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The Bishop's Journal
September 1999
OUR TIME HAS COME?
Alicia Becker, an Eastern Synod participant in the ELCIC convention youth assembly, sang with a voice both strong and clear. "There's a stirring deep within me. Could it be my time has come?"
Her words echo two observations that I would make concerning our July gathering in Regina. The first deals with the role and place of youth within the life of our church, the second with my sense of the ELCIC's denominational identity as we approach the beginning of a new millennium.
"There's a stirring deep within me. Could it be our time has come?" A first observation: I cannot recall having participated in a synod or national church assembly wherein the voice of youth was heard with such clarity and precision. Alicia and her Eastern Synod partners, Sarah-Dawn Schenk, Craig Burkett, Mary Jane Harbinson, and facilitator Christie Morrow were part of a group of nine participants and three leaders who formed this year's Youth Assembly. At the close of each convention session, they shared a variety of reflections with us. They presented through a variety of forms; sometimes through a word of prayer or a song, by offering their pointed observations on the business of the day; or simply by providing a much needed opportunity for the convention to laugh and not take ourselves quite so seriously.
The Youth Assembly participants spoke with sensitivity and maturity, with courage and conviction. They shared from the heart, and in doing so they challenged the entire assembly to do likewise. The Youth Assembly contributions provided a special and unique kind of leadership and as such made a significant and profound contribution to the total convention experience!
We need to find many more opportunities for similar experiences to happen in the life of our church. Our youth don't want to be patronized or pacified. Rather, they want opportunities to participate in ways that are respectful of their unique voice and perspective as people of faith. Together, we need to find ways for that to happen in all expressions of the church's life. The youth of the church have so much to offer - so much to contribute. We dare not miss the opportunity to share in the many gifts they have to offer.
"There's a stirring deep within me. Could it be our time has come?" A second observation: I cannot recall having participated in a synod or national church convention wherein the collective voice of the assembly was heard with such clarity and precision. At past conventions I have heard many individual voices, but in Regina I started to hear a collective voice beginning to speak. Sure, there were moments of confusion and frustration; speeches and questions that I'd rather not have heard. But for the most part, this was a decisive gathering informed by the palpable desire to move ahead. This assembly wanted to act on the significant issues before it and did precisely that.
Very significant actions were taken regarding ecumenical relations. Delegates voted almost unanimously to approve, in principle, the declaration of full communion between our church and the Anglican Church of Canada which will formally come before our respective church bodies in 2001. In a similar, near-unanimous vote, delegates approved a resolution to invite the Lutheran Church - Canada to join our church in a relationship of eucharistic sharing. Likewise, delegates also gave a decisive endorsement to the Ecumenical Jubilee Initiative in support of actions leading to debt reduction for poor nations and the reduction of child poverty.
The convention also strongly affirmed the action of the ELCIC National Church Council in encouraging the church to find ways to become a more inclusive and welcoming community for gay and lesbian persons. In spite of the extremely controversial nature of this issue for many congregations and individuals within the ELCIC, I found the spirit and quality of discussion around this issue to be at a much higher level than I have experienced in past conventions.
I left the convention feeling good about the kind of church I see us becoming. It seems that we are learning how to speak with and listen to one another in ways that are life-giving rather than life-denying. It seems that we are learning that the object of the decision-making process is not that of winning, but rather, that of collectively discerning the word that the Holy Spirit would have us receive at this moment in our life together.
Perhaps we are becoming more mature as a faith body. Perhaps, as one delegate remarked, we are starting to find our own stride. Perhaps, after fourteen years of life together, we are beginning to claim a clear and identifiable denominational identity.
Perhaps something really is stirring deep within us. Could it be our time has come?
The Rev. Michael J. Pryse,
Bishop
