Reading 1100 Pages. Say WHAT?!

The 42nd General Council of the United Church of Canada began tonight. The hundreds of us that have gathered in Corner Brook, NL are commissioners (elected by our home Conferences), stewards (volunteers), ecumenical guests, visitors and staff of the national church. We were welcomed by a variety of folks, including Vice Chief Kevin Barnes of the Qalipu Mi'kmaq people, the town mayor and the Vice President of the university campus that we are making use of. We worshiped together, lifting our voices in song and prayer, knowing that this next week will be a time of huge decisions and changes for our United Church of Canada.

Best line of the evening was from the guest preacher, Ian March-MacCuish (using his spouse's words), "We could say that the the church has crapped out. Let's go home. After the kitchen party."

This is not from the aforementioned kitchen party - that will be Thursday. This is the campus bar called The Backlot, being inclusive and welcoming, as all good Newfoundlanders are. (Thanks David Pollard for the photo.)

Ian did go on to say some lovely, inspiring words that will keep us here for the next week, working diligently to make sure the church doesn't, in fact, crap out in the near (or, hopefully in the far) future. Stuff like, "Be not afraid" and "We are the people who are called to help find the way".

ANYWAY, it's dawning on me that the business portion of this gathering is starting tomorrow and I'm fretting about whether I've got me readings all sorted. The Workbook for GC42 is over 1100 pages. That's right. 1100 pages!!

In a moment of overwhelmed-ness, trying to read the Workbook page by page, I wondered (as EACH AND EVERY Commissioner has in the past month), "how much of this thing do I actually need to READ?" And so I took a break from reading - cause let's face it, there are only so many proposals asking, 'for the love of God, change the name of Chasing the Spirit' that one can read before distraction is required.

And this is what I found when I went through the Workbook as a whole:

• 45 pages of Contents, Letters of Welcome, Instructions and Guest Profiles
• 14 pages are profiles of the youth on Pilgrimage
• 7 pages are dedicated to those folks in the UCC who have died since GC41
• 39 pages are profiles of the Moderator nominees
• 17 pages list the origins of each (EACH!) proposal and the financial implications of each one
• 197 (!!) pages are reports
• 8 pages of proposals that we need to deal with right off the bat to even convene the official meeting
• 170 pages of proposals that we likely won't deal with directly--a sub-group has taken those on - thanks be to God for them
• 57 pages of plenary proposals - okay, now we are talking turkey
• 138 pages of proposals that will be dealt with in the smaller Commissions - my Commission (lovingly called the Partridgeberry Commission - apparently there really is a thing called a partridgeberry - see below) has responsibility for 33 pages
• 407 (!!!!) pages of General Council Executive meeting minutes and references

So, yes. Answering my question above, I DO have all my readings sorted. And they are sorted good. Time for some sleep. I need to rest up for the big discussions about to happen in the next 6 days - during the business time AND at The Backlot!!

The Partridgeberry