Honesty and Vision

As part of following GC40 from a distance (note that had I known how the balls that I had in the air would land in terms of my time availability I would have accepted a nomination to attend this meeting as a commissioner. Ah well there is always 2012) I have been reading this blog.

Today I read this particular post and was greatly impressed by the wisdom contained within it. To quote:

Before any significant decision is made at this General Council, commissioners heard from Don Hunter, the chair of the Permanent Committee on Finance...Don was clear in his message that the General Council sets the priorities of the church, and so is free to approve anything before it. He pointed out, however, that with every approval, commissioners should be prepared to identify what they want to eliminate in order to fund the new initiative...He then offered some visionary ideas as to where the United Church might be in 10 years which really started the discussion. Every urban church located in a mall? Sell half our current church properties to fund ongoing ministry? Cut General Council committees to 10 (from present 70+)?

If this is a sample of the wisdom that is present at GC I am comforted. Hopefully the words are heard and not ignored as "inconvenient" or "un-hopeful" or "unpleasant". NOw if we could just get all other courts of the church to hear and put into practice the same wisdom (Presbytery and Conference folk I am looking at you!)