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writing it down : how two sides see homosexuality & church

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update: what ended up happening is that the minority report got voted as the majority for the delegate floor. then, while rules were suspended, there was no debate and the minority report (which just became majority) went to vote and got a very slim approval, keeping, and somewhat recessing back our not-so-inclusive language. steve rankin has a nice perspective and history.

update 2: noticed that blake huggins has put together as accurate as he could the new stance on human sexuality.

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currently our church is in debate over our next four years of church doctrine dealing homosexuality & the church. this is the particular petition. in there it is just remarkable to see the differences in legislative majority and minority.

the majority from legislative committee.
Legislativereportgc2008

then there is the minority report.. see the small differences? &:~)
Minorityreportgc2008

this will get beat up as it is currently on the floor. so it will be interesting to see how all this turns out. i pray for some idea of recognizing all people as faithful witnesses. for me, the debate of homosexuality is not so clear cut. i’m okay with claiming confusion. it’s a okay place to be.

an evening with bishop nt wright : round up & audio

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Ntwright2

last night erin & i headed down to west end, along with quite a few hundred cross cultural types to hear from n.t. wright, the bishop of durham. he’s on a book tour for "surprised by hope" which i am to read sometime this year. i was stoked to hear of his coming and by the turnout last night, quite a few others were as well. it was a nice evening out catching up with many friends. even erin had fun meeting up with the various friendships through blogging. being at the methodist church it was nice to see some metho-types in the audience as well. after-wards we went out for drinks at the broadway brewhouse, with the joneses for a new draft beer to town. the new beer, boulevard brew, out of kansas city. it is quite good, though it probably won’t take over from my early 20’s drink of choice back in nj.

back to last night. i am still processing. i don’t know if i have knowledge and language command to navigate what i heard in teaching and not making it sound like some purgatory realm. one thing erin & i liked was nt’s distinction that we are not building the kingdom but building for the kingdom. his analogy was a rock sculpture shape a rock, and that is what they do, but it is the architect who puts into its place where the true beauty shows.

many friends have already started to throw down their thoughts. so i give you a round-up of those conversations

another fun thing. i received an email from a older gentleman asking my response to his comments on the tennessean article i was quoted in. for the record, my church is "first" united methodist, not "faith" united methodist. common mistake.. not really, but oh well.

some of my conversations in the being interviewed were that. 1. this isn’t such a hard concept to grasp as we have always had a teaching of holiness movement and means of grace that is intended to be kingdom building 2. it isn’t so hard to imagine methodist’s interested in anglican folks as we are only 300 years removed from those anglican traditions of church. not to mention, we are a revival movement from that church body, so any revival in that church is probably something we are going to be interested in. but as with any of my "news" spots, my one liners are lame or total bs.

i do take down some audio of the bishop’s talk. the sound system was not in fine form. john, who was operating the system and a old family friend told me after-wards someone came in and messed it all up after he had it perfect. he was so mad. so the audio isn’t the best volume quality, but if you can plug into some speakers you can hear just fine.