Honored to be in your prayers

As stated in my previous blog, I have received a ton of mail regarding the General Assembly. Most of the mail contains information about different groups agendas and opinions. I don't have any problem or complaints about this type of mail, it effectively informs me of the issues and arguments for or against certain points.

In this blog, I wanted to share information about another type of mail I have received. A couple of mailings that express no opinion, just notes from people that tell me they are praying for me. A couple days ago, I received a hand written letter from a woman, Dorthy Kirpatrick from Sarasota Florida. Below is what the letter stated:

Dear Gregg,
A short note to tell you I will be praying for our safe travel to the General Assembly. May you seek God's will in making decisions in all discernments. God Bless You, Your prayer partner - Dorthy Kirpatrick.

The note made my day. Thank you Dorthy and thank all of you for your continued prayers. It means a lot to me. It is such an honor to serve as commissioner to GA and even more of an honor for people like Dorthy to be praying for me.

Civil Marriage and Holy Unions

Outlook magazine (http://www.pres-outlook.org/) has sponsored webinars every Tuesday to present some of the major issues coming up before GA. It has done an excellent job at getting speakers to represent both sides of the issues. The webinar yesterday was presenting the "Report On Civil Marriage and Holy Unions". I see this issue and any issue regarding same-sex couples, Civil Unions, LBGT ordination, homosexuality as one of the most contentious issues and in many ways it baffles me. First of all, I do not believe homosexuality is a sin or a choice. I am sure that last sentence offends many but I would challenge you to walk a mile in my shoes. I have a 24 year old son that is gay. He is extremely helpful, generous, and compassionate. As a child, he was very involved in the church and because he feels the church does not accept or condone his life style, I don't know if I will ever get him back to church. This breaks my heart for the church means so much to me.

Getting back to why the contentious nature of this issue baffles me. If homosexuality is a sin, why is more of a sin then materialism, coveting, divorce, lying, ignoring people in need. If homosexuality is a sin and all sins are the same then I suppose then only God can be ordained. I have heard several that are against same-sex anything say that we want to welcome everyone into our church and want to be inclusive and welcome and invite the LGBT community into our flock. We invite them to ride on the bus but they have to sit in the back. My wife would never belong to a church that did not ordain women, why would we expect the gay community to flock to come to a church that considers them less worthy then others. We are missing out on an opportunity to evangelize and grow within this segment of the population. It is not only the LGBT people that we are discouraging to come in our doors, it is their families, friends & sympathizers. Perhaps this is one of the contributing factors why the church is shrinking.

I love my church and love being a Presbyterian, I will never abandon the church. The church is flawed as I know I am. I pray that the people of the world including me can see past the flaws, disagreements and intolerance and see the church for what it is meant to be, a place to find God and a vehicle to show gratitude for what God has given us by ministering to the rest of the world.

Not more mail!

We the commissioners were warned early that there would be mountains of information to read and process. I think as of today I finally have a little insight on the truth of that statement. There is much information provided from the GA that we have access to on the web site. Every issue that the local presbytery's or Synods want GA to consider is communicated in what they call overtures. So the GA provides us with a site with all the overtures we are to consider at the upcoming GA. This is tremendous amount of information. But this only scratches the surface of the information we receive at home.

There are 'Affinity' or 'Special Purpose' organizations that have their own passions and agendas. Some of these organizations include: Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, Presbyterian Voices for Justice, Pro-Life Presbyterians, Presbyterian Lay committee and others. So these organizations testify before assembly committees and try to help inform, educate and sway GA members. All of these organizations have agendas and causes that they want to effect during the GA so they send out mailings. They send mailings promoting their points of view and agendas. Some I agree with, and some I don't. I have received many mailings from various groups.

It is amazing how involved we Presbyterians are in social, economic and political causes. I would think the average Presbyterian has no idea. I know I didn't. For instance, there is an overture that has been sent to the GA to suspend military aid to Columbia. The US has certified that Columbia is Okay in regards to human rights even though there are reports of youth killings by the army and there is significant illegal surveillance done by the government. The US is planning to lease 7 military bases from Columbia (contributing to funds for the Colombian government). The overture wants us to protest the US governments support of Columbia. I had no idea we are providing military aid to Columbia and why we should or shouldn't.

GA Committee assignment

During the GA, there will be several committees discussing very complex issues. Some of the issues to be discussed include the following:
Civil Union
Social Justice
Interfaith Relations
Peacemaking
Middle East
Church Growth
Theological Issues
as well as several other issues.
The committee I have been assigned to is called Form Of Government or the FOG committee. For those of you that are not familiar with the Presbyterians government it is very similar to the US government structure. Local government is the church and session (made up of Elders who help run the day to day operation of the church). The Presbytery is a regional governing body like our local municipality or county governments, the Synod contains several Presbyteries is like the state government and the General Assembly is like the Federal Government. The Presbyterian church has a book or rules and guidelines called the Book of Order. This has rules that govern how meetings are run, how to hire and fire pastors, defines the structure of governmental bodies and committees and many, many other details.

So back to the FOG committee. The goal of the FOG (Form of Government)Task Force was to revise the Book of Order (BoO) to make it less of an operations manual and more of a constitution. Therefore, it will be shorter with many more decisions being made at the Presbytery or congregational level. This sounds like a good idea but is pretty scary to many because the BoO has grown to such length because we don't trust each other to make good decisions. Also it has been my experience that the BoO is your friend when someone (a member) wants to do something outlandish. It is so much easier to say, "Sorry the BoO says I'm not allowed. Isn't it a shame." than to just say "no" against the political pressure that can sometimes be brought to bear.

Perhaps this committee sounds a bit boring and bureaucratic, it is actually quite interesting in that it could represent one of the biggest changes in the Presbyterian church government in several decades. It is supposed to be a peace plan to help us get along with each other better.

Isreal Palestine conflit

For several years, the Presbyterians have been protesting the treatment of the Palestinian people by Israel. Settlements, bulldozing of Palestinian homes, heavy handed responses to regional conflicts. The commissioners had a meeting at Cincinnati Presbytery today and as part of the agenda met the American Jewish Committee. A committee within Presbytery has submitted a report for the GA to review. It is asking Presbyterians to extend our protests to our wallets and to not support businesses or organizations that may contribute to the Zionist cause. This has the American Jewish community up in arms. I have not read the report in full yet but understand that it is equating the situation to apartheid. Four individuals from the American Jewish Committee came to our meeting today to ask us to consider the situation from their point of view. There is definitely blame to go around and I can't imagine living as a Jew in a state in the middle east where nearly every country around you wants to see you wiped off the face of the earth. With both the Jewish and Islamic eye for an eye mentality and holding of grudges, the situation is difficult and sad.

Commissioning of Cincy Presbytery particpants

Last night we that were chosen as commissioners for GA were commissioned at the Cincinnati Presbytery meeting. The highlight of the meeting was not the commissioning but of the speaker 'Walter Bruggemann'. In his sermon, he discussed that as Christians we should be subversive to the empire, in the old days, the Persian empire or Roman empire. Today, we should be subversive to the materialistic, economic empire. He also stated as Christians, whether liberals or conservatives, in Christ it doesn't matter. It seems we all have an agenda to squabble over. Bruggemann stated that our focus should be on Generosity, Hospitality and Forgiveness and the rest shouldn't matter. This is good advice as I prepare for GA for we all have agendas and opinions that we want to have heard and listened to but perhaps this is not really our purpose.

I have been nominated to go to the Presbyterian General Assembly (GA) this summer. This Blog is to share my experience as I get ready for the event and participate. The subjects covered are extensive and interesting. The hot topics we will discuss are 'same sex marriage', 'Israel / Palestine conflict', Human trafficking and many other interesting and perhaps not so interesting topics.

For those that don't know what GA is, it is the National governing body of the Presbyterian Church. The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has over 11,000 congregations which are organized into 173 presbyteries (district governing bodies) and 16 synods (regional governing bodies).The GA is the national governing body over all of this.

The General Assembly consists of commissioners elected by presbyteries. Half of the commissioners will be Ministers of Word and Sacrament, half will be elders. Few will ever have been commissioners to the General Assembly before, but most will have served in one of the other governing bodies of our church: the session, which provides care and oversight of a local congregation; the presbytery, which provides care and oversight of a group of congregations; or the synod which provides care and oversight of several presbyteries.

It reviews the work of synods, resolves controversies in the church, is responsible for matters of common concern for the whole church, and serves as a symbol of unity for the church.

Why me? I am not sure. Perhaps it is God's calling, perhaps it is because I'm a sucker that said yes, and perhaps it is because I have a vested interest in having the Presbyterian church be there when I am old to give me spiritual, physical and emotional support.