Friday at GA

The Friday at General Assembly was packed and probably will take years to process.  It was the hardest due to how tiered I am!  It is hard to describe, but GA is emotionally, physically, and mentally draining.  But all of that is lifted up by the spiritual renewal that comes from a body trying to discern God’s message for us, and the church today.  There are many choices we made and chose not to make that I will struggle with for years to come.  But I know that everything was done out of love.

Personally, this was a hard day for me.  As you know when I jump into something I jump all the way in.  8 weeks ago I only knew the surface of the issues in the Middle East and while I now know much more I still feel like I only know the surface.  On Tuesday, I thought it was something I could live with, but after seeing what happened with it in the media, I knew that the action we actually took would be lost in the media’s interpretations.  I spoke to that effect. 

I cannot help but think about my parent’s church and especially their pastor, who as you know has had quite a year, and this will be one more thing! Please, also keep in mind the Great Rivers Presbytery Leadership as they will be spending the night carefully wordsmithing a letter, which they have asked me to comment on as well.

Saying all of that, I am glade that in the committee we could get the document out that got out.  It brought positive language to the resolution and with a couple of other amendments made today it clarified that it was not in line with the BDS movement as well as a call for engagement. Unfortunately, that is not what the media heard. 

I am looking forward to worship and closing tomorrow, but I will miss my time at GA.  We still have a long night to come, so I will blog sometime tomorrow. And will at some point process everything and give some thoughts with sleep and perspective!

Bryan