Today was in some ways a good day and yet a very tragic day. The day started at 7:30 am and went through 10:30 pm. It was good in that strong dialogue happened surrounding the issues of human sexuality and pastoral leadership. The tragic pieces were that two strong, faithful, articulate, and sensitive pastors were found guilty by the ministerium of being out of harmony with the denomination’s discerned positions on same-sex relationships. These findings now will be brought before the entire church to vote on the recommendation to permanently remove the credentials of Revs. Dan Collison and Steve Armfield. These meetings will begin tomorrow morning at 8:30 am.

The questions before the gathered body tomorrow will be either to affirm the Board of Ministry’s decision to remove the credential’s of these two pastors (as the Ministerium did) or reject these decisions. The second question will be to remove First Covenant Church, Minneapolis from the roll of Covenant churches as proposed by the Executive Board of the Covenant or reject this decision. All of these actions would be unprecedented.

Thank you for your engagement in the happenings of our denomination.