Friday, June 19, 2009

NOW Day 1

Yesterday concluded Day 1 of the Northwest District (NOW) Convention. The only significant items of action included elections and an initial foray into the resolutions. For anyone who doesn’t already know, the NOW District is one of the more liberal districts in the LCMS.

Elected:

District President: Paul Linnemann
1st VP: Jonathan Dinger
2nd VP: Jonathan Rockey
3rd VP: Ted Werfelmann
4th VP: Mark Hoelter
5th VP: Dan Kunkel
6th VP: Phil Bohlken

You can email me if you’d like more info on these gentleman.

Regarding resolutions, the resolutions in their initial form are posted at the District website, although they aren’t being kept up to date, which means you don’t know exactly what you’re voting on until right before you vote on it – a very inconvenient truth.

Only three resolutions were voted on today. 1-01a passed, the resolved of which reads:

RESOLVED, that the Northwest District in convention urge the Synod in Convention and the Blue Ribbon Task Force on Synod Structure and Governance to provide Commissioned Ministers an opportunity to serve as voting delegates in convention.

Omnibus Resolution A passed. (An omnibus resolution is one in which multiple resolutions are combined into one, and voted on as though it was only one resolution). It included 1-05 (To Establish a Process By Which Commissioned Ministers May be Elected for DISTRICT), 1-06 (To Establish a Process By Which Commissioned Ministers May be Elected for SYNOD Conventions), 1-11 (To Memorialize Synod to Abandon Its 'Guttenberg' Ways and Embrace our "Google' World), and 1-06a (which was a better-worded replacement version of 1-13, To Recognize Synod Trained Workers not On Synod's Roster for IRS Purposes). Omnibus Resolution C, which is the Omnibus that the floor committee uses to try and get rid of resolutions it doesn’t like, was referred back to the committee by the delegates for further consideration. It includes two resolutions related to the Blue Ribbon Task Force lumped into it, 1-04, To Exercise Appropriate Care in Considering Structure Changes, and 1-10, To Memorialize Synod to Exercise Due Diligence in Implementing Structural Changes. It’s good that this omnibus was referred back to the committee rather than be dispensed with, but my guess is that it won’t reappear because we will run out of time before all resolutions are acted upon.

This is a bare-bones post, that will be followed by another bare-bones post regarding Day Two. I’ll ultimately follow these up with something more substantive. I’m rooming with our Vicar, which is a good thing. It’s not too often I find someone else who wants to talk theology 24/7, so it’s a special treat for me, and I’d rather do that than type. I’m trying to write this post while we’re sitting here deciding the future of the LCMS. You can email me on that too if you’d like to know how it turns out.

On a very sobering note, one of our lay delegates, Mr. Bill Brackman, sustained head trauma from a fall while here for the convention and died some time later. He was the lay delegate from Lutheran Church of St. Paul in Graham, Washington. We prayed for his family in convention. He is survived by his wife, children, and grandchildren, who I’m told were at his side when he died in the hospital. We mourn with his family, and at the same time rejoice with his family, as he now looks upon the face of his Redeemer.

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