Ok, they told us to bring comfortable shoes. What they SHOULD have told us was to bring roller skates or a scooter or something like that! Another Milwaukee Presbyter counted the steps from the door out of our hotel to the doors of the convention center--396, and that doesn't count the steps getting to the door or getting to the room in the convention center. Today I made three round trips, and I was carrying my computer all the time. Where's the tub to soak my feet?

Enough complaining. Today we met in our committees and began actually making decisions. The first thing my committee had to do was act on an appeal from another presbytery. Then we were matched with one of the other committees. The purpose of this "matching" was to have one or two of us observing each of the other 14 committees so that we could begin to determine how their work was going and what the "hot button" issues might be. We spent the afternoon with our "match," and then met back together this evening for a preliminary report. From what we had learned, we began to have a sense of how some of the docket for the plenary sessions should be constructed. We didn't want to put two contentious items together in one session if possible. Some of the "hot button" items need to be acted on before other items (whether hot, neutral, or cold). We also didn't want to have items that might create more heat than light right at the end, before the closing worship. So we began to outline the agenda and develop an order of the day.

One of the things I'm thankful for is that I already knew (at least somewhat) Robert's Rules of Order. The committee I was watching got bogged down quite a bit at first with knowing how to amend a motion, what they were voting on, etc. I was also pleased to see that while Presbyterians "do everything decently and in order," i.e., they follow the rules, they also spend time trying to find out where God is leading and how to follow Him. Two things were emphasized both in my committee and the committee I was watching. The first was prayer for discernment for both the individual and the group. The second is that God ultimately speaks through the group. This is not to say that the group is never wrong, but rather that it is more likely for an individual to be wrong (unless, of course, he or she is a prophet) than for the group. Again, this goes counter to our American attitudes, but it is a major principle in the Reformed tradition.

Well, it's past my bedtime, so I think I'll stop for now. Let me know if you have any questions or comments.

Sara