General Assembly

July 10, 2012 By Andy James

As I mentioned earlier, I spent the first week of my sabbatical at the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. It was a strange and wonderful way to begin this time away. Somehow, immersing myself in the depths of being Presbyterian actually was the right way to begin my time away from my work in the church!

I have a long history with General Assembly. In college, I served as a volunteer in the assembly newsroom, helping to get information out to the world via the web, and spent one assembly as a Youth Advisory Delegate. Even today, several of my closest friends are among those I met at a General Assembly. Even though I hadn’t been to an assembly since 2002, I still followed the event every time through live-streaming and Twitter and whatever else I could, helping me to maintain my status as a “GA Junkie.”

This year, my goals at the assembly were twofold. First, I wanted to reconnect with friends and colleagues. On this goal, my success was beyond measure. I got to spend time with dozens of people from so many different and varied quarters of my life and world, everyone from the music director at the church where I was baptized who has known me since before I was born to friends from Twitter I know well but had never met in real life. I even made a couple new friends along the way!

Over the course of the week, I felt more fulfilled and happy than I have felt in a long time. This is particularly interesting and unusual because I am not usually one to enjoy large crowds and busy times. I tend to appreciate my own space and dislike hanging out in large groups. Somehow, though, the interactions at GA were not this for me. I had lots of time for one-on-one conversations with friends – time to catch up on old stories, mutual friends, and life in general. These things feed my soul, and I was very full by the time I returned home!

My second major goal at GA this year was to spend time in worship. I did this pretty well, too. The week began with a major worship service at the convention center with over 4,000 Presbyterians in attendance, where the moderator of the last General Assembly preached. Sunday, attendees made their way to congregations across Pittsburgh, and I worshiped in the beautiful Neo-Gothic glory of East Liberty Presbyterian Church. And on most other days of the week, I worshiped in other assembly worship services at the Convention Center. I will admit that none of these services were the most wonderful I had ever attended, but I nonetheless found the week grounded and centered in the gift of this time set apart for worship.

On the whole, I’m really glad I went to General Assembly this year. Even amidst the disappointments of business that did not turn out as I hoped, I felt a bit of what Church should be like amidst the joy of time with friends and even amidst the strange movement (or in the case of this year, stalling) of the Holy Spirit. I hope and pray that the spirit in me that prevailed last week will only continue over the remainder of my sabbatical!

Sabbatical, Day 1

June 30, 2012 By Andy James

At 6:20 P.M. on Thursday, I walked out of the First Presbyterian Church of Whitestone for the last time until after Labor Day. This was the culmination of a long process of preparation and transition – in addition to all the work involved in getting ready for this time away, I also moved into a new apartment and office in the last month!

So after all this busyness, you’d expect me to stop and slow down a bit to begin the sabbatical. Well actually, I did anything but that! Friday morning, two friends and I left NYC to drive to Pittsburgh for the 220th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). This biennial event is a blend of a week-long business meeting and a family reunion. I’m quite familiar with these events – I attended five consecutive assemblies in various roles while I was in college! – but that was all ten years ago.

Nonetheless, coming to General Assembly is actually an incredible way to begin this time away and apart. Within minutes of arriving in the convention center, I had run into old friends. Soon I was meeting people I know from Twitter or other online interactions but had never met in real life. By the time I had wandered through the exhibit hall for an hour or so, I had seen at least 25 people I know.

This is why General Assembly is sabbatical for me: it is a time to reconnect. I am seeing people I haven’t seen in many years, people who know me and care about me and want to know what I am up to. I am seeing people who I have never met in real life before but who know me from Twitter. It’s incredibly grounding and wonderful to find this kind of community here, and I can’t imagine a better way to begin this time away.

technology and the PCUSA General Assembly

July 1, 2008 By Andy James

Like many Presbyterians, I won’t ever forget my first General Assembly. The year was 1998. I had just finished my freshman year of college, and somehow I managed to be invited to attend GA as a volunteer with the Office of Communications. I flew to Charlotte a few days before the assembly began, checked into my hotel, and ventured over to the convention center, where I met people in person I had only spoken with online.

I was immediately put to work on the project of the day: helping to set up an Internet “cafe” for those attending the assembly. Although much of the convention center was brand new, we didn’t have a high speed connection (probably because of a high cost to set it up). We set up a local network of ten or so computers, then connected it to a couple special boxes that shared four dialup connections across the network. Even the newsroom and the web editing stations were set up in this way! Most news was posted first on PresbyNet before it made the PCUSA web site. Mountains of paper information never made it on the web, at least not during the assembly.

Flash forward to 2008. I’m on vacation, not at the assembly, but that didn’t matter. From a quiet village on the coast of Maine, I was able to watch live streaming video of the plenary sessions, read along with the committee reports, and chat live with other Presbyterians from around the country. I might as well have been there, if all that mattered was the business done! The chat room Presbyterians even started proposing a new group of “Web Advisory Delegates” to be polled before each vote! Bloggers from among the commissioners, advisory delegates, and observers took time to post often, and some old stalwart publications even brought in people to blog the assembly.

The technology behind GA this year, at least from a distance, was the best I’ve seen it. Everything just worked, almost well enough for me to wonder if we need to spend the time and money to get 1,000 people together to have these kinds of conversations that we could have at home.

But having been there before myself reminds me that there’s something about General Assembly that can’t be recreated on a computer screen. The people we encounter in person show us the breadth of the church that goes far beyond one congregation, and the worship services point us toward a new song of praise that seems beyond belief. Amidst all my memories of five assemblies, the one I can’t put out of my mind was opening worship in Charlotte – 13,000 Presbyterians gathered around the Word and the Table to worship.

The GA Junkie made an interesting point in his reflections on the assembly today:

We polity wonks and GA Junkies have an insight into how God, through the Holy Spirit, works in our covenant communities through these governing body meetings and our connectionalism. We need to recognize that the roughly 2000 people here at the General Assembly represent about 0.1% of the PC(USA).

Will technology help the church to understand this work of the Holy Spirit better? Only time will tell.