Cecily Sawyer-Harmon’s Summary of General Convention
Other Accounts: Bishop Wright | Rev. Harris | Rev. Hinton | Rev. Waid | Deborah Layton | Judi Gregory | Walt Cheatham
Humbled, Honored and Blessed
Photo: Cecily on one of the jumbo screens
Humbled, honored and blessed were some of my emotions as I prepared for my second General Convention as your second lay deputy and cognate chair of Legislative Committee Number 18: Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations. Cognate chairs of legislative committees are appointed by Presiding Bishop Katharine Jefferts Schori and President of the House of Bishops, Dr. Bonnie Anderson.
As my fellow deputies have written, we were sent “Blue Books” to read and to familiarize ourselves with the 300-plus resolutions that were submitted prior to convention. By the end of the convention we had received over 450 resolutions and passed over 350. [Click here to read the Summary of GC Actions.] Resolutions are submitted by committees, commissions, boards, bishops, laity and clergy. We were also sent the book “Ubuntu: I in You and You in Me," the theme and message by which we were and did conduct General Convention. Ubuntu was written by Rev. Michael Battle with a forward by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. I recommend it to you. I began my reading and preparing for GC in May, a few days after completing my studies for the diaconate.
The cognate chairs, bishops, priests, laity, the Presiding Bishop and President of the House of deputies met in Anaheim in mid-May to receive instructions on how to conduct business as chairs of our committee (the do’s and the absolute must do’s), to meet our cognate chair, receive our committee list, and to review our committee resolutions. A special website was developed so that we could introduce ourselves to one another and have some dialogue prior to GC. I took the lead on this as Bishop Gulick was responsible for two dioceses at the time.
I co-chaired Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations with Bishop Ted Gulick. I first met Bishop Gulick when I was appointed to the Standing Commission on Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations. We became a great team at GC!! During our meeting in May, our committee received five resolutions, we were happy, other committees had 14, 23, and 30 resolutions. Ted and I prioritized the resolutions, both of us agreeing to choose one or two we felt had a good chance of passing without much controversy. We reviewed the budget process and resolutions with funding implications. We also discussed the possibility of resolutions with constitutional or canonical implications and its impact on a resolution. If there was in fact a constitutional or canonical impact, the resolution would need a review by an appointed legal advisor.
The importance of getting our House of Deputy committee report to the Secretariats with the necessary signatures of the committee chairs was stressed. Failure to do any of these things could hold a resolution up and jeopardize it getting to the House of Bishops and thus the possibility of not being acted upon. I had two wonderful individuals in our legislative aide, Paul, and Adam, who made sure our paper work reached the right place as quickly as possible, and who kept me abreast as to what was going on with our resolutions once they left our committee and were in the House of Bishops. Paul helped to keep me on point with running our meeting in parliamentary procedure.
Committee 18 was dynamic, energetic, caring and listened deeply to one another. We worked in the true spirit of “Ubuntu”. On our last committee day, several committee members told me that the activity I had them do the first day set the tone. You have already read in Episcopal Life the wok of Committee 18, and the big steps our church has taken in opening, reaffirming and expanding ecumenical dialogues.
- Resolution A073, approved overwhelming by GC, sets the basis for full communion to be established between the Episcopal Church and the Moravian Church,
- Resolution A072 reaffirmed the church’s ongoing dialogue with the United Methodist Church and expand the dialogue to include the African Methodist Church, The AME Zion Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.
- Resolution A075 adopted an agreement with the Presbyterian Church USA that allows for Eucharistic hospitality.
- Resolution A076 directs the Standing Commission on EIR to begin a dialogue with the Church of Sweden.
- Resolution A074 endorses a statement on interreligious dialogue with the other world religions. This resolution called for us to have heavy and deep theological discussion and with thoughtful and insightful input from visitors.
- Our committee held two special sessions to rewrite what turned out to be an excellent document according to the House of Bishops. Committee 18 was very proud of the work that we accomplished.
Unknown to me, as chair I would present our resolutions and our recommendations to the House of Deputies This was my first opportunity to speak in front of more than 1200 hundred people with two huge screens (oh boy). I quickly got the hang of it. (Smile)
I hope that more individuals from of our diocese have the opportunity to attend or volunteer at General Convention. It is very heartwarming and uplifting to be a part of several thousand Episcopalians, working and praying in the name of our Lord.
Shalom,
Cecily Sawyer Harmon