A New Moderator

(Written by Allison)

Nothing every goes exactly according to plan, right? It certainly didn't in the plan to elect a Moderator and Vice-Moderator of the 221st General Assembly. (On Twitter, it's been dubbed #technopalypse.

Not Plan A, which was to vote using an on-line program.

And not Plan B, which was to vote using "the clickers" as they are known in Presbyterian circles.

BUT Plan C came through for us: paper ballots!

And by an act of the hand of God, a Moderator and Vice-Moderator were elected on THE. FIRST. BALLOT. (Seriously, this is divine intervention. I saw Jesus right here.)

The hour was late and the commissioners and advisory delegates were beginning to grumble, as the plans failed. But a little bit of #oldschool technology saved the day and the fan-favorite (which was clear from the amount of clapping he received, was elected.

Meet HEATH RADA and LARISSA KWONG ABAZIA. (Check out what The Presbyterian Outlook wrote about the election.)

From a BBP perspective (generally, we are conservative-esque and evangelical-ish), none of the three candidates were particularly exciting to us. In fact, they were all pretty similar in beliefs. (Check out the post I wrote earlier about the candidates.)  (Fellow commissioner Mark Plumb astutely observed "shame on us" for not encouraging a conservative evangelical to stand for Moderator on his blog.)

I believe that God is alive and active and present in the PC(USA) so Mr. Rada must be God's choice for this Assembly. And while I might not agree with him on this year's hot-button issues, I do believe he will serve with humility and a great sense of humor, judging from the gracious and humorous way he handled an awkward moment in last night's meeting. (And by that, I mean he forgot HE was the one who was supposed to close the assembly in prayer! I can only imagine just how shocking and overwhelming it is to take over a GA plenary session as a newly elected Moderator so I fault him not for this. :-)

I look forward to seeing if he truly is as interested in unity as he says he is; if the conservative evangelical commissioners and advisory delegates at this Assembly are given the same place at the table as other sub-groups within the Presbyterian Church.

Only time will tell.