Impressions
Last night I attended the 140th Stated Meeting of the Presbytery of East Iowa. The thing that I took away the most from the meeting was the same thing that I took away from the 217th General Assembly - relationships.
We began the pre-Presbytery meeting with worship. Nancy had used this at GA this past summer and it incorporates elements of the Trinity report:
Call to Worship:
One: Jesus prayed that we, the church, would be one
All: Just as Jesus and the God are one
One: Today we offer our praise and prayer together
All: As one body, in Christ, through the power of the Holy Spirit.
One: In harmony, with one voice throughout all generations, encompassing the earth
All: Let us glorify God – Father, Son and Holy Spirit with a loud AMEN!
Hymn: Come all you people
(“Sing A New Creation” # 4 by Alexander Gondo -- Zimbabwe)
Uyai mose, tinamate Mwari (Repeat 3 times)
Uyai mose Zvino.
Come all you people, come and praise the Most High (Repeat 3 times)
Come now and worship the Lord.
Come all you people, come and praise the Savior (Repeat 3 times)
Come now and worship the Lord.
Come all you people, come and praise the Spirit (Repeat 3 times)
Come now and worship the Lord.
Uyai mose, tinamate Mwari (Repeat 3 times)
Uyai mose Zvino.
Responsive Reading:
One: Today I awake and God is before me.
All: At night, as I dreamt, God summoned the day;
For God never sleeps but patterns the morning
With slithers of gold or glory in gray.
One: Today I arise and Christ is beside me
All: He walked through the dark to scatter new light
Yes, Christ is alive, and beckons his people
To hope and to heal, resist and invite.
One: Today I affirm the Spirit within me
All: At worship and work, in struggle and rest.
The Spirit inspires all life which is changing
From fearing to faith, from broken to blest.
One: Today I enjoy the Trinity round me
All: Above and beneath, before and behind;
The Maker, the Son, The spirit together
They called me to life and called me their friend.
(Words by John Bell, ©1989 The Iowa Community, GIA Publications)
Scripture Reading:
Old Testament: Psalm 28: 1, 2 and 6-9
One: The Word of the Lord
All: Thanks be to God
New Testament: Ephesians 4: 1-16
One: The Word of the Lord
All: Thanks be to God
Prayer
Closing Hymn (spoken): Holy, Holy, Holy (Presbyterian Hymnal # 138)
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God Almighty
Early in the morning our song shall rise to Thee
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty!
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!
Holy, holy, holy! Though the darkness high Thee
Though the eye of sinfulness Thy glory may not see
Only thou art holy; there is none beside Thee
Perfect in power, in love and purity.
Holy, holy, holy! Lord God Almighty
All thy works shall praise thy name in earth and sky and sea
Holy, holy, holy! Merciful and mighty
God in three Persons, blessed Trinity!
Blessing: (In Unison)
May the love of the Most High enfold us,
The wisdom of the Savior enlighten us,
The fire of the Spirit ignite us;
And may the blessing of the Lord God Almighty
Come down upon us and remain in us today and always. Amen.
After concluding worship, Rev. Ron Lewis began by talking about meeting with the Cumberland Church and the Cumberland Church in America. What Ron was not able to do was to read or play some of the sermons that we were privileged to hear. Fortunately this is available on the PC (USA) website: Worship and prayer at the General Assembly.
Elder Nancy Olthoff then talked about the election of the Moderator of the 217th General Assembly, Rev. Joan Gray. One of the things that Nancy highlighted was Rev. Gray's knowledge of Presbyterian Polity. I also found it encouraging that for the past 7 years Rev. Gray has been an interim pastor specializing in churches that are divided. Find out more at: Election of the Moderator.
I then talked about the reactions on Thursday, June 15th when it was announced that Stanley Anderson, an Elder and businessman from Colorado was donating $150 million to the new Loaves and Fishes Church Growth Fund. This fund will provide $250,000 to $1 million dollars to presbyteries for starting new churches, transforming struggling churches, and developing racial-ethnic congregations. I also noted that each seminary should receive about $1 million. I was asked after the pre-presbytery meeting about the concerns raised about actually getting the money. I reiterated John Detterick's faith in Mr. Anderson and that God will provide. For more on this go to: Surprise announcement electrifies Assembly.
Rev. Rose Taul then talked about the wonderful celebration of women being ordained as Ministers of the Word and Sacrament. She spoke of her mentor Margaret Towner who was the first woman ordained in the Presbyterian Church in 1956. This year is also the 30th anniversary of Rose's ordination. We are grateful for the contributions of these woman and many others. There was a special celebration at General Assembly, check it out at: Celebration of the ordination of women.
Ron then touched on the Israel/Palestine issue that was before the Assembly. Read more about this at: GA overwhelmingly approves Israel/Palestine recommendation.
It was my turn again and it was time for the computer geek in me to come out as I talked about Les and the purple cards. So Great a Cloud of Witnesses! So great a fog of technology. This year’s General Assembly was the first year to be paperless. What did that mean to us? We essentially became guinea pigs.
As I looked back at the blog I kept during GA I found an entry on Thursday; “We had to skip a vote for several minutes as several of the commissioners and advisory delegates were unable to access Les from their computers…” While I typed that entry you could look around and see a sea of purple cards being held up. Those purple cards where our flag to the IT people that we were having trouble with Les. What was to have been a paperless assembly became a semi-paperless assembly. You could ask different commissioners what they thought and each of them would have a differing opinion about Les. What can be done to improve Les for the next assembly in 2008? They will need to have more computers running the wireless network. They way that Les is setup could use a little work too. Is this they way of the future? So many people are connected electronically today it is inevitable that this is the way of the future. Fortunately we are a denomination that works together to find solutions to the issues that we have and paper copies should be available to those who request it.
I also talked a little about the electronic voting. Every time there was an electronic vote there was a graphic on the screens that reminded me of Pac-Man dying. I played it once during plenary and those around us got a kick out of it so I played it again last night.
Each of took a few moments to talk about the relationship part of the Assembly and what it meant to us. We all had differing views on what happened at General Assembly and what we wanted to see happen. Yet, when it was all said and done we came home friends who could agree to disagree knowing that all that really matters is spreading the Gospel of Jesus Christ.
Ron brought out a little stuffed elephant. He then discussed how there are always elephants and this year's General Assembly no elephant was left untouched, everything was discussed.
Rose then went over the PUP report and briefly covered the recommendations. She noted that Recommendations 1 through 4 passed with little or no trouble. Recommendation 5 on the other hand was not so easily taken care of. More can be found in the article: Assembly adopts Theological Task Force report. All of the associated documents for the final report can be found at Final Report Resources.
Nancy concluded our time together by discussing a little about the Trinity report. Read GA acts on Trinity paper for more on what was done at General Assembly. There is a link in this article for the paper itself.
Unfortunately we ran out of time and had to conclude our report without taking any questions. From what we heard the rest of the evening those who attended this portion of the Presbytery meeting found it very informative. We are each available to any of our Presbytery churches and sessions for more discussion on what proved to be a very interesting Assembly.
Because of Him,
Terry
