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GA: Day Four

Saturday night we finished at the GA Zette Office between 2 and 3am. I wandered back to the accomadation block and found a few people drinking and joined them. I didn't get to bed til past 4am.

Sunday I got up around 8am. Had breakfast. Had to get out of the room by 9.30.

Business and Installation of Executive Committee

The first ever directly elected governing body of the church took office. It was quite a nice ceremony. They transferred the flame from a chalice representing the Council to a chalice representing the new Executive Committee. Peter Soulsby, MP, has been made convener of the committee. It seems a strange sort of dual system we have now. That was my thought as the new EC came in a the same time as the new President, David Dawson. I'm not really sure what the point of the President is. There didn't seem much point in the position before, and there seems even less point now. Ah well.



It felt like I was almost the first person to come to GA, and the last person to leave. I got there on Wednesday at the same time as Essex Hall staff got there, and I left late Sunday afternoon, with very few people still around. I was drove home by my housemate, talking to her to keep her awake. Went to bed in Brum at 10. Got up this morning at 11am.



Overall, I think it was a sucessful GA. We raised both awareness and money (over £600) for BUYAN. We've had two offers from churches to go and visit them. The queer Unitarian community seem interested in campaigning for same sex marriage and hopefully the rest of our community will agree. We passed a resolution calling for growth, which gives a foundation for the kind of work I want to do. From that democratically expressed view I can call for the kind of work I think we need to be doing (missionary work, church-planting). It means I might get support for the pratical theological work I want to do to develop a liberal theology and practice of evangelism. We need to develop a lot of youth and young adult ministry. There's a lot of work to do there.

I'm really glad the emphasis has changed at this GA to be more worship based rather than business based. The opening ceremony was great and the young adult led worship was good too.

I'm thinking about prayer at the moment. I might save that thought for later. We, as a community have started to re-engage the Spirit. But we still have a long way to go. But I am optimistic. A good GA.

I'm going to my parent's house today. They've just moved and don't have interent yet, so I'll be offline for a while. Blessings to you.

Comments

LaReinaCobre said…
Thanks for taking the time and energy to post these notes, Stephen.
1:37 am
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