Honduras Trip--Day 3

Saturday: After a lovely breakfast and a moving devotional, the assembly was called back to order and I was given the opportunity to address the assembly on behalf of the synod. Not having a command of the language as the other visitors did (all of them were native speakers) I wrote down what I wanted to say ahead of time so that I could be both prepared and speak in intelligible Spanish. Several people came up to me afterwards and said, “You speak better than most of us.” That made my day!

Most of the day was spent in discussing and approving the rest of the Internal Rules and Regulations of the Church. The first point today was to define the process for dealing with serious conflicts and ethical violations in the church. I thought this would take hours, but they resolved it in 20 minutes.

Elections were held after lunch. After a long explanation concerning the rules of the elections and a prayer by yours truly, Rev. Martin Giron won the presidency by two votes in only one of two secret ballots. The bishop from Costa Rica counted the votes in the presence of the assembly. Martin was one of two pastors recently ordained by the ICLH and was serving a church in La Ceiba. Unfortunately, that church will now be without a pastor, again. Rev. Hernan Lopez, the recently ordained pastor, was chosen as the new Secretary General of ICLH. This is also a paid position, as is the presidency, but I was under the impression that it is NOT a full-time position, meaning Hernan will probably still serve the congregation he has in his charge. The young, 25 year old, Gloria Rodriquez was elected treasurer, and Suyapa Ordonez became the Fiscal for the church, a position defined as a kind of administer (a position uniquely Latin American, from what I can tell). The regional members of the council include Inmer Martinez from the Atlantic Region (a young man trying to get into college), Susana Barahona from the Northern Region, and Mauricio Barreatos for the Central Region.

The new council is very young, and everyone seemed truly excited for the new council. A group photo followed the elections, and the assembly took some time to present a list of challenges for the future work of this new group.

A letter was received from a congregation in San Pedro Sula announcing its withdrawal from ICLH. It were a former Anglican church that decided it wanted to go in a different direction. After a lengthy conversation, the assembly organized a group to visit the congregation to express their sorrow for their leaving and to find out the reasons.

The rest of the afternoon and evening was spent with the DECOFE chairperson reviewing the areas of strength and weakness of the work of each congregation and mission point of ICLH. It seemed a bit painful for some of the participants to hear the summary of their respective congregation, and some of the evaluation was quite pointed. But the church is committed to growth, Christian education, mission, ministry, worship and stewardship and they definitely hold one another accountable, in a public way. I was wondering how our own congregations would like to have such a public accounting of their mission and ministry. I am sure that many a pastor and lay leader would cringe at the thought.

They set the date for their next national assembly: June 11-13, 2010 in La Ceiba. I would love to attend that one. La Ceiba, as many of you know, is on the coast of the Carribean. What a great place to hold an assembly.

As night came, Mary and I found that everyone wanted to celebrate, both the end of the meeting and the close of a long session. We found the visitors gathered in the lobby drinking wine, and we took some time to talk with them about the events of the day. We then headed upstairs to our room, but another party was going on in the upstairs lobby, where all the Hondurans were drinking beer and sharing stories.

They loudly invited us to join them. The conversation was centered on the church and some of their own personal stories. They are a happy group and we shared in their joy of being together.

Observation: I still hold that the future problems facing ICLH will be centered in the ministerial—the pastors. I wanted to watch and listen to them throughout the assembly to see how well they fit into the process of the church, how open the assembly was to hear their ideas, and how prepared they were to speak theologically to the issues facing the church. I must say I was greatly disappointed in the new pastors. They are just that, NEW pastors, with all the stuff that goes with new pastors serving a church for the first time as an “ordained’ clergy with four years of theological education. They are “green” and unaware of the issues, conflicts, and trials they will face. But more importantly, they seemed unable to speak theologically or spiritually to any of the issues to which they spoke. They did not present any kind of spiritual insight or piety that could rally a frustrated and confused church. The young members of the council will look to the clergy for guidance, but they are so young and theologically fragile to be of much inspiration, in this stage of their pastoral development. I pray that the pastoral leadership offered by LWF and the many other bodies that have contributed spiritually and financially to ICLH through Latin America and the world, can still offer some guidance for this struggling and precarious church. How our synod might be a source of insight and strength during the next two years needs to be discussed.