A few of the meetings this year offer an interesting twist and the 185th General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church is one of those. This is a denomination which does not feel limited by geography and following a successful 178th General Assembly (2008) in Tokyo they are once again meeting overseas, this time in Cali, Colombia, in celebration of 90 years of ministry there. The meeting begins tomorrow morning, Saturday 20 June, and concludes on Thursday 25 June.

In preparation for the meeting, a few things you might be interested in:

• The CPC does their reports by producing a preliminary set of minutes with what is expected and then it is fill in the blanks and adjust the language as they go along.
• The meeting schedule – which has plenty of time built in for local visits and cultural experiences – is in the preliminary minutes as well as on a stand-alone web page.
• For polity documents, the CPC has a streamlined set of Rules of Order that can be found online.

For following along, I am not sure where to point you right now. I am still looking for traffic on Twitter and a Facebook page advertised on the meeting brochure does not appear to exist. Similarly, I am not aware of any live streaming. So, hang on and we will see if anything develops. (Or let me know what you find.)

In terms of business, this meeting will clearly have a mission flavor with all the opportunities to interact with the local area. But I would remind you that the CPC is currently working with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America on a reunion and the Unification Task Force reports (Pg. 123 in the Preliminary Minutes) that they are actively meeting with congregations and presbyteries in both branches and the work will go on in the coming year. This group has an active Facebook page where you can see the types of things being discussed and worked on.

So our best wishes for the meeting and we look forward to the stories and pictures that will come out of this important international meeting.