Covenant News

Son Has 'Virtual' Presence at Mom's Ordination

CHICAGO (July 18, 2000) - At the 1999 Annual Meeting of the Evangelical Covenant Church (ECC), President Glenn R. Palmberg told delegates that the ECC's Department of Communication would be producing live broadcasts of certain annual meeting events, including the ordination service, by year 2001.

The Department of Communication was one year ahead of schedule, broadcasting the Saturday evening ordination service during the 115th Annual Meeting at the St. Paul River Centre in June 2000. Eric Johnson, for one, is grateful the job was accomplished so quickly.

Johnson, vice president and chief operating officer of Covenant Trust Company in Chicago, was scheduled to arrive in St. Paul to see his mother, Evelyn M.R. Johnson, ordained as a minister and installed as superintendent of the Pacific Southwest Conference. However, major flight delays made it impossible for him to arrange a flight in time for the evening festivities. He contacted his father, Phil, that afternoon and gave him the sad report.

"About 1:30 p.m. (June 24), it was quite obvious I wasn't going to make it because other flights had been canceled," Eric said. "I felt bad, but there's only so much you can do when you're at the mercy of the airlines."

As Eric sat at home preparing to e-mail a congratulatory message to his mother, the thought occurred to him to check the Covenant web site and find out if the ordination service would be broadcast via the Internet. He was pleasantly surprised to find that indeed the ordination service was being broadcast live. Soon he was watching ECC leaders laying hands on and praying for his mother, among others. Moments later, he watched as she was installed as the new conference superintendent and was later able to tell mom that he had indeed seen her on her big day, thanks to the Communications Internet live broadcast capability.

"I knew the goal (of the ECC) was to have some Internet broadcasts, but I was kind of surprised it was there," Eric said. He said he was in the process of drafting his congratulatory e-mail message when he found the service online and watched the proceedings unfold. "I finished the e-mail and told her I watched the installation - I knew she felt better knowing, in effect, we were there for the whole thing."

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