Diversity University

We have an extraordinarily diverse Presbytery. While most churches tend toward monchrome, there are many rainbow churches as well. In our system, we provide for a body to be our conscience for representation. The committee has not been active for years. We seem to have a great and diverse group, but the membership is totally new.

Tonight we talked about the barriers to expression that 1st generation Americans find even when their views are welcome. It is hard, because we think that we are doing everthing that we can do to be open. So how do you make people comfortable contributing when they aren’t sure that they understand everything that is happening.

The really wonderful thing about the committee on representation is the recognition that these folks are the future, and their views are the views we must hear if we are to be a part of the future.

Bored Meetings

Well, I tried.  The agenda for our board (Session in Presby-speak) meeting was for a meeting that lasted one hour and thirty minutes (7:30-9 pm).  Yet I did not leave the church until after 10, counting post meeting conversations.  Actually the agenda plan worked well, because there is no telling how long we would have been if we discussed everything on the agenda in the same time it took to talk about what was not there.

I should say that we spent all of that time on important stuff, very important stuff.  The problem is that when you are on the edge of extinction, everything is critical, and we can not seem to get everything done. 

We did take time, as sheduled, for breakout sessions to ”vision” personnel and marketing ourselves.  These are areas that we do not seem to address.  The approach was eye-opening into what we should and could be doing if we could stop talking about the clutter. Yes, I know that personnel sounds like clutter, but it starts seeming more important when you are running a deficit and personnel is 60% of your budget.  We do not even have a committee, and somebody really ought to ask where 60% of the money goes.  

May God bless the Session members who were there. They did some heavy lifting tonight.