The Epic, Pt. 65

At noon on the day of the meeting with the executive committee (May 28, 2009) Brother G received a phone call from Elder Ramirez. (Presentations on the Takoma Park issue were to start at 4pm.) He wanted to know which members of the spokesgroup would be presenting to the executive committee. When he was told that the Group expected all four members of the spokesgroup to participate his reaction was, "Oh no, no! We need to stick with the three person format we have used throughout this process."

Brother G started calling other Group members about what to do. The conclusion reached was that Brother G had to take part because he had been the primary spokesperson throughout the process. Sister L was needed because she was to give the PowerPoint presentation the Group had prepared. That left either Elder C or Brother X to be cut. It was decided that Brother X would be in the room because he was the more naturally vocal of the two and would be more likely to jump into any debate that might arise during the meeting.

Brother G first reached Sister L with news of the developments about 2pm. He tried to contact Elder C and Brother X, but the messages didn't get to them. The news that he would not be in the room didn’t reach Elder C until he walked into the church where the meeting was being held. There were also quite a few members of the Group who showed up with the expectation of being able to sit in on the meeting to express their support, as Elder Miller had not placed any limit on attendees during the May 19 meeting. However, when the meeting turned its attention to the Takoma Park situation Elder Miller declared that it was immediately going into executive session (which he had said in the May 19 meeting would not happen until after the presentations). This meant that all of the assembled Group members, except for the three presenters, were excluded from the room. Since they were not welcome in the room the excluded Group members held a spontaneous prayer meeting down the hall for the duration of the presentations and following questions.

As Elder Miller had laid out the week before, each side was given seven minutes to make an uninterrupted presentation. First Sister L made the presentation on behalf of the Group, then Pastor DeSilva presented his position. The next phase of the format Elder Miller had created was for the committee members to ask questions of clarification. He had determined 20-40 minutes for questions, but that phase ended up lasting more like 60 minutes. The spokesgroup found the question period frustrating because no direct rebuttal was allowed. The presenters were only permitted to speak if the question was directed to them and on the question. The Group had been expecting that, much like a debate, the question period would allow both sides to answer a question and thereby work in more details and arguments than it was possible to include in the original seven-minute presentation. Not having that option meant that the executive committee didn’t get as well-rounded an explanation of the positions as it otherwise would have received. After the questions the committee broke for supper (it was about 6pm by then) with the intent of coming back afterwards for a closed discussion of the matter. Neither presentation group was invited to be present for the discussion. It would be nearly two weeks before the outcome of that discussion was made known.

Because of the significance of the content of the executive committee meeting we are going to describe it in as much detail as possible. We will break it up into three additional chapters of the Epic: our statement, Pastor DeSilva’s statement, and the committee questions.

Next: Making Our Case

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