (yes, same day as the start of the assembly). Other than our deepest sympathy to the family and friends of the slain officer, this really shouldn’t impact us. Except that they scheduled a funeral reception for Friday afternoon at the park across the street from the conference center where we were meeting. Again, shouldn’t impact us except that they were expecting 6,000 police officers from around New England to attend the funeral and reception. And that is why we were being informed of this Thursday afternoon.

It was recommended that we leave early so we can arrive on time and they would have a quorum for the first vote for the new bishop.

I received a call from the people I was riding with and I was asked if we could leave by 6:00 am. Unfortunately I received this call at 9:15 pm on Thursday night. If I wanted to be at their house by 6:00 am, I needed to be in bed long before 9:15 pm. But I understood that we really should leave that early so I agreed to get to bed immediately and then get up in time to be at their house by 6:00 am.

Let me tell you, 4:00 am sure does come quickly!!! I got up, finished packing, showered, got dressed and headed out the door. I arrived at 6:02 am and we were off to Springfield.

Actually arriving early meant that we were able to have a nice brunch and we were even able to get checked into our hotel before the assembly started. Granted, I was really tired but we certainly weren’t rushed.

Now…about the voting. The first ballot for the bishop was a written ballot since anyone, and I mean ANYONE who was a rostered leader, was able to be written on the ballot. When they read off the results, it took forever. So many received 4 votes, 3 votes, 2 votes and 1 vote that the reading of the list just went on and on. I asked my pastor if the people who received one vote put their own name on the ballot. He said probably many of them.

He, my pastor, did receive four votes but we (myself and the other church representative) assured him that we had not voted for him. He had informed us weeks earlier that he had no desire to be the bishop and didn’t feel called to that position and he requested that we please not put his name on the ballot. We agreed and neither one of us did. So I’m not sure who did but it certainly wasn’t us.

Actually, as a side note, I’m kind of glad he didn’t want to be bishop. I like our pastor and would be sad if we had to go through the process of finding someone as good as he is for our church.

After the first ballot, the pastors who didn’t want to be bishop (like my pastor) were asked to go out in the hall area and remove their names from the ballot. Needless to say, there was a large number of pastors rushing to the hall to have their names removed.

With the next ballot, the list was narrowed down considerably but was still pretty lengthy. Not to give away the end of this process, I saw one name on the list and I had a very strong feeling he would be it. Just knew. And I was right.

After this ballot, the top seven candidates were selected. At this point we began hearing from the candidates. They were seated on the stage and the moderator asked them each the same eight questions and they had two minutes to answer. This process took quite a while but it was worth it. I really noticed things about the individual candidates that helped me make up my mind.

One candidate consistently ran over his time. He was very intelligent but long winded. All I could think about was, if he was elected bishop, we would have six years of him running on and on during assemblies. Really not something I would look forward to and so he dropped to the bottom of my list. (To be fair, the long-winded nature wasn’t my only deciding factor but it was a factor).

One candidate, the only woman, seemed to be over compensating for her gender. She just seemed to be trying too hard. I also didn’t think she had enough experience. Whenever the candidates were asked questions about what they learned from their experiences, she kept discussing the same experience as if that was the only challenging thing that ever happened in her ministry.

Another candidate I rejected because I had heard that he had called people before the assembly and said that he wanted to be bishop. This is really not allowed. This isn’t a political thing. This is a spiritual thing. And he was politicking. Not to mention he also seemed really intellectual and administrative like and I didn’t think that is what we needed in a bishop.

For me, that narrowed it down to four candidates. But I could only vote for one so I picked one who I thought would be good and we waited for the results.

The next morning we found out the results of this ballot but that will be saved for the next posting.

By the way, the forum for the seven candidates came at the end of the day on Friday. THEN there was a compline service. I didn’t get back to my hotel room until close to 10:00 pm. 18 hours after I woke up that morning. Yup….wicked tired!