Back up and at ‘em this morning for our last plenary at 9 AM. First business is to pass our new per capital amount based on all the financial implications of actions the assembly passed earlier. We authorized about 16 new task forces and study groups, everyone of which costs money. We passed an amount of $8.95 for both 2019 and 2020. The amount we end up paying at our church has the costs of the presbytery and the synod added to that amount. 

As part of the closing session, the YAADs presented financial gifts to each of the co-moderators and to the stated clerk. They took up a collection from all the YAADs and got enough to give $500 to projects dear to the hearts of each person, so that amounted to $1500 from their pockets. It was so touching and brought tears and big hugs. 

The GA ended with another worship service, but I had to leave to catch a bus to the airport. So I leave St. Louis and a fantastic and life-changing experience at the General Assembly. 

​It’s 11:15 PM on Friday night and we are still in plenary trying to get all our work done.  It has to be completed tonight because tomorrow we have only one item of business before we adjourn with a worship service.  We will most likely be here another hour or two since we still have to work through the overtures from Middle East Issues.
 
We are working now on items that have to do with the polity of the church.  These items would make changes in either the constitution or the Book of Order.  We spent a long time deliberating over several overtures that addressed the issue of family leave for pastors and others in that level of employment.  The teaching elders were insistent that action be taken on this now, as it had been kicked down the road several times, so an amendment specifying a minimum time that should be allowed, and it was further referred to a task force that would establish a more uniform policy.
 
Earlier today we heard debate on environmental issues, which involved a lengthy discussion on the divestment of PC(USA) funds from “producers of fossil fuels.”  The main issue was whether or not we should direct the Mission Responsibility Through Divestment (MRTI), the group that handles our investments, to divest now or ask MRTI to continue to engage with the companies to encourage them to move toward more earth-friendly fuels.  If you want more information on this issue, please google The Outlook from GA.  We also passed overtures dealing with climate change.
 
We also heard overtures from the Social Issues Committee, another area that brought about significant discussion.  At this hour of the night, I’m having trouble remembering exactly what we did, but I believe we passed a moratorium on executions, an overture to affirm and celebrate the full dignity and humanity of people of all gender identities, and an overture that addressed sexual misconduct in the church.  This started out to be an overture that was about acts men made against women but ended up being broader to include sexual misconduct by anyone against anybody. 
 
We are now discussion overtures from the Middle East Committee and not heard much that is divisive, which is surprising.  It is now 12:05 AM and we are finished for the day.
 
Woops!  Not so fast.  My committee still has to meet to set the per capita for the next two years.  P.S. I got back to my hotel at 1:35 and still had to pack to leave the next day.

​I’m left with the impression that today was a rousing day, but it’s strange I feel that way since we sat for several hours of business meetings today.  We again were passing or amending the overtures that were before us, one of which was a Commissioner’s Resolution written just yesterday by my colleague from Presbytery de Cristo, Bart Smith, pastor at St. Mark’s in Tucson.  It called for the end of the zero-tolerance policy and asked that families be reunited a quickly as possible in the community and not in detention, as well as asking that the resolution be sent to the President, the members of Congress, and to all the presbyteries.  It passed with only a little wordsmithing, and immediately it appeared in national Presbyterian magazines and other news sources.  The morning ended with an impressive worship service with the neatest communion service that included young children, followed by one of those inspiring sermons typical of Southern Baptist services, but this one delivered by a Presbyterian woman.  A men’s chorus from a neighborhood church sang the anthems and hymns at this service.  I’m including a couple of pictures of them.  The communion service was too far away to photograph.

​Wednesday was all business.  No marches, no protests, just business, from 9 AM until nearly 10:30 at night.  Thank goodness the Presbyterian Seminaries had lunches for their fans and alumni today.  That gave us nearly 2 hours off for lunch which I used to get outside and walk.  The area around the convention center is not commercial at all, only business centers and skyscrapers with some restaurants to provide food for them and for conventioneers like us.  My hotel is just across the street from the convention center, which is really convenient, but I take every chance I get to get out and walk.
 
The way that business gets to this meeting is this:  Someone from one of our churches proposes and idea about something they want addressed, so they send in what we call an overture but what would be called a motion in any other kind of business meeting.  It needs to be sent to the Bills and Overtures Committee 120 days before the GA if it has financial implications or 90 days if it doesn’t.  The Bills and Overture Committee compares all overtures that address the same thing and sends to the appropriate committee the one that includes most of the ideas and is the most clearly written. There are fourteen such committees, each dealing with a certain aspect of the PC(USA).  Some of them are the Social Justice Committee, the Mission Coordination Committee, the Middle East Committee, the Ecumenical and Interfaith Committee, the Environmental Issues Committee, the Church Polity and Ordered Ministry Committee, The Way Forward Committee, and and seven more.  The overtures are addressed in committee (like I wrote about) before they come before the plenary, as they did today and will continue to do for the next couple of days.  Some of the overtures are simple and are passed without much discussion, while others address issues that are complex and will take a significant amount of discussion to get agreement.  We are dealing with the relatively simple ones today, but it is fascinating to learn about all the ways our church serves its people.  The Presbyterian Church is called The Connectional Church just because it addresses all areas of concern in today’s world.
 
The theme of this General Assembly is “Building the Kin-dom,” which you can see is a play on the words “Building the Kingdom.”  We have had two very interesting Bible studies that explained how God’s kingdom is not like earthly kingdoms of the time with their top-down rule by one dominant figure.  It is more a gathering of all kin where brotherly love, not domination, is the expectation and the norm. 
 
You can learn more about all the news and activities of the GA, even those Bible studies, if you go to pcusa.org on your computers.  The first several pages give you more detail about everything I have mentioned and much more.  

​Monday and Tuesday have been busy days.  Monday we had committee meetings all day – morning, afternoon, and evening.  We held hearings on the recommendations we were assigned, heard expert testimony, and then debated the recommendations among our committee until we reached a decision as to whether the majority of us voted in favor of it.  Sometimes we amended the recommendation, and a few times we referred it back to the office that proposed it for revisions or new considerations.  It isn’t easy to spend hour after hour that way, but we did, and came back for more on Tuesday.  I took a little break at noon Tuesday to join a protest in a little park against the Trump immigration policies. We finished our work about 3 in time for me to join a march involving most of the GA participants.  If you remember I wrote earlier that our offering at the opening worship service was going to go toward helping those imprisoned because they couldn’t afford their bail, a situation that affects only the poor and causes further poverty in their lives.  Today we marched to the St. Louis jail and delivered $47,000 to be used for that purpose. Presbyteries and congregations all over the country added their funds to our offering.  It’s been a long time since I was part of a march like this, and I’ve never done it in temperatures so hot and humid, but it was a good thing to do.
 
Here are just a few of the issues we debated in our committee:  
We compromised on a proposal to raise the per capita amount by raising it next year but not the following.
We passed a proposal to change the annual questionnaire that churches (usually the clerks of session) have to fill out, but we added a comment that it go back for further clarification and expansion.
We debated a proposal that the Young Adult Advisory Delegates be allowed to vote, not just advise, for the moderators.
 
Now our recommendations go to the entire body at the plenary session tomorrow, Thursday, and Friday, with the hope that all will be finished up by Saturday noon.
 
I know that you can see GA events on Facebook if you look for PCUSA General Assembly.

About 50 of us visited First Presbyterian Church of Kirkwood, Missouri, this morning, which is about 30 minutes from downtown St. Louis in one of the many suburbs that make up the Greater St. Louis area. The church is large and relatively new, with a membership of about 1000, but about 500 active participants. The worship service was impressive, but what make it extra special is that the person who was director of music at the big opening service that I wrote about yesterday was the person who was the director of music at this church, so the music was spectacular. The prelude was three pieces by a brass and percussion ensemble, they had a new pipe organ that played so loud that I could barely hear myself sing (which I just love), and the chorus was about 70 voices of very good singers. Hymns were accompanied by both the organ and the brass ensemble, and it all was very pompous and grand. They were happy to have us commissioners there and fed us a good meal after the service.
 
I sat with several other commissioners at the meal, all from North Carolina. I have met so many people from the east and wondered why they outnumber us, but today I learned that the 10 largest presbyteries in the Presbyterian Church (USA) are in the east, and North Carolina itself has four of them. 
 
The plenary session from 2:30 to 5:00 was rather difficult to sit through because it was one report after another. We heard a report from the 2020 Vision Team, from The Way Forward Committee, and from the All Agency Review Committee, among others. I was relieved when it was over.
 
Every commissioner is assigned to serve on one of 13 committees. I’m assigned to the GA Procedures Committee, and this evening we had our first meeting, but we spent most of our time in worship and then in getting familiar with each other. Tomorrow and Tuesday we have no plenary sessions, only committee meetings, so I doubt that I will write anything until Tuesday night. Just a heads up – one of the items of business my committee will consider is a proposed raise in the per capita amount. I’ll let you know how that goes.

Stage

​Nearly a year ago, at a joint Grand Canyon and De Cristo presbytery meeting held on August 12, 2017, I was elected to be a delegate to the 2018 General Assembly that would be held in St. Louis June 18-23. The process required each candidate to present a short speech in which the candidate stated why he or she wanted to attend the Assembly. I said that Valley Presbyterian had gone through a very bad year since the death of our pastor, and I was looking for something that would be uplifting and joyous that could be brought back to my congregation so it could lift them up as well. I added that, since my friend Linda Freeman had told me that the General Assembly would be life-altering, I was eager for the experience.

Presbytery de Cristo has three delegates – a Teaching Elder (Rev. Bart Smith of St. Mark’s in Tucson), a Young Adult Advisory Delegate (Michael Tuohy of Immanuel in Tucson), and a Ruling Elder Delegate (me). To prepare for the big event, in March, the delegates from the Synod of the Southwest attended a workshop in Albuquerque where we were told what to expect at the General Assembly and what we needed to do to prepare for it. Basically, we were told we would be expected to be in attendance at the meetings nearly every moment we are there – that attendance is not taken, but someone is watching very closely. We were also told that we would be getting registration information at the beginning of April.  Another workshop was held in May, but a death in my family prevented me from attending. I’ve been reading many, many overtures, which are motions for business at the assembly.

The registration process was especially confusing for two reasons:  First, I could sign up for tours of many different areas of St. Louis, which really looked interesting until I realized that there was a meeting that I was required to attend going on at the same time. Second, I had to choose which church I was going to attend on the only Sunday I was there, and there were over a hundred to choose from. Knowing nothing about St. Louis, I finally selected a church, but now I have no idea which one it was. I also arranged for my hotel and my travel at the same time. A few days later I was notified that I had been assigned to a committee, as every delegate is, and committees start work two days before the General Assembly.

I ask for your prayers as I attend the most important meeting the PC(USA) holds. I need wisdom to make the best choices for the church, and strength to get through a schedule that leaves me with very little downtime for over a week. When next you hear from me, it will be to report on my experience.