Followers of this blog may remember that at the last Synod we were using ‘the Crystal platform’ for all our voting. I think I wrote a blog then called ‘The Crystal Maze’ because sometimes it felt a bit like that as we manoeuvred our way through its complexities. Anyway, if you have been listening in on Synod this time you will have heard the Chair constantly referring to ‘Lumi’. This in fact is the voting platform that we are now using.
What it means I do not know – the word I mean. Maybe it’s from the Latin for light, in the sense that it sends a ray of light into debates and voting. However, much more fun might be what the Urban Dictionary tells me, that “lumi” is an acronym for “love u mean it.” What a difference that would make to the workings of the General Synod and, indeed, the whole of the life of the Church of England – “Lumi”, “Love u mean it” – if that were true.
Whatever the company means by the name they chose for their voting platform product, we have used it well today. So many of the debates have involved multiple votes, such as the long debate on Amendments to Standing Orders. Those debates, though they are the joy of people who obviously love Standing Orders and live and breathe them, are in fact vital to the good working of the Synod and so to the benefit of every member.
Other items today have been around such things as the annual reports of the Church Commissioners and the Archbishops’ Council, around progress on safeguarding, on housing, on the budget. In addition we have also had an update on ‘Living in Love and Faith’ (LLF). LLF, as you will know is the latest part of the agonising and long drawn out process whereby the Church of England struggles through the issues of human sexuality. We have just gone through Pride month. I was delighted that Southwark Cathedral’s social media presence was all branded with the rainbow version of our logo. This was not intended to provoke people, to wind them up, nor to suggest that this above all other issues is what Southwark Cathedral is about. We did it to show that we stand in solidarity with our LGBT+ sisters and brothers, that we have pride in one another, that we aren’t still agonising, that we are celebrating. The message really is LUMI – Love you, mean it. Whatever comes out of LLF I hope that simple message can ring out loud and, yes, proud. We love you, whoever you are, and we mean it, and God loves you and means it.
We always have to return to John 3.16, it is a foundation stone of our life and is so clear and unequivocal.
For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3.16)
It’s the LUMI message writ large and written on the palms of divine hands nailed to the cross. As the body of Christ surely that has to be our message too.
God of love, we know you mean it. When I speak of love may I mean it too. Amen.
Andrew Nunn's reflections from General Synod 
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