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ASSEMBLY in brief 2010
Newly elected Moderator Cynthia Bolbach. —Photo by Danny Bolin
With an unusually large number of contentious issues on the agenda, the 219th General Assembly (2010) — with the theme “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water” (John 7:38) — could have been a stormy crossing. Th at it wasn’t is a tribute to the spirit of civility and unity that predominated among the 712 commissioners and 200 advisory delegates who diligently adhered to their commissions “to discern the mind of Christ.”
They were also well-served by two calm and competent leaders — Moderator Cynthia Bolbach and Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons. While no Assembly produces consensus on many issues, the 219th General Assembly demonstrated Presbyterian governance at its best — elders, ministers and advisers worshiping, laughing, praying, singing, studying, debating and navigating potentially treacherous waters together to seek the best way forward for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
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Welcome all to the 219th General Assembly (2010)
Blogs
Several commissioners and advisory delegates have been invited to blog about their experience of the General Assembly.
Stated Clerk's Column: May 2013 - 100 generations of the table
May 1, 2013 8:42 a.m.
It was a generational moment. I had just baptized my grandson and was now presiding at table with my newly ordained daughter. Three generations intersecting in the historic Sacraments of the church. On the table was the freshly baked loaf of bread and the cup full of wine.
If you date a generation by roughly twenty years, sometime in this century we will approach the 100th generation to tear the bread and drink the cup. We should probably pull a committee together to work on that anniversary, because—for me—it marks one of those rare occasions that call us to pause and take stock of the life of the church. It has been a long journey since the first Christians met in small house gatherings throughout the Mediterranean to the multi-continental collection of the people of faith we are today.
Food and Faith: The Informed Eating Game
April 29, 2013 6:21 p.m.
Thanks to my roommate’s luck with winning tickets, we attended a great film series event the other night showing the documentary, Eating Alabama. The premise around the film was to capture all the trials and tribulations that the filmmaker and his wife had while trying to eating only food found in their home state of Alabama for one year. This concept is nothing new to the food movement in fact people have been doing it for a while now, take Barbara Kingsolver and her record in, “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle.” However something in particular moved me that night. Granted it ...
Food and Faith: We are Fossil Fuels
April 2, 2013 11:52 a.m.
“From dust you were made, and to dust you will return.”
Our bodies were created of earth; they are sustained by what we intake, which is grown by, or feeds off the earth; and ultimately we will return to the earth.
I wonder however, if the modern world version of the phrase should be, “From fossil fuels you are made, to them you cannot return”
Stated Clerk's Column: April 2013 - The benches and the wells
April 1, 2013 10:23 a.m.
One sure sign of spring in my hometown was the return of the old men to the benches outside the courthouse. I was never certain where they went in the winter. It was not entirely clear what they did for a living. But they would appear yearly some time after the arrival of the robins and before the trees leafed out.
