Indaba groups at Convention

At Diocesan Convention last week, we spent several hours in discussion groups using the "Indaba" format. Indaba is a term used in African villages when an issue needs to be discussed by the whole village. In an Indaba group, everyone has the right to talk and the discussion goes on as long as necessary to iron out the problem.

In the planning of the Convention, resolutions on human sexuality were proposed for debate on the convention floor. Bishop Greg asked that we use Indaba groups in place of resolutions, and that's what we did. One of our Indaba sessions was on human sexuality, and asked the question, "Is the church ready to move ahead with full inclusion of gay and lesbian people?"

In his weekly letter, he said he'd gotten a lot of feedback about the Indaba groups and the reduced amount of debate on resolutions. Here's my letter to him with my feedback:

Dear Bishop Greg,

I appreciate your comments about the Indaba discussion groups at Convention last week. For me the Indaba groups were a refreshing change from the usual debate format. Small group discussion is a much better way to engage an issue than listening to a few tedious people wield microphones on the convention floor.

Our group had a good discussion on the questions on human sexuality. The members of our group were clearly in favor of the suggestion that the church is ready to move ahead with full inclusion of gay and lesbian people. I was alone in cautioning that some people in my parish would not be ready to accept that suggestion, and we had a good discussion about how important it is to remember the whole body of the church.

One of the members of our group told about her joy in seeing the baptism in her parish of the children of her lesbian daughter and her partner. Another person told how he moved from rejection to acceptance of gay and lesbian people. It was very helpful to hear these stories.

I hope we'll continue to use Indaba groups at future conventions.

Thanks,
Bill Fulton