from The Plumb Line

Written by Mark, posted 06/15/14 at The Plumb Line--read more thoughts there.  

Last night’s meeting went very late. We listened as the three candidates for Moderator shared their vision for the PCUSA.

All three of the candidates are very progressive and proudly expressed their support for same-sex marriage - much to the delight of many of the GA commissioners.

After the votes were tallied (on paper ballots!), the General Assembly overwhelmingly elected Heath Rada as the new Moderator and Larissa Kwong Abazia as the Vice-Moderator. May the Holy Spirit direct them in all they do. 

After spending two hours this morning reviewing 2012 and 2013 minutes for two Synods, I had an opportunity to worship at suburban Orchard Lake Community Church, Presbyterian (pictured above). That church is pastored by a dear old friend, Paul Thwaite. It was wonderful to receive the hospitality of that congregation, to catch up with Paul’s wife, Jan, and to experience a wonderful worship service. In fact, the music reminded me of the incredible music that I experienced as a child at Pleasant Hills Community Presbyterian Church. I really needed a positive worship experience, and I wasn’t disappointed. 

When I returned to downtown Detroit, I finally got to go into the display area and visit with another old friend, Steve Ebling. It was so good to get caught up with a “friend-of-the-heart” as another mutual good friend, Stan Ott, calls it.

This afternoon, we had the privilege of sending missionaries into the world. As you know, the missional church has a special place in my heart, and that moment was inspirational to me. We’ve also been listening to many well-rehearsed special committee proposals that will be further discussed in the committee work that will formally begin at 7:30 tonight. 

After dinner, I will be off to the Mid-Council Issues Committee. The main work of that committee will be to consider a proposal that would decrease the number of Synods from sixteen to eight or less. 

Please continue to pray for the work of GA. The really hard, contentious work is about to begin.

#theBBP5

L-R: Josh, Mark, Mauri, Eva, Allison

A Quick Update from Mauri

Written by Mauri

What a beautiful sunny day today! 

We got off to a good start this morning by worshiping in a number of local Presbyterian churches. I attended First Presbyterian in Plymouth. I was warmly welcomed and blessed by the worship service. 

And to top it off, I had one of those "small world" moments--one of the associate pastors is a close friend of my pastoral colleague back in our Beaver-Butler Presbytery--Jordan Rimmer. 

Now we are back together to start our afternoon plenary session. Praying that all goes well and the technological problems we had yesterday will be cleared up. 

Here we go!

A New Moderator

(Written by Allison)

Nothing every goes exactly according to plan, right? It certainly didn't in the plan to elect a Moderator and Vice-Moderator of the 221st General Assembly. (On Twitter, it's been dubbed #technopalypse.

Not Plan A, which was to vote using an on-line program.

And not Plan B, which was to vote using "the clickers" as they are known in Presbyterian circles.

BUT Plan C came through for us: paper ballots!

And by an act of the hand of God, a Moderator and Vice-Moderator were elected on THE. FIRST. BALLOT. (Seriously, this is divine intervention. I saw Jesus right here.)

The hour was late and the commissioners and advisory delegates were beginning to grumble, as the plans failed. But a little bit of #oldschool technology saved the day and the fan-favorite (which was clear from the amount of clapping he received, was elected.

Meet HEATH RADA and LARISSA KWONG ABAZIA. (Check out what The Presbyterian Outlook wrote about the election.)

From a BBP perspective (generally, we are conservative-esque and evangelical-ish), none of the three candidates were particularly exciting to us. In fact, they were all pretty similar in beliefs. (Check out the post I wrote earlier about the candidates.)  (Fellow commissioner Mark Plumb astutely observed "shame on us" for not encouraging a conservative evangelical to stand for Moderator on his blog.)

I believe that God is alive and active and present in the PC(USA) so Mr. Rada must be God's choice for this Assembly. And while I might not agree with him on this year's hot-button issues, I do believe he will serve with humility and a great sense of humor, judging from the gracious and humorous way he handled an awkward moment in last night's meeting. (And by that, I mean he forgot HE was the one who was supposed to close the assembly in prayer! I can only imagine just how shocking and overwhelming it is to take over a GA plenary session as a newly elected Moderator so I fault him not for this. :-)

I look forward to seeing if he truly is as interested in unity as he says he is; if the conservative evangelical commissioners and advisory delegates at this Assembly are given the same place at the table as other sub-groups within the Presbyterian Church.

Only time will tell.

Reflection

Written by Josh McElhaney

To reflect on my time so far at the General Assembly I could use two words and that would be controversial and difficult. The one thing I was excited to experience was the different opinions I would hear but some of them have been so radical views on some issues that will have a huge impact on our church and this could be extremely negative. I believe that everyone is entitled to their opinions and that is the best thing about our country; however, these could be a death sentence for our church.

Last night we selected a moderator. None of the candidates truly stood out to me in the fact that they had many of the same views on the hot-topic issues. And in this vote we experienced the extreme negative impacts of technology and the more frustrating side of it.

Our theme for this blog and this week is where we find Jesus and I think, looking at it early on, the place I most find Jesus is the impact that the YAADs advice and vote has on the commissioners vote and selection. The YAADs choice for moderator was the overwhelming selection by the commissioners.

I am extremely excited to see what the rest of this week will bring and I have been very blessed to be given this opportunity and to work with 4 extraordinary people from the Beaver-Butler Presbytery.

Spot On with Social Media

(Written by Allison)

Friends, I am super impressed by the level of social media engagement that #ga221 has attained in just our first 24 hours of meeting.

1. You HAVE to watch this video, a parody of a song from the musical Les Miserable. (It's funnier when you know the personalities featured but I think it's still pretty entertaining to watch. Listen to the lyrics--soooo Presbyterian!)




2. Secondly, we learned that "everything is awesome" with #ga221legos. Two COLA team (Committee on Local Arrangements) members gave some explanations and talked about the Assembly's theme of "Abounding in Hope" (Romans 15:13 "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.") 

They then asked commissioners and advisory delegates to look under the tables. When we did, we found a bag of Legos!! Our task was to build SYMBOLS OF HOPE using the Legos and to share them on Facebook and Twitter using #ga221legos. 

"Lego-gotha"

After a little bit of playing around, #theBBP5 built the three crosses on the hill named Golgotha. We dubbed our creation, "Lego-gotha!" 

3. Finally, the GA also gave away free downloads of the PC(USA) daily prayer app by sending a text message.

I took advantage of this offer, presuming that by doing so I had just signed myself up on some mailing list. BUT this was an app on my "to purchase" list so I thought, why not??

(It's available to download for the device of your choice.)


Combine all this with the live stream of worship and plenary sessions, the Guidebook app (with the VERY hand personal schedule) and the PC-BIZ app (which is a little buggy on my iPhone but pretty good on my iPad), I am proud of the way our denomination is working to engage all kinds of folks sitting around these tables. (AND it makes it more fun for folks at home to play along as well!)

(Read THIS POST to catch up on the apps I just mentioned.)

I Saw Jesus

(Written by Allison)

The theme for this year's Assembly is from Romans 15:13: "May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit."

It's probably obvious why a city like Detroit would choose a verse like this for the theme. But in case you're wondering, check out this awesome video:


Sharing the Spirit of GA: Part 1 from Office of the General Assembly on Vimeo.


While you may hear terrible, terrible things about Detroit (which are all true, by the way) rest assured it is not ALL like that. Some parts ARE working to blossom and strive. And the church--OUR church--is a part of that. Beauty can carry folks through difficult times. Here's where I found beauty and hope and Jesus this morning.

Hear these words again, this time from "The Message:" 

"Oh! May the God of green hope fill you up with joy, 

fill you up with peace, 

so that your believing lives, 

filled with the life-giving energy of the Holy Spirit, 

will brim over with hope!" 

I Saw Jesus

Commissioned Ruling Elder Eva Barr

Before Eva ever left Pennsylvania, she saw Jesus.

She arrived at the airport at 7:30AM, in plenty of time to catch her flight which left at 10:00AM. Not being a frequent flyer, she was relieved to see that her flight was on time.

But then it was delayed.

And delayed.

And delayed again.

And THAT meant she was going to miss her connection. So they put her on another flight, one which left at 5:39PM. She would be late arriving in Detroit but better late than never, right?

Then THAT flight was cancelled. Finally, finally, finally she was booked on another flight, this one leaving at 7:07PM.

It was around this time that the ticket agent at the United counter started to look an awful lot like Jesus as she went out of her way to make sure that Eva was going to make it to Detroit on this flight. (She walked Eva over to the counter she needed to get to as well as double-checked with her once she was done.)

Next thing Eva knew, she was really on the plane, not really much worse for wear but definitely not in the best of humor. All of a sudden, Eva said, "As I was frowning, I faced a smiling flight attending who assured me that I would soon be where I was going--just like she knew what I had gone through the entire day." Jesus started to look a little bit like a flight attendant for Eva.

Then He morphed into yet another person, a wonderful COLA (Committee on Local Arrangements) volunteer in the Detroit airport. He told Eva that he had walked 12,000 steps that day but, as she says, he was still smiling and "walked another I don't know how many steps with me to the bus that would take me to the hotel. I was never to so glad to see a friendly face like his, which looked a lot like Jesus at that moment."

First Full Day

Want to read about Mark's "First Full Day" at #ga221?

Check out his personal blog, The Plumb Line. 

Tell Me About Jesus

Apparently we're not the only ones looking for Jesus at #ga221!! Check out this blog post...

Tell Me About Jesus

By Christopher Brown

Originally published: http://christopherbrown.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/tell-me-about-jesus/

It was a hectic morning. I’d overslept, our sixteen-month-old daughter had awakened early, and our small family was grasping for order amid the chaos of what promised to be another busy day. Trying to occupy her attention, I said,  “Why don’t we read a book?” She pointed at the bookcase, said “Book!” and proceeded to grab a copy of the Jesus Storybook Bible. I opened the pages and started reading aloud. Most of the language was still far above her head, but it went straight to my heart. With a sigh of relief I thought, It’s refreshing to simply be told a story about Jesus.

Then I had a flashback. Ten years ago, I was working in a cafe in Boulder, CO. One weeknight during my closing shift, I was sweeping the floor and preparing to clean the sparsely filled cafe when I overheard a conversation between three customers. They were college-age women having a Bible study. One, who appeared to be the leader, was talking to the others who both listened attentively. As I tried to hear more, I noticed that all she was doing was telling them stories about Jesus. And the women she was speaking to kept asking questions curiously. They wanted to hear more about Him. It was beautiful. I could have continued sweeping for hours while eavesdropping on that conversation.

These two experiences stand in contrast with most of the conversations I overhear in the Churchat large. We talk about a lot about things related to our life together, but it’s been a long time since I heard (or sadly, preached) a sermon that was only about how magnificent Jesus is. We have lots of good theological conversations at the seminary, but we constantly run the risk of reducing Jesus to a distant historical figure or a moral principle, instead of the compassionate divine lover of humankind that He is. This distancing of our conversation from Jesus seems to happen even more in the higher levels of the bureaucracy of denominations.

This weekend I’ll go to Detroit for the 221st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). I’m not a delegate; I’ll be there to represent and promote Pittsburgh Seminary’s Church Planting Initiative. There will be a lot of talk at General Assembly, good and bad, about a lot of different issues. I’ll even engage in some of those conversations. But I think we’ll all be better off – our hearts will be more joyful, the Church will be edified, our decisions will be more faithful – if we take moments this week to set aside those debates and instead focus upon Jesus. So here’s my suggestion:

If you’re attending General Assembly, try speaking about Jesus more than yourself and more than your agenda. I want to hear you tell me about Jesus. If you’re using Twitter or Facebook throughout the Assembly, hashtag your posts with #TellMeAboutJesus. For one example of a possible tweet, a member of my congregation whom I recently asked to simply tell me about Jesus responded with, “He’s the sort of person who, when he speaks, you want to hear more.” I’m thinking that if we at GA share such holy thoughts with one another, we’ll find ourselves caught up in surprisingly beautiful conversations. Perhaps we’ll even recognize Jesus’ presence with us more clearly. I pray that the Holy Spirit will inspire our words, and guard us against any blasphemy.

So here we go . . . Tell me about Jesus.  

1

One!
One day left!
Muah-ah-ah!

As we count down to the final day before #ga221, let's take a look at one of the first (and most important) things the Assembly will do as a group: elect a Moderator.

You can spend time perusing their individual websites: Kelly Allen, Heath Rada, and John Wilkinson.

OR (or maybe in addition to) you can check out the post from a former Moderator himself: (the man, the myth, the legend) Bruce Reyes-Chow.

10 questions with each candidate for Moderator.
(Click on a picture to read their answers.)

Each Moderatorial candidate also has a Vice-Moderator tapped to run with him/her.
John Wilkinson:  MaryAnn McKibben Dana
Heath Rada:  Larissa Kwong Abazia

Kelly Allen:  Leslie King 

(It used to be that a Moderator was elected and then selected a VM. But that has changed this year.)

(See?? We CAN change!)

2

Two days. Can you believe it?








Already, Detroit is starting to fill up with PC(USA)-related folks who are settling in for the week.

And many more will be joining their ranks. 

We commissioners will be busy with meetings and such but there are lots of other things to do and to see in the Motor City for family of commissioners or visitors and observers.

One of the great parts of our church is that we DON'T meet in fancy, expensive places like New York or LA. But rather, we pick cities (like Pittsburgh and Detroit) that can use the influx of cash that comes with an Assembly. (Usually close to $2 million PLUS what folks spend on their own.)

Right in front of our very eyes, we see possibility of redemption is unfolding--we see a city struggling to rebuild like Corinth and Jersulaem did after being destroyed.

It reminds me of this: