A Divine Vision is Set Before Us
"When we participate in continuing revelation, we engage with God's Spirit, unfolding and revealing throughout time."
With these words, Katie Harmon-McLaughlin, Community of Christ's Spiritual Formation Director, invited us into a moment of blessing and preparation. I was struck by the connectedness I felt to those who had come before me seeking to discern God's movement and calling. Apostle Designate Lachlan Mackay called to memory stories of the church's journey in the late 1920's. They too faced financial strain; they too stepped boldly down a path that wasn't clear. And yet, there we sat in the very same conference chamber that church members so long ago had worked faithfully to build.
The voices of our predecessors seemed to blend right in with ours when we hummed together our beloved hymn, "The Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning." Sacred memory guided us into the future as we reflected on the Words of Counsel given to the church for possible inclusion in the Doctrine and Covenants.
When the full conference deliberates over additions to the Doctrine and Covenants, delegates are given the chance to speak on their support or lack of support of the words that have been given. We are invited to reflect on their prophetic wisdom, and share how they have impacted our lives. One section was particularly powerful to me:
"...It is not right to profess oneness and equality in Christ through sacramental covenants and then to deny them by word or action. Such behavior wounds Christ’s body and denies what is resolved eternally in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ."
Many shared about the power of this section through testimonies of alienation and suffering. Scripture is prophetic when it challenges us and makes us uncomfortable. This passage calls us to a kind of oneness that takes deliberation and action.
This afternoon, we voted as a community to include these words of counsel in the Doctrine and Covenants as section 165. May we go boldly forward, fully embracing the call of what is now 165:1a "Community of Christ, a divine vision is set before you"!