Day two of plennary

photo captions from top to bottom: worship at Westminster Presbyterian church (amazing stained glass!), the banner created during opening worship service hangs in the plenary hall, prior to plenary, we have fun with Gumby and Pokey given to us by Susan McGhee to remind us to be flexible, an example of the paddle system used to communicate to the body your intentions, the results from the New Form of Government vote (electronic keypads allow for an exact vote on difficult issues)


Our morning began with an amazing ecumenical worship service. Walter Mondale, a member of Westminster Presbyterian Church located across the street from the convention center, welcomed us to the church. The service began with kites representing the tongues of fire dancing over our heads. The Minnesota Boys Choir sang several pieces and there were also hymns from many different cultures sung in their native tongue.

Wednesday morning is considered a time of preparation for meetings. We spent the morning looking at what the following day's agenda would be and learned that we would begin with some easy reports to allow us to get use to the process that would be followed as parliamentary procedure is even more closely followed during this time. There are many paddles on the floor to indicate what the person at each microphone is going to speak too: green=in favor, red=against, yellow=question, blue=amend, and orange (our favorite)=call the question.

The reports that will have items that will be heavily debated are considered order of the the day and we have 90 minutes in order to debate. We had two such items yesterday. The first was the report from the committee dealing with the Heidelberg and the Belhar. The Heidelberg was approved for re-translation. The Belhar was approved to be sent to the Presbyteries for consideration to be entered into the Book of Confessions. It will take a 2/3 majority vote from the presbyteries to do so. The final item of business was the committee dealing with the New Form of Government task force. Again, the vote was to approve to send the New Form of Government document to the presbyteries for their approval. We actually finished ahead of schedule and opted to recess for the evening. I'm guessing this will not be the norm so we should take advantage of it when at all possible! We look forward to continuing debate tomorrow!