There are some other things I want to cover (which I hope I'll get to later), but before I turn in for the night, there's one more story I wanted to highlight, concerning the heroes for the day. One of the LIFT provisions considered for amendments was the one where hard demographic and regional quotas were removed with respect to candidates for the Church Council. As I mentioned, each of the amendments so far were grouped by the relevant committee (here the Reference and Counsel Committee), the committee invariably has some recommendation short of adopting any part of it, and depending on how motivated the source of the original amendment was, he/she would try to defeat the motion of the committee's recommendation.
There were three amendments grouped together speaking to this constitutional change, and two were primarily directed at youth representation (the amendments were stated more broadly than that, but the intent became clear once debate started). They pointed out (as has been pointed out several times since the Assembly started, that a goal of having 10% youth members of the Church Council is in the constitution, and that that had not happened. The previous removal of advisory members of the Council by LIFT had stripped the council of all (even non-voting) membership by youth (there are only 2 "young adult" members currently, which I think means age 20-30). One of the amendments tried to make that 10% a hard quota, and the other added into the resolution the kind of demographics to be taken into consideration in choosing members (age, ethnic background, and varying abilities). Since the Reference and Counsel Committee did not recommend these amendments, I expected a fight, but something different happened.
The first person speaking in favor of accepting the Reference and Counsel Committee's recommendation was the one who proposed the second amendment: Dianha Ortega-Ehreth, a youth Voting Member. She said she was satisfied with the committee's assurances that a process would be developed to meet the church's stated commitments to inclusivity. I read the Reference and Counsel committee's recommendation more closely, and it was very thorough, listing every constitutional provision relating to "inclusivity and representation" in both the constitution and the LIFT report. It also made some specific promises about finding a way to make good on those promises.
When the next speaker spoke in favor of the recommendation, it started to become clear how that recommendation got to be so thorough. He was the author of the other amendment, another youth VM by the name of Peter C Aldrich. He approached the microphone with his thin laptop open to read his speech, looking very serious and intentional, one of the few people in the room wearing a tie. He explained how he had checked with the relevant committees and had found out that if his amendment went through, it would count as a "first reading", meaning that the change could not be adopted until the 2013 CWA, and so would not take effect until the Council elections during the 2016 CWA. They did not want to wait that long for a change, and the Reference and Counsel Committee had made a serious recommendation, so he was speaking in favor of that recommendation. During the speech, someone in the row behind me at the assembly whispered "that's the future of the Church, right there."
I was really impressed at the dedication to their cause, their willingness to navigate the bureaucracy, and to build relationships with church leaders to achieve their goals. I'd leave it at that, an inspiring story, perhaps contained in my great LIFT narrative about people becoming willing to trust people rather than structures and legislation, if they'd left it at that.
Apparently the spot I chose to sit to compose my blog posts tonight was an LYO (Lutheran Youth Organization) nexus, because I met a few of them and have been talking for a while. One of those is my third hero of the day, Matt Wertman, president of the LYO and a Voting Member from my sister synod in Virginia, who explained to me at great length a motion he was proposing to boost youth representation on Church Council and protect the LYO (which he sees as threatened). Furthermore, if it's worded as he's so clearly explained it, I'll vote for it too.
No, I haven't given up the LIFT ethos, but you'll have to stay tuned before I regale you with the full details, as I don't want to tip his hand.
Also I want to go to bed.
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