Wednesday, June 25, 2008

2 1/2 Days in Committee

The Form of Government (FOG) Committee met for two and a half days, and I am happy to report that we ended our deliberations last night (Tuesday) at 10:30!  These are long, hard days, but I have been blessed to have my eyes open as to the wide diversity of our church and its representatives here in San Jose.  We decided to refer the FOG report to yet another task force to chew on our thoughts, comments and recommendations so that they can in turn develop a new improved version to share with the Presbyteries and congregations, hopefully with sufficient time for them to study it prior to coming back to the next GA.  There is a lot of good work and new ideas in the FOG report, we just need to give people time to study and review it so that there is trust in the process.

Yesterday I met Rev. Joey Lee, who is Executive Presbyter of the San Jose Presbytery(SJP).  The SJP allocated all of the GA Commissioners as prayer partners.  I received a letter from Joey before leaving for San Jose that explained that he would be praying for ME, personally during GA.  I tracked Joey down to tell him how much this meant to me and we struck up an immediate friendship.  This is just one of the spiritual connections I have made while here.  Thanks be to God!

We have the morning to study the actions of other committees before we reconvene this afternoon in plenary session.  As a banker by day, I am not used to working this hard for our Lord on a daily basis and it makes me appreciate those who do, such as our pastors and those who work in our churches and Presbytery!

Have a blessed day

Carol Hunley, Elder from Southminster, Chair of Council 

1 comment:

Paul M said...

Carol,

I am the brother of Joye Neff, a member of Southminster Church. I am a retired Presbyterian minister and spent the last 22 years of my ministry serving as Executive Presbyter of San Jose Presbytery. Thank you for sharing your thoughts about the GA with others through your blog.

I am glad you had a chance to meet my successor, Joey Lee. He is a great guy and a dedicated servant of the church.

I hope and pray that you will remember your time in San Jose with great fondness.

My other connections with Southminster, are that my first call was to Southminster Church in Dayton, the church from which Alan Foster came to pastor your church. While serving there, I became a close friend of Mary Zelia King who was then serving at Fairmont Church in Kettering, Ohio.

May God bless your service as a commissioner and your service to Pittsburgh Presbytery.

Yours in Christ,

Paul J. Masquelier, Jr.
paul@MasquelierOnline.com