A Good Day

Sunday, July 1, 2012

            Holy Spirit presence, that peace that passes all understanding, filled me in the simple worship at the beginning of the first meeting of the Confessions of the Church committee.  The committee’s moderator, Teaching Elder Todd Jones from the Middle Tennessee Presbytery, exuded a profound humility as he led the worship, particularly in his reading of Psalm 130 of the King James Version. 

            It has been a slower-paced day, yet one packed full with worship, fellowship, and opening business of the General Assembly.  I come away refreshed instead of exhausted, and I do not think that is due solely to the coffee I enjoyed at dinner!

            Instead of having one worship service this morning, we had the choice of many:  30 churches in the greater Pittsburgh area.  I chose First Presbyterian Church, within easy walking distance from the David L. Lawrence Convention Center where General Assembly is being held this week.  I chose it because it was close and because of the architecture:  a lovely Gothic cathedral.   The sanctuary seats 1,000, and all seats were filled this morning.  Stained glass windows line the sanctuary.  The breathtaking moment was during the height of the organ prelude when the wall behind the chancel opened up to reveal an extension of the sanctuary with a magnificent stained glass window behind it.  The pastor, Rev. Tom Hall, gave a moving sermon on John 20: 19-23.  And it was hot, very hot since the sanctuary does not have air conditioning.

            After the service, the church provided a free sack lunch.  I went downstairs to the cafeteria area (mercifully cold with air-conditioning) and enjoyed a meal with new friends.  One of the lovely things about church conferences is having the opportunity to meet so many people from all over the country.  Since I am bad with names, I couldn’t tell you any of them, but conversation was lively.  One of the people at our table of five was a YAAD (Young Adult Advisory Delegate) from central Washington who will be starting her freshman year at Whitworth University in the fall.  Her enthusiasm was contagious.  I was excited to talk with her about Whitworth’s exemplary theology department, with whom I had the privilege of taking the online Certificate in Lay Ministry course.

            Plenary—business session 3—started at two p.m.  The main orders of business were the election and installation of the Vice-Moderator and the Stated Clerk.  During that two-hour time block, I received an exciting text from Corey Schlosser-Hall, offering a ticket to any of us from North Puget Sound Presbytery to Monday afternoon’s mission tour of new ministries in the Pittsburgh Presbytery.  I accepted, pronto, amazed at God’s provision.  (Too late to pre-register, I had realized just a few days ago that I really wanted to go on this specific tour.)

            Before coming to Pittsburgh, I asked God to direct my steps and continue to ask that, quite literally, through each day of the assembly.  The results have been meaningful moments for me—nothing dramatic or huge, but encounters with specific people and enriching conversations.  There are already too many to mention here.

            I must say that the dinner for commissioners and advisory delegates had the strangest entrée I have ever seen.  None of us (about ten at our table) had ever seen anything like it.  Some of us liked it, and others didn’t.  I think it all depended on whether you liked mushrooms and spinach and pepper—it was a vegetarian dish. 

Afterwards, I decided to accompany my roommate, who is serving on the confessions committee.   Let me just say that if all the committees started with the purity of the worship I encountered there, the PC (USA) is in good hands.  I am not so naïve as to believe that this will be a week of smooth sailing for our denomination, but I can say with certainty that today was a Holy Spirit kind of day for this alternate commissioner.