(Rev James Reese, 90 yrs old (in photo above), was with Dr King in Washington for his ‘I have a dream’ speech. Quote of the day was his comment, “I may have at times felt ignored, unheard and marginalized, but I never left the table.” (speaking about racial issues.) He received a standing ovation after that comment, and again at the end of his speech.)

At the close of the meeting last night I was packing up my materials and not really paying attention to the music playing faintly in the background. After several minutes it slowly dawned on this very tired commissioner that I was humming along to the Jackson Five! Nice postlude to the meeting! We are in Motown after all, and the music of Motown plays everywhere on the streets here, but imagine that postlude in church or at the end of a Session meeting:)
Throughout the afternoon, we were given previews of upcoming overtures that we will be discussing and voting on later in the week. Some of them were very well done, with creative uses of videos, skits, etc. I have tried to summarize a couple of them, but, honestly, they were more inspiring in person.
We received a report from the Rev. Tim Hart-Andersen, pastor of Westminster Presbyterian Church in Minneapolis, Minn. Rev. Hart-Andersen’s church was challenged by Hunder Farrel, Director of Presbyterian World Mission to make a one million dollar gift to a project in Sudan whose goals are to provide education for young women in that country.
Westminster Church took a year to study the history and culture of Sudan and even sent a fact finding team to Sudan to talk with leaders in churches there. Their church committed to make the one million dollar gift to this project. They also challenged other churches in the denomination to join them as partners on this project. Together with Fourth Presbyterian church in Chicago and First Church in Indianapolis 1.6 million dollars has been pledged to this project.
These are obviously large, wealthy churches, but we were challenged to dream new ministries in partnership with other churches in our presbyteries and communities, no matter what size church we belong to.
At the 220th GA (2012) an overture was brought to the floor that Middle Governing bodies (synods) be eliminated. The 220th GA referred it to a commission which would further study the proposal. They would study the effectiveness of synods and look at alternative models of Middle Governing bodies. Similar recommendations have been made at several General Assemblys in the past.
The commission, appointed in 2012, will report later this week and recommend against eliminating synods, but to instead reconfigure and repurpose them. The commission will recommend a two year process of creating the new alternative model for synods, including reducing the number to as few as eight synods across the PC (USA). There are currently about 14 (I don’t have the exact number in front of me.).
Revitalization, not simply reduction, is the goal, with particular attention to enhancing Synod collaboration with General Assembly in order to increase support of the mission and ministry of local churches within synods.
After dinner we met with our committees for the first time. I am on “General Assembly Procedures” Sounds exciting, doesn’t it? Our first meetings business was to approve the agenda for our meetings, do some group building, and review of Roberts Rules of Order, and develop a covenant for our time together.

You can also follow the GA proceedings on Facebook. Search for “Spirit of GA”.
Dave