A Long Productive Day

It has been a long productive and joy filled day.

The day started with Eucharist celebrated in Spanish. The worship at general convention has been truly uplifting - the great question at the end of services has often been - who preached and who were the musicians - unfortunately that information has not been printed in the programs. Rumor has it - it is posted somewhere, I just haven't found it yet.

There was a lot of legislation to come before us today, much of it left from yesterday.

We elected 7 members to Executive Council - the youngest a deputy from the diocese of CT, just 30 years old, Yeah for our church.

We elected a new president of the House of Deputies - Rev. Gay Jennings who will become President at end of this general convention. Tomorrow we will elect the VP.

Here are a few of the resolutions the came before the House of Deputies:

Restructure of the Church which as you can imagine generated much debate and attempts to amend the resolution. After what seemed like an endless time the vote was called and the resolution was passed.  What will happen as a result of this resolution is  a committee will be appointed consisting of a wide range of members from across the church, made up of laity, clergy and Bishops - this committee has an end time to report back to the 78th general convention in 2015.

Anglican Covenant - the resolution that was presented was to say not yet.  The resolution was overwhelmingly passed.

The Bishops joined us for an hour at the start of the afternoon session, for the presentation of the budget.  Check out the general convention web site for the full budget at:
http:\\general convention.org. The budget will be voted on later this week.

The most joyous vote of the day was at the end of day the vote on Blessings of Same Sex Marriages.   There was a lot of respectful debate - back and forth in favor and against. A motion was made to split the resolution into 2; if either had been defeated it would have sent it all back to the House of Bishops - that motion was voted down and we moved on to vote on the resolution.  A move to vote by order was called - 78% yes in the lay order and 76% yes in the clergy order. Of note is that there was no cheering or clapping - respect for each other.  There were tears of joy in celebration. Thanks Be to God.

Much more work to be done - Your continued prayers are much appreciated.