Last month I was a delegate to the national meeting of my denomination, the Reformed Church in America. Yes, I did speak often from the floor--for the second year in a row I was quoted in our church magazine's coverage of the meeting.

We have a saying in my denomination: we are a bird with two wings--left and right, East Coast and Midwest, evangelical and mainline--yet somehow we fly. Both wings were evident in Pella, Iowa, last month as we met on the campus of one of our schools, Central College.

Fireworks began immediately during our time of opening business. A motion was made from the floor to "dis-invite" the pastor chosen to lead worship during our several days of meeting, The Rev. Jacqui Lewis. Lewis is Senior Pastor of Middle Collegiate Church in New York City. Middle Collegiate is in the forefront within our denomination in pushing for recognition of same-sex marriages, etc. (website here) After debate she was not dis-invited. In our way of doing things our president is elected to serve a one year term as moderator of General Synod and has the privilege of choosing that year's worship leader, so the invitation was not an official denominational action. But, I think it was a bad choice politically. And, a contradiction of our denomination's stated position on same-sex practice. Some of us boycotted the following worship services. Most of us attended. (more below)

While we have a stated policy against same-sex practice, and in 2005 disciplined a seminary president who presided at a same-sex "wedding," our two-winged reality is seen in our ongoing official "dialogue" within the denomination over same-sex practice. How will it end? I fear with division.

In one aspect we certainly are mainline, we are in a 40-year decline. The provisional numbers released at Synod showed decreases in total churches, church households, confessing members, and baptized members. On the plus side, we have many thriving new church starts not yet officially organized as congregations. In a year or two we may begin a numerical upswing.