Thursday, June 26, 2008

GA Plenery Business Begins

My day began attending the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Breakfast followed by the Ecumenical Worship. The speaker and preacher were both Palestinian Arab Christians. Both spoke eloquently and powerfully of the power to the gospel of Jesus Christ in a nonviolent witness in the homeland of our faith. Mubarak Awad, Director of Nonviolent International and co-founder, of Palestinian Center for the Study of Nonviolence spoke eloquently of the power of nonviolent resolutions. His center is busy translating teaching materials on nonviolence for the Arab communities. Father Elias Chacour, the archbishop of the Melkite Catholic Church, and author of the book, "Blood Brothers," challenged us not to take sides in the Palestinian/Israeli conflict but to get our hands dirty in helping them move the peace process forward. Later in the day we heard from a leader in the church in Iraq. The war and the strife has cause the church to loose many of his members as they migrate to neighboring countries. They all need our prayers.

As many clergy present, I attended a luncheon with my seminary. Seth Weeldryer and Timothy Chon, Eileen and I joined our fellow alumni from Union Theological Seminary/PSCE. We heard our newly installed seminary president Brian Blunt, the first African American president of a non Black Presbyterian Seminary, speak of the visioning being done at the seminary. We have to prepare, envision and walk through doors that don't yet exist. As we think about the present and future, he reminded us of our understanding of the reign of God Jesus ushered into the world. "Jesus bent back the God's future into the present in powerful ways." So we must not think of the church as a refuge or safe place or harbor to call, as I am fond of doing. Rather the church is less as a space and more like a force breaking into the present, like an electrical cord, power of the future into the present. The church is to testify to God's future work among us and to conduct the power of God into the world today. He said, the door to God's future is through other's pain and difficulties.

Then the Assembly began its plenary business in the afternoon and continued in the evening. Under Church Growth and Christian Education

  • adopted a strategy for church growth for African American congregation
  • approved an evangelism initiative that Linda Knieremann worked on in the GAC, to Grow God’s Church—Deep and Wide in 2009 and 2010 an Initiative to Grow in Evangelism, in Discipleship, in Servanthood, and in Diversity.
  • Called for the development and publication of Adolescent Human Development Resources, after a lengthy and tedious debate. The debate demonstrated the struggle we Presbyterians have in agreeing on sexual morality, as to what to include in such a curriculum. The direction given was to provide a wide balance of materials to resource the breadth of the church. In the committee’s words, “We choose to plant a seed of peace. We set aside our individual desires to “win” and to further our own agendas and put our faith in God, and send this overture on without trying to advocate one position or another, trusting not only God, but our fellow Presbyterians to do what is right not only for our children but for our denominations. We send this overture on in the hope that the next step of the process will cultivate the seed we have planted, faithfully stepping out in mutual trust.”
Under Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations:
  • 07-05 An Ecumenical Policy Statement was recommended unanimous and passed unanimously.
  • 07-01 An overture on Calling for Tolerance and Peaceful Relations Between the Christian and Muslim Communities grew out of the shared experience of 9/11 in NYC metropolitan area, and the dialogue with Muslim neighbors that grew out of it.
A Special "Generative" Youth Committee had no study papers, no overtures to consider but was an opportunity to talk about youth and young adult concerns. A video and study paper were presented on how to listen and engage today's youth culture was I think approved for production and making available to the church. Every decision like this has a financial ramification. They are good at monitoring the financial implications with every decision.

I left the plenary with Janet Magennis then to attend a reception for the leaders of Top Ten Giving presbyteries. Lake Michigan has been in this group for some years. At the reception Janet and I were able to meet and have conversation with Linda Valentine, the executive director of the General Assembly Council, Tom Taylor, the deputy executive, and Hunter Farrell, the director of World Mission.

Pray for the commissioners. This process can be tedious as some items are considered. I had dinner with our commissioners yesterday. They are fine.

Grace and Peace,

John