"I agree with what Andrew Watts wrote about the fact that one of the positives to come out of this uproar is the fact that the average pew sitter has suddenly realised they don't know much about the way the UCA is structured, and operates and that they have never even read the BOU."
Infact, i'd go a tad further than that. I understand that the current issue is sexuality (for a while there i was thinking that insights had been taken over by proposal 84) but the real issue for us as a church now is "How do we communicate?" or "how do we work as a national church?" In the past I would hazard to guess that the wider church community didnt know much about the UCA and it's structure because it didnt really matter. I could attend a church in a country town or a suburb and be involved there, the national assembly and the UCA as a whole church was very distant. I'd hear things from newsletters or my minister and wipe it off, it didnt REALLY have much to do with me, and if it did the national structure was so far away I couldnt change it. After all, I am only one person... What we have now is a world where we're getting much much closer, the Assembly has a webspace that EVERYONE can view, leave messages on, email people. Each Synod has a webspace and email contacts, EMU and Uniting Network and..... all of which have web spaces. And everyone can access these, everyone can have their voice heard. And it makes it easier for discenting voices to network. I'm not going to get into debate over proposal 84, I've had enough of that at home and with family and friends, however one thing that we have NOT been able to get a grasp on is how to communicate in this world. We'll send out petitions or surveys or moderator letters, like we always have. The one thing i have been interested in is how EMU have been able to get their voices together and out to the people faster and easier and more widely than we as a synod/presbytery/assembly have. And we have reaped the whirlwind, infact in many places I've noted that some people still didnt have the proper proposal in their hands, instead had the EMU responses and petition. (note in the past it would have taken a couple of months to get a petition out and signed and mailed back) Then again maybe it's easier for the discenters to get their voices out. What I'm seeing behind all of this rhetoric over sexuality and biblical interpretation is a growth in knowledge of a communty that is quickly changing, becoming closer, becoming more aware. And we still are communicating in a way that is unhelpful. It's a culture change that has already happened, yet the church is still trying to catch up with it. This current discussion is one that should be looked upon not as a sexuality crisis, however its a communication evolution. People are now becoming aware, people are now coming to the knowledge that they can have their voices heard. And the irony is that whilst EMU is calling for the "beurocrats" to overturn the decision it is blatently obvious that EMU is acting in a beurocratic way. The discussion of leaving the UCA and starting another congregation is merely a move to what people once had... a church that was independant from or so far away from the national body that it didnt matter to the average pew sitter. Darren www.tollsonline.org (should i change my email address to [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED]) --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.510 / Virus Database: 307 - Release Date: 14/08/03 ------------------------------------------------------ - You are subscribed to the mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] - To unsubscribe, email [EMAIL PROTECTED] and put in the message body 'unsubscribe insights-l' (ell, not one (1)) See: http://nsw.uca.org.au/lists.htm ------------------------------------------------------
