Friends -
Cynthia Abrams offers these reflections on the restructuring proposals:
I heard growing dissent from the African central conferences
leading up to to GC who felt excluded. In spite of this, I thought the
concentrated power behind the IOT would prevail.
My
take on this is the IOT plan originators and even the other two plans
to some extent, miscalculated by excluding the Central Conferences and
also Racial Ethnic Constituencies from almost the entirety of the
process (until the very end) in the formation of the plans. This bred
an environment for a very active opposition.
Furthermore, had the Central Conference
voices been involved in the planning from the beginning their input to
any plan that would have brought cultural authenticity to a structure
expected to equip a rapidly growing part of the church. If we adopt a
plan that doesn't provide this, we are perpetuating a Western model that
is not relevant, particularly in the African Central Conferences.
Cynthia Abrams
Clergy Reserve Delegate & Staff for the General Board of Church & Society
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