Indigenous and Native American perspectives ...

One of the real privileges about attending this meeting is the strong involvement of indigenous, native American and first nations peoples in the meeting. There was an extraordinary moment at the beginning of the Council when official gifts were exchanged at a wonderful drumming and welcoming ceremony.

The gift offered to the local representatives of the Native American indigenousous peoples by the newly formed World Communion of Reformed Churches was a US military sword that had been made into a ploughshare.
A peace medal from a time of treaties between colonisers and indigenous in the 19th century was offered to the presidents of the WCRC by the NAtive American leaders. Symbol of the hope for peace but of many broken promises between "anglos" and indigenous over the centuries. A sign of hope for better and tranformed relationsh in the future.

At the press briefing in preparation for the Pow Wow - which will take place later today - we heard how deeply moving this exhange had been for one Native American woman - to receive a US sword turned into a ploughshare - "In my culture anglos are referred to as people of the sword" so a sword transformed into a ploughshare has enormous meaning. You can read more from the press briefing here.

As I write this Richard Twiss is speaking to the plenary, an extraordinary address which I cannot fully capture here. He is challenging "the theology of the cowboys", reaffirming the need for an indigenous theology and making a very strong plea for the need to look at issues of land, justice, reconciliation and much, much more besides. He brought a strong challenge and a deep commitment to Jesus Christ to his address to the Council meeting.

He's now ending his address by singing and drumming, and praying for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in ever deeper discernment.
A version of Richard Twiss' address can be found here.

Bits and pieces

Those of us who are here know exactly what these three folk are watching and no it isn't the procedings from the plenary hall but a certain side event called the World Cup which is on at the same time as our Uniting General Council.
The other great resource can be see in the background and it's a climbing wall. Perhaps it's the wall of unity for all of us to try to get up? Earlier in the week younger folk were testing their strength and agility on it, it looks like good fun if you've got a head for heights and better muscle tone than me!

We are one and we are diverse

Well there was a moment while we were discussing the constitution when I thought we might not quite make it to the historic signing of the document or the singing of the doxology but we have made it!
We are one.
The early morning REC and WARC meetings went speedily through the business of agreeing to join together and become together the World Communion of Reformed Churches. Then cames the constitution and the first real test of the new rules of procedure, the discernment process with the orange and blue cards. It looked for a moment as if the issue of representation might be sent back to committee for further consideration then along came Peter Bukowski, the first person speaking in German, suggesting one more vote and the 50% representation of women in larger delegations found a two-thirds majority. In six years time perhaps the queues for the ladies toilets will be longer ... however it did seem to me that perhaps the change representation for churches entitled to send 2 delegates to increase that to 3 may actually lead to a lower proportion of women representatives from some churches.

Anyway, we are one, we have signed and celebrated and sung and we have been invited to a cook out on the lawn which was heavily rained on during the morning.

Time to celebrate and sing Unity in the Spirit in the bond of peace.