The Rev. CeCe Armstrong and the Rev. Tony Larson, Co-Moderators of the 226th General Assembly (2024) , joined members of Foothills Presbytery and two staff from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance for a time of sharing on Tuesday at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Greenville, South Carolina.
While Presbyterian News Service was not present for the three days of Committee on the Office of the General Assembly meetings that concluded on Thursday, the news service did have the next best thing at its disposal: a question-and-answer session via email with Kate Trigger Duffert, Director of General Assembly Planning, one of the OGA staff and others present for COGA’s last in-person meeting ever at Zephyr Point Presbyterian Camp and Conference Center in Zephyr Cove, Nevada.
As the new host of “Leading Theologically,” the Rev. Bill Davis invited the Co-Moderators of the 226th General Assembly to pull their chairs close to the microphone for what would be a 34-minute wide-ranging conversation.
At least six dozen people gathered Wednesday evening to take a virtual journey to Guatemala. They learned more about the progress, slow as it’s often been, being made by Guatemala’s new president, Bernardo Arévalo, and about an important action taken by the 226th General Assembly (2024).
The Rev. Sharyl Dixon, a teaching elder commissioner from the Presbytery of the Coastlands, came prepared when she arrived at Salt Lake City for the 226th General Assembly. She was equipped with a “snackle” box and over 100 “little Jesuses.”
Sarah Mibulano had a little problem.
The 19-year-old Young Adult Advisory Delegate from the Presbytery of Nevada — who emigrated to the U.S. from Congo with her family in 2015 — had her citizenship interview back in February and still hadn’t heard a word.
When one usually thinks of the state of Utah, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints often comes to mind. But Presbyterians and other faith groups have been in the state for decades and have found ways to collaborate on important challenges such as hunger and poverty. In the fifth and final part of our series on Utah’s Presbyterian ministry, church leaders share their experiences of partnership with the LDS church.
If anything can succeed in generating a solid crowd at 6:45 a.m. during the already rigorous demands of a General Assembly, it’s the promise that God is doing a new thing.
And, just maybe, a speaker like the Rev. Mark Elsdon.
One of the morning worship services at the 226th General Assembly focused on how greed affects our capacity to embody hope. Associate dean for the Graduate School of Theology, University of the Redlands, the Rev. Ruth T. West, took her inspiration from the Assembly’s theme, “Live into Hope,” and the similarly titled hymn’s (Glory to God, #772) verse: “Live into hope of captors freed of sight regained, the end of greed.”
Fifty people attended the 1001 New Worshiping Communities (1001 NWC) lunch at the Marriott’s Skylight Ballroom during this year’s General Assembly to gather and encourage church and mid council leaders to support new worshiping communities and their partnerships with existing churches and mid councils.
