Time for something a little different in the Blog department. Starting today and finishing on Friday, I'll be reporting about my attendance at the Presbyterian Church in Canada's annual General Assembly.

General Assembly is our big conference. One sixth of our minister's along with one sixth of our Representative Elders gather together in order to discuss, debate, and decide on the business of our national church. It's a pretty big affair that can at times have a huge impact on our church. After all, it's here that we make decisions on our doctrine and policies, and while usually it's important but innocuous, there are occasions when things get pretty heavy or even controversial. Thankfully, this is a pretty calm year, so the process won't ever be exciting, but it shouldn't be painful, either.

Yesterday was the beginning of the whole affair. It was marked by a simple dinner, a big worship service and then the installation of our Moderator. The moderator is kind of, but not really, the head of our church. His or her job is to represent our church at a national and international level, as well as moderate this assembly. That means they have no voting privilege; instead, they are responsible for the conduct of the commissioners (folks like me) and to see that the meeting runs along smoothly, efficiently, and with the kind of care and respect God expects of us. It's a big job that involves a lot of travel and the responsibility of being the spokeperson for our entire denomination.
This year's moderator, Harvey Self, is a man who served as a military chaplain, and is now ministering to a congregation in Orangeville, Ontario.
With the installation of our moderator and a few housekeeping details, our Sunday activities ended around 9:30pm.

Today started with breakfast at 7am, followed by worship. The worship was wonderful, with lots of music, a fine band, and a good message.
The business of the day was to prepare ourselves for our upcoming debate and decision process. Thus, we had a chance to meet with the head of the various committees presenting reports and recommendations we would be voting on. Since there are many, many committees in a denomination of our size, we had to be selective in our attendance; for me, the most notable of these briefings was with our committee on doctrine. Up for debate at this time is the role of clergy as what might be considered marriage commissioners for the state. Some folks feel that we should be getting out of the marriage business, and leave it solely in the realm of our provincial government officials. That means we wouldn't sign licences any more, and our services would be purely religious ones serving to bless the union of man and woman before God. As for me, I like the idea that I'm also performing a legal service for the Ontario government. It means, for one thing, that the happy couple don't have to do a lot of running around in order to have their marriage recognized by both the church and the state. Secondly, it gives my role as a minister recognition and value within our secular government. Thus, even though some folks think we shouldn't be doing a free service for the government, I think it's a honour and a privilege I'm not ready to give up.
Other briefings I attended were more purely informative, with recommendations that didn't generate a lot of controversy. These included discussions of our pension plan, information about what the folks working behind the scenes in the day to day planning and running of our national offices were up to, and a presentation on the breadth and scope of Presbyterian World Service and Development.

Of particular note in the presentation from PWS&D was the fact that it does all it's own fundraising, receiving only office space from our national office. That means that they do fundraising to the tune of some three million dollars, above and beyond what we give to national offices in the form of Prebyterians Sharing. That's an awesome feat, and a testament to the generosity and mission mindedness of our denomination.
The day concluded with a wonderful banquet at a local dining hall, and an opportunity for our leaders to recognize and thank the team from Hamilton that organized the entire conference for us. More on that tomorrow.