Last night after the Church Orders committee voted overwhelmingly in favor of LGBT equality, New Church Revolution held a revival. Gospel music, food, celebration... typing fails to express the joyous energy of that prayer-filled night. I'd have to sing the songs with you to communicate it properly.

Joel 2.18-32 was the core of the service, echoing through everything that happened. Richard Lindsey preached a prophetic sermon on the pouring-out of the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit makes us church. We do not need to wait to be invited into their church, he said; we are to invite them into the church we have found here. "Why should we ask all the Israelites to go back to Egypt?" he said.

There was such cheering. There was such joy in the house.

Reflecting on this and our more formal worship service on Sunday, I think again and again of the vitality in worship that our LGBT community has. That's not a comment about the tempo of the music or the excited cadences of anyone's voice. (We have quiet worship too, provided no one yells out any wisecracks.) More than anything it's about the relief on people's faces. In worship we are like something that's been bottled up in a jar for a long time, and the lid just came off, and everyone's heart flies up faster than sight in gratitude and freedom.

I've seen this kind of relieved vitality in a few other places. In churches of color. In churches in the U.S. whose language is not English. In churches of predominantly poor people (of any color.) In the prayers of homeless men about to sit down to a big meal.

I don't really know what to call it, or how to analyze it. Maybe it's a special gift of the Holy Spirit to people on the margins, for He knows how badly the people on the margins need it. Or maybe it's something about our response to the Spirit, that our ability to respond does get bottled up and twisted around by oppressive structures, and it takes a worship environment that's less influenced by those structures to un-bottle and un-twist us. I don't know. All I know is it's real, and the church needs it. I think of all the staid, dull, dead, rote worship services I've sat through in mainstream churches. If the church doesn't want to die, it needs the vibrancy of the margins. The church needs this. This is the revival for today.

http://holy-vignettes.blogspot.com/2008/06/general-assembly-blog-day-5-revival.html

Those who are called to ordained service in the church, by their assent to the constitutional questions for ordination and installation (W-4.4003), pledge themselves to live lives obedient to Jesus Christ the Head of the Church, striving to follow where he leads through the witness of the Scriptures, and to understand the Scriptures through the instruction of the Confessions. In so doing, they declare their fidelity to the standards of the Church. Each governing body charged with examination for ordination and/or installation (G-14.0240 and G-14.0450) establishes the candidate’s sincere efforts to adhere to these standards.

Today, June 24, 2008, the Committee on Church Orders and Ministry recommended to the 218th General Assembly that the above new language replace the old version of this portion of the church constitution in the Book of Order. The current language, approved by the PC(USA) in 1997, has long been used as a weapon against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender persons who have sought to answer God's call to them to serve the church as Elders, Deacons, and Ministers of the Word and Sacrament.

The vote of the committee was 41-11. This is an astonishing 80% of the members of this group of commissioners.

Earlier in the day, the same committee voted to uphold the action of the 217th General Assembly in its authoritative interpretation (AI) regarding "scrupling" (a process in which an individual being examined for ordained office in the church can declare that his or her faith and conscience leads them in another direction than the one declared by the church). This ability was threatened by a decision of the church's highest court, the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission, in a case called Bush, et al. v. Presbytery of Pittsburgh.

The decision in the Bush case has effectively put a stumbling block in the middle of the road to ordination for TAMFS Minister-Coordinator Lisa Larges. If the General Assembly acts to approve this AI, Lisa's--and many other's--ordination processes will be back on track.

“The 218th General Assembly (2008) affirms the authoritative interpretation of G-6.0108 approved by the 217th General Assembly (2006). Further, the 218th General Assembly (2008), pursuant to G-13.0112, interprets the requirements of G-6.0108 to apply equally to all ordination standards of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). Section G-6.0108 requires examining bodies to give prayerful and careful consideration, on an individual, case-by-case basis, to any departure from an ordination standard in matters of belief or practice that a candidate may declare during examination. However, the examining body is not required to accept a departure from standards, and cannot excuse a candidate’s inability to perform the constitutional functions unique to his or her office (such as administration of the sacraments).”

The committee also affirmed its support for the 2006 Peace, Unity, and Purity report of the Theological Task Force by voting 42-12 to answer five overtures that would have rescinded or amended the report with the action taken on the new authoritative interpretation.

Actions of Other Committees:

Also approved to be submitted to the General Assembly was the overture from the Presbytery of Denver that would strengthen Presbyterian commitment to pastoral care and to equal civil rights for families of same-gender loving couples. It would also establish a study committee to explore the theology and practice of marriage and related matters. Although this overture is not as affirming and powerful as the one submitted by the Presbytery of Baltimore on marriage, it is still one that will move the church in the direction of recognizing our relationships.

An overture initiating the process of replacing the inaccurate translation of the Heidelberg Catechism currently in our Book of Confessions with a translation faithful to the original language was passed. The other part of the PC(USA)'s constitution, the Confessions are both a witness to our faith and a teaching tool for the faithful. The version of the Heidelberg Catechism currently in the Book of Confessions contains several passages that are inaccurate translations of the original language, including mistranslations that are used against queer people.

That All May Freely Serve thanks everyone who worked so hard to bring these overtures and proposals from sessions to presbyteries to the General Assembly, and for those Overture Advocates who presented the work to the committees. Thanks and appreciation also go to committee members who advocated for fairness and love, and the inclusion of all God's children in the Church and the world.

The work of all of the committees has now concluded, and the entire body will begin its deliberations in plenary sessions tomorrow. This work shows that the Spirit is blowing through San Jose, and that there is, indeed, a New Church (R)evolution going on! Pray that this continues on the floor of the General Assembly tomorrow, when the entire body meets to consider these recommendations.

Today I attended the hearings for the removal of G-6.0106b from the Presbyterian's Book of Order. Over 60 people signed up to testify for or against the deletion of this amendment. I spoke in favor of having G-6.0106b removed to the committee that will eventually vote to send it to the full floor of the assembly. It is hard to comprehend sometimes why any Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, or Transgender (LGBT) person would remain in the PC(USA). Even with so many supportive and loving people in this denomination I am not sure why we continue to stick around. The church has made it explicitly clear that LGBT people are not welcome. Psychologists, therapists, and probably most people would say we are a bit insane. And to some degree I concur. It is a bit insane! I'll come back to this in a minute.

I first want to talk about the people who spoke to keep G-6.0106b in the Book of Order. The majority of people were part of the X-gay movement. I am not sure if they actually went through an X-gay degayification program, but you know what I am talking about. They would get up there and say, "I have struggled all my life with same-sex attraction. I even experienced life as a gay/lesbian individual and my life was horrible. Thanks to the church and Jesus Christ I was brought back to my heterosexuality. And here are the three children [holds up picture of children] that I have had with my husband/wife. So please keep G-6.0106B in the Book of Order." There were at least 7 people that said something like this while I was in the room today. First of all how sad is that? That was my first response. How horribly sad for these people. My second thought was how the HELL does this have anything to do with G-6.0106b? If a gay/lesbian person wants to live their life as a pseudostraight person then great! But how does choosing that path provide an argument for keeping someone like me from being ordained in the PC(USA)? The whole thing is just ridiculous.

The other thing that struck me today were all those beautiful gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender individuals bearing witness to God's call in their life and the church's refusal to accept them as leaders. You can see it on every single LGBT person that has stuck with the church. You can see it in their eyes and you can see how their hearts ache. Beautiful children of God sharing what they know to be true. The church says one thing and yet we know that God's call is real and powerful. We know another reality exists. It always reminds me of the story of the blind man that was given sight in John's gospel. The Pharisees keep asking, "how could this happen!?!" And the blind man always responds, "I don't know I can only tell you what happened to me... I can only share the experience I know." That is all we can do as LGBT people... share the call God has placed in our hearts. We have no idea why it is happened to us no more than a straight person called by God. All we know is that it has happened. If the Presbyterian Church wants to know how this can happen...then my advice is for them to drag Jesus to the stand and have Him testify. But my guess is that the church is really not interested in what Jesus has to say about this issue even if they could get Jesus on the stand. The church is too busy trying to protect the purity of the church than to listen to Jesus.

So why again do we LGBT people stay in this broken discriminatory denomination? There are some things I guess we can never fully answer. For me I stay because I care. It sucks that I care, but I do. I wish I didn't and I could just walk away. But right now I care too much to walk away. So I am here in San Jose taking a week of vacation from my job to testify why the church should allow me and so many others to be ordained in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

-from the desk of David Paul

For more, go to > newchurchrevolution.blogspot.com.

The week at San Jose will be filled with many exciting events such as the poster making/art party and the Outdoor Revival Worship Service. There will also be the daily thought-provoking Noon Time Events and Techno-Evening Prayers.

All the news updates and events information can be found at the website newchurchrevolution.googlepages.com .

Monday June 23-Friday June 27, just a quick ten minutes or so.

Find us at the Rolling Hospitality Center -- our RV which will be parked in the lot at the corner of Almaden Blvd and Park Avenue, one block from the Convention Center.

Come pray for our church, and pray for our world!

Here is another way for you to support That All May Freely Serve. There are a number of items available for you to purchase to support TAMFS both visually and financially. 17% of your purchase amount will go to TAMFS.

Go to TAMFS items on Zazzle!.

Thanks to Kim Krueger.

The New Church (R)evolution video starring Lisa and Richard Lindsay is up on You Tube! Take a few minutes to watch it!

New Church (R)evolution Video

Our NCR team is complete and we would love to have others join in our events during GA. If you’re coming to GA and would like to help out, contact Lisa at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

At it’s May 3, 2008 meeting the That All May Freely Serve unanimously adopted the following positions to guide our work at the 218th General Assembly:

• that in accordance with TAMFS' historical stand, our strategy for GA is to support Delete B Overtures and that in addition we support the Overture to correct the PJC decision that separates belief from practice.
• that TAMFS support legislative changes that broaden the definition of covenantal relationships recognized by the church.
• that TAMFS support the Overture regarding the correction of the Heidelberg Confession.