Conventional

This weekend our diocese comes together for our annual diocesan convention. All the churches of the diocese send delegates, both lay and clergy. We vote on the budget for the next year, and on any resolutions before us. All of it functions more or less like our civic government (since some of the same people created both the American governmental structure and the Episcopal Church). But we also celebrate the Eucharist together, attend workshops (this year, a panel on Episcopal Community Services and a theological panel on Christian nationalism), eat together, and hear about good work and ministry happening in all parts of the diocese. We join our fellow Episcopalians and remember our part in the larger church around us. With a strong Bishop, healthy clergy, and growing churches here in San Diego, it is a genuinely joyful, inspiring time.

I confess that conventions have grown on me slowly over my 26 years of ordination. My first convention experiences tended to be dry and perfunctory, and my attendance there seemed mostly meaningless (albeit required). But I have gradually become a fan. Conventions get us outside of our parish churches to hear what is happening in other communities around us. We hear good ideas; meet wonderful, faithful people; celebrate exciting ministries making a real difference in the world. And as awkward as the rules of order can be to follow, I have seen real, substantive debate and conversation happen on important issues. As a democratically governed church, we vote on real things, both large and small, that affect our common life and the church's work in the world. All of that is why I've also gotten myself involved in our national General Convention: I'll be attending my second one of those next summer in Phoenix.

My Gen X self finds this all rather amusing. What happened to my anti-institutional posturing of old? Yet somehow, in the messiness of human democracy -- in the church and in the world -- God seems to be at work.