I appreciated [1] Pastor Donna Simon’s comments, during the ELCA churchwide Assembly in Chicago last week, that she missed being there for several reasons.

I’ve spent the week wishing I was in Chicago with my ECP colleagues and other friends from all over the church.She lists a few practical reasons she couldn’t attend, and then: There is a ministry in being present. So I will be present in prayer, and hope that others in my congregation and other congregations across the church are also present in prayer, invoking the Holy Spirit, who is most certainly spending the week in Chicago.The ministry of presence is what the 500+ registered visitors were all about. I can’t say if all of us were on our side – the left coast of America – on the gay ordination issues. But the presence of the knitted rainbow scarves was omnipresent throughout the convention site and all over the hotel.While a few of the voting members (the people who actually could speak to the issues at microphones and cast their votes) wore the rainbow scarves, the rainbow was mostly kept outside the official speaking/voting area of the hall. As usual, they talked about us, not with us. (The exception was the fortunate arrangement that allowed many of us scarf-wearers to have breakfast and lunch with voting members each day. We did talk together. And I hope minds were changed for the better.)

But Pastor Donna’s blog started me thinking about the presence of the Holy Spirit. It is an article of faith, which I do not doubt, that the Holy Spirit is present at church conventions. I must believe, and do believe, that where two or three are gathered, Christ is present, and that when we pray “Come Holy Spirit”, the Spirit comes.

Yet know I am wondering if the Holy Spirit of God also had a ministry of presence in many hearts and throughout the house, yet did not have voice or vote. The ELCA after all is very scrupulous to control who may come up to a microphone, and who can push a button to cast a vote.

—Pastor Dan Hooper, Los Angeles