Sunday, Worship and Committees Begin

General Assembly kicked off this morning with a two hour worship service. Very creative, artistic, beautiful, and well designed. A huge choir sang, three worship bands played. Prayers were made in three languages. A baby was baptized. Communion was served.

The theme of the Assembly comes from John 7:37-43, with the emphasis on verses 37-38.

³⁷On the last and greatest day of the Feast, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, "If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. ³⁸Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, streams of living water will flow from within him." ³⁹By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.
 ⁴⁰On hearing his words, some of the people said, "Surely this man is the Prophet."
 ⁴¹Others said, "He is the Christ."
   Still others asked, "How can the Christ come from Galilee? ⁴²Does not the Scripture say that the Christ will come from David's family and from Bethlehem, the town where David lived?" ⁴³Thus the people were divided because of Jesus. ⁴⁴Some wanted to seize him, but no one laid a hand on him.

The worship service was built around the image of water. Water is abundant in Minnesota in lakes and streams. So this water is a visual reminder of God's gifts to this part of the world. Tribal dancers, people dressed as a bear, and eagle, and other animals paraded into the hall. It was all quite lovely from an artistic point of view. But I confess I don't understand "art". I know, I know, art is to be appreciated more than understood. I cannot help who I am. So this kind of artsy worship service has great appeal to many people, just count me as one to whom this seems all rather strange and a bit foreign to the gospel. I blame only myself for this, and not the worship planners nor participants. (I will, however, continue to gripe about the slides, as there were at least two or three slides in the worship service that had serious typos in them. Who edits these ahead of time? Doesn't anyone care about spelling and grammar anymore?)

That said, I came away, however, slightly less than enthralled. In my opinion, there was too much "being Presbyterian" and not enough "Jesus." Don't get me wrong. The Triune God was worshiped in word and song. Great hymns were sung. The Apostles' Creed was recited. But there seemed to be intentionally more promotion of how Presbyterians do things, than just worshiping the Lord in the Presbyterian way.

The sermon was fine, as far as it went. Our now former moderator, Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, is a charming and engaging speaker. He tells good stories, and has interesting points to make. Points worth remembering and putting into action. However, there was barely a reference to God's Word in his whole sermon. And personally, I don't care who is preaching, my interest is in hearing a Word from God than words from any person. I do not need everything to be proof-texted, and a verse for every point. But the sermon seemed to come more from the experience of the former moderator than from God's holy and eternal Word. So while it was engaging, clever, funny, and almost profound, I found the foundation of the sermon to be on shaky ground.

Do I come across too negative? I hope not. I know how hard it is to preach, and the labor one needs to put into making a sermon sing. And I know that while Calvin valued the sermon, it was only a part of the liturgical whole, whereby the people of God worship Almighty God. I value great preaching, and am usually disappointed in much preaching I hear. Heck, I am mostly disappointed in my own spotty preaching. So a so-so sermon does not ruin worship for me, as the whole service is designed to assist worship. And indeed, what we do after the Benediction is a  more accurate indicator of whether we have truly worshiped than any emotional or spiritual experience we may have had in the service.

I know this is General Assembly. I know this is a more formal worship service than the one for the local church. There were several thousand people at the service. And much of it was lovely and moving. It's just that, for me, I wanted more of Jesus.

My committee, Committee Three, General Assembly Procedures met for the first time after a lovely lunch. I must say, the commissioners are really treated right for the first few days of the Assembly. We are welcomed warmly. Travel and hotel are paid for. Several meals are hosted just for us. And we are given a General Assembly Credit card with a $240 limit on it that expires at the end of July. I suppose the old way of paying for meals and travel ourselves, and then turning in receipts, and then being reimbursed, well, that's a lot of work. So this seems to be easier. There is also a collection going on here of socks and undergarments for homeless folks. Big baskets by the registration center are collecting these items, and they will be distributed locally. Gratefully, there is a Target two blocks from the hotel, so I did not have to pack anything on the plane! But I digress.

Ah yes, Committee Three. We did some introductory work today, got to know each other, set down some of the ground rules of our business, and looked at some very brief and very minor business. Tomorrow will begin the hard work of working through overtures and referrals presented to the General Assembly by Presbyteries and Synods. We will vote some down in committee. We will rework others and pass them on to the whole assembly for a vote. Should be an interesting week.

Our Committee work will be Monday and Tuesday. Wednesday morning appears to be "off", and then we will then meet as the whole Assembly beginning Wednesday afternoon to vote on all these matters.

I will have more substantive things to report tomorrow.

I want to conclude by saying that I am impressed with how friendly people are here, and how helpful the locals are. The COLA (Committee on Local Arrangements) has done a superb job at providing for our every need. My fellow committee people are rather nice. Some are veterans, and the rest of us have that "deer in the headlights" look about us. It would be a great idea for presbyteries to send people as observers to one GA, and underwrite some of their cost, and then send them to the following GA as commissioners. I attended the GA in Richmond in 2004, and even that experience has helped me greatly cope with this GA, though I am looking into headlights with my other committee colleagues.

Keep up your prayers for grace, and for discernment, and for wisdom, and for courage to stand up for Jesus Christ as we apprehend Him to be. [SDG-JS]