Assembly on Saturday

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!

Saturday, June 9^th, was the second day of the New England Synod Assembly and it started early!

I was asked if I would be willing to be one of the communion assistants at the Eucharist service at 8:00 that morning and, as you know, I rarely say “no”when asked to do these things, so I said “yes, I will be happy to”. Of course this meant that I had to be up early to meet someone for breakfast and get to the Mass Mutual Center on time.

The service was beautiful…but all the services were beautiful. The messages were uplifting, the music was moving and, most important (for me at least), the singing and worshiping with 700 fellow Christians was so heavenly I could imagine the angels singing along with us. Every time we sang a hymn, when we got to the third verse, the musicians stopped playing and we all sang a capella and, get this, in harmony! It was absolutely…wonderful. Although that word barely touches on how moving it was to hear and participate in.

After the service, we had a candidate forum and then we voted again in order to narrow the panel down to the top three. And this is where a sticky moment occurred.

As I mentioned in the previous posting, we were using a new way of voting in that we were using little electronic remotes to vote. It did get a little confusing for some people but I found it pretty easy to use. One advantage to the electronic voting is that we would get instant results. We had a few other things to vote on other than voting for a new bishop and, for many of the items, we would see the results on the big screens in the front of the hall within minutes of finishing voting.

So, when were getting ready to vote, someone stood up and made a motion. The motion was that, rather than wait until later to find out the top three candidates, we should find out right away. Since we had the capability to find out right away, we should find out right away.

I disagreed with this motion. After all, these candidates had just put themselves out there to offer to re-arrange their lives and the lives of their families and bared their souls (so to speak), in order to be bishop. They deserved to find out in private if they had been rejected. It was the humane and ethical way to do it.

I wasn’t the only one who felt this way. My pastor agreed and so did everyone who stood up during the discussion time for the motion.

Since this motion wasn’t known about ahead of time (how could it be?), the computer wasn’t set up so we could vote on it electronically. It would have to be done with a show of hands.

Point of order (just had to use that term here): Do you remember the movie “Close Encounters of the Third Kind”? Do you remember at the start of the movie when they were finding evidence of aliens all over the globe and at one point they were in India? And everyone was singing the same song? Then, when they were asked where they had heard that song, all those hands immediately popped up and pointed to the sky? Keep that image in mind for a minute or so.

So the moderate closed the discussion down and told us we were ready to vote. He asked for a show of hands for those in favor of finding out the results of this bishop’s ballot right away. Five hands went up. He then asked for a a show of hands for those who were against finding out right away.

Hundreds of hands popped up…just like in Close Encounters. It looked so much like the movie that this is the thought that flashed in my head. Just like Close Encounters. Made me chuckle inside.

Needless to say, the motion was defeated. As it should have been.

The assembly business went on. We took care of other items on the agenda and then we found out the results of the ballot. We now had the final three. One of whom was the guy who had been politicking before the assembly. Oh well. He did have more votes than the other four candidates but he had less than the other two. So his numbers were going down.

We kept working on the bishop election, even through lunch. They provided us with box lunches and we ate right there in the hall at the tables.

After much discussion, prayer, singing (yes, we sang before each ballot – lovely song called “We Seek Your Presence”), at around 5:00 pm, we had our new bishop. The Rev. James Hazelwood. Just who I thought would be elected.

Following the announcement, and applause, applause, applause…we had about an hour before dinner so I headed back to the hotel to rest and freshen up. Then I met up with the person I was having dinner with in the lobby and she and I headed back to the center for dinner and the evening’s entertainment.

There was a small concert by the Global Mission Musicians, an international group of musicians and singers who serenaded us with music from around the globe. It was uplifting music that eventually had us on our feet clapping along. There was even some people who formed a conga line.

Lucky for me, they only played until 8:00 or so and I was able to get back to my room and get a good night’s sleep.

Next posting will be about Sunday…