Saturday, General Assembly About to Begin

Good morning. A very early morning for me, as I awoke at 6:00 a.m. to attend a breakfast hosted by Presbyterians for Renewal. Took a quick shower, and walked the six blocks to the Hyatt. Having been promised breakfast in the pre-GA advertisements, I was surprised to find only coffee. I know some of you can live on coffee, but it is not one of my basic food groups. (In MN, for me, those would be Dairy Queen, Old Dutch, Jimmy John's, and Honey Crisp Apples.) I guess there will be surprises at this GA after all. I just wish the surprises had the decency to occur at a more respectable hour.

However, my walk was not wasted. PFR began with a scripture reading from Romans 8, then "Great is Thy Faithfulness", then a heartfelt prayer. I was grateful that we did not launch directly into the politics thing. If we conservative evangelicals have anything to say, it comes out of our relationship with Jesus Christ, no9t our political acumen.

That said, there were helpful presentations about key issues each GA committee will face. Overtures submitted by the presbyteries are given to GA committees, who recommend them to the whole GA for a vote, or revise them to present for a vote, or they just "die" in committee, I believe. I will know more later tomorrow about that whole process.

I then went to one of the Office of the General Assembly sponsored "Riverside Conversations", see the list here. The first was described as follow:

Equipping the Church for Ministry with God's Diverse Family
Sharing the gospel, nurturing disciples and building the church in today’s complex multi‐cultural, multiracial society requires new skills. Come learn about some of the tools and resources available to Presbyterians who seek to meet this challenge and continue the Presbyterian Church’s long standing commitment to address racism.

I had reasonably high hopes for this, and was grossly disappointed. We heard four speakers, and all talked about dealing with racism. Nothing at all about "Sharing the gospel, nurturing disciples and building the church in today’s complex multi‐cultural, multiracial society requires new skills." Just the same old same old diatribes against racism.

Now look, I confess that I am a racist. I also confess that you are too! But the only way out of our racism is through a common relationship to Jesus Christ. And the joys and pitfalls of working multi-culturalloy were never even hinted at. There were some white folks from the rural Carolina's who confessed their own racism, well, actually their "church's" racism, and bemoaned their white privileged guilt. Can we PLEASE move on from the 60's with the white guilt already? And can we PLEASE move on to working with one another to further the cause of Christ in the world? (Like we are doing at APC. We are really, no joke, the cutting edge of what God is doing in the world.) Much more to be said about this "conversation", but I will get into trouble if I go any further. I applaud the attempt to have the conversation, but they are 30 years behind the times on this issue, I am afraid.

I've met some great people. I met a guy who was the youth pastor who followed one of my mentors in San Jose. I met the parish associate from Carson City, where our friend Sandy Norris attends. I have seen Ruth Santana-Grace and her son, Dakota, as well as ex-Ambler Eric Hoy. I have seen Tudor Williams, but not Heather, yet. After lunch, the General Assembly starts in earnest.

Here is another very unprofessional video about the Skyways in Minneapolis. Enjoy!

Pray for us as we seek the Lord, and His Kingdom! More later. [SDG-JS]