Cool GA Sites by, Tom Letts

Hey all! I hear we missed quite a worship service today. Alice Green and Derick Lee in a baptism not soon to be forgotten! God bless you Alice and Derick (and the rest who led!).

Opening business meeting: There are over 1,000 of us on padded metal chairs in a large convention center whose floor is polished concrete. Every time we stand or sit en masse it sounds like 1,000 Vuvuzela horns at the world cup. I almost broke into a German football song today.

There were technical problems with the voting machines (I believe they were brought in from Florida). But after a long tech delay (so glad for our worship tech people at Trinity!) the new moderator is... elder Cindy Bolbach. She was the most liberal of the candidates and won handily. One wonders what this will mean for the rest of the voting this week...

We finished the plenary meeting at 11:05 pm (after starting with my committee leadership team at just after 8:00 am). It was a memorable 1st day.

Websites for going deeper:
pc-biz.org [following the work of the committees of GA]
ga219.pcusa.org [the official site for news and information]
presbycoalition.org/ga2010main.cfm [a great site for all your GA questions]
pfrenewal.org [click 'ministries' and then 'issues' for exceptional background materials]
covnetpres.org [the 'liberal PC(USA)' website. Read to see the liberal views]
pres-outlook.com and go to Adam Copeland's GA blog [a denominational news agency asked this experienced writer/blogger to write this 'unofficial' blog]

More later. Peace, tl

Going deeper into pc-biz.org, by Tom Letts

If you missed my last post, go back and read it. The site mentioned is a good one. This post deals exclusively with pc-biz.org so read no further unless you are REALLY into web-searches and the GA. Really. Stop reading now. You're still reading? Here we go!

OK, so, there is A LOT of information to sift through here! Were we using paper the initial materials for each commissioner would be more than six inches high, with the final tally closing in on a foot-high stack. It is a crazy amount of material but I've got some helpful hints for using pc-biz.org as a tool for finding what you need.

Remember pc-biz.org is the official website for the 219^th GA. You can click 'register as a new user' if you would like to track overtures and create bookmarks for future reference, or you can just start using the site.

As you search the site you can choose one of two filters (like looking through the whole bookstore or just going to the 'cooking' section). The larger-scoped filter is the event filter labeled '219^th General Assembly.' The smaller one is 'Assembly Committee' (this filter will keep you within the work of a particular committee, and you can change the committee -like leaving 'cooking' and going to 'fiction').

Now, if you are looking at an item and want to keep following it: you must have an account and be logged in, then you can click the 'watch this item' button on the orange bar. Each time you go to the home page you can choose 'I'm watching' in the 'show items' box and your watch listed items will appear, click for the latest activity.

If an item has an attachment (resources for background or further study) you can click 'Additional Resources' in the grey box in the upper right corner of the screen. Browse to the attachment you want and then you can either read it or download it.

Some controversial items to follow:

Marriage -committee 12 -key overtures: [weddings 12-06, 08, 09] [change definition 12-02, 03, 04, 10] [reports: pro change 12-12, pro traditional interpretation 12-13 (a GREAT doc)]

Ordination standards -committee 6 -key overtures: (new standards) 06-06 through 10 and 12 through 17, (traditional standards) 06-02, 03, 04, 05, 18

Muslims and Christians -committee 8 -key overtures: 08-04, 02

Happy hunting. Peace, tl

Live Site by, Tom Letts

We are in our first meeting and have opened with commissioning and worship. I've got some good news and some bad news. First the good: there is a live site other than pc-biz.org that seems to be more 'newsy' and less 'techie.' The site is ga219.pcusa.org and has a live feed to the video feed for the assembly hall. If you are on an iPhone click the icon for iPhone, everyone else click VOD in the dark blue box. The bad news.? My email access to tletts@trinityalaska.org is down. Send (for the next 6 days only) to thomas_letts@hotmail.com More later.

Peace, tl

Introduction to the controversial issues by, Tom Letts

Minneapolis Convention Center

Up in the air and on our way to the 219th General Assembly of the PC(USA). Thanks for your questions and comments relating to the Assembly and to the blog.

I've said repeatedly that there are four major issues coming before the Assembly but I think we should add a 5th. So, below is a list of controversial issues.
1-Sexuality and ordination (a variety of overtures -see my last post on 'overtures'- seeking to make the way clear to remove sexual preference restrictions in our ordination standards. In other words, to make the way clear to ordain self-avowed, practicing: gay, lesbian, bi-sexual and trans-sexual persons).
2-Redefinition of marriage (from 'between one man and one woman' to 'between two consenting adults').
3-Non-geographic synods (a proposal seeking to offer synod-type alignment to churches on opposite sides of the ordination standards issue. In other words, churches that could not, in good conscience, ordain a gay person to office would be free to align themselves with other PC(USA) churches who believe the same way.).
4-Palestine/Israel relations (a 150 page report that paints a stark picture of Israel's treatment of Palestinians. The report is factually accurate but scathing and some say might do more harm by alienating Jewish neighbors than the good it might accomplish in 'speaking the truth in love.').
5-Inter-faith worship (a task-force report seeking to affirm common worship between Presbyterians and Muslims -and Jews- as 'we are of the same Abrahamic lineage.').

Going deeper: a note on pc-biz.org
The site takes some getting used to but it works. The search engine is a good one. You can type in a word (like 'ordination') and you'll get a variety of 'hits.' Just go through the list and click what you want. Also, you can follow any overture or committee-work by searching for the overture or committee number (my committee is 15, Evangelism and Church Growth. We have no contentious overtures.). I'll post committee numbers and their controversial issues tomorrow.

I've run into some great sites that help interpret the issues of the Assembly. I'll give you a few tomorrow and maybe even a 'site of the day' during the Assembly. Blessings, tl