Spring is in the air and it is time for another General Assembly…
Of course, if it is Spring the Assembly would be in the Southern Hemisphere, and so we look forward to the convening of General Assembly 2010 of the Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand at St. Andrew’s College in Christchurch in just a few hours. It will conclude this Sunday October 3.
The theme of the Assembly is “Making Disciple-Making Disciples,” a topic chosen by the incoming Moderator, the Rev. Peter Cheyne. As Rev. Cheyne says in the press release announcing the theme “It is about making disciples who become sufficiently mature to then make another generation of disciples.” There is a booklet available on-line that will be used at the Assembly for six small-group Bible study discussion sessions on the topic. Rev. Cheyne has started blogging, including a reflection on this topic. (From a technical perspective it appears that the RSS feed is for the whole church web site and there is not one specific to his blog.)
So, for those GA Junkies playing along at home here is what you need to know:
- Committee Reports and Papers including a very informative and readable User’s Guide
- An FAQ page that tends to be more of a general nature
- News and Audio Page (added 9/30)
- A page to sign up for daily updates by email
- The Book of Order in Web or PDF formats
Two important items I have not found yet are the docket and an on-line news page. I will update here when I do find them. But this is a note that there will be audio files available of certain events so keep an eye out for that. UPDATE: The News and Audio Page is now being updated.
Similarly, I have been searching but have not found anyone tweeting the GA, officially or unofficially, and no hashtag. Again, will update if I find anything.
The back story to this GA is the September 4 magnitude 7 earthquake near Christchurch. For those not familiar with earthquake behavior the aftershocks behaviour is very typical (GNS calls it “textbook“) and they continue with five in the magnitude 3 range in the last day reported by the GeoNet official agency information.
Since the earthquake there have been a number of information reports and updates from church-related sources. Linked to the GA web page is an update related to the Assembly. And thanks to notes from the Rev. Geoff King of Knox Church, Christchurch, as well as the Presbyterian Research blog for posting the accounts, we have Pastor King’s three updates about the situation after the earthquake with one that day, another the next day, and the last a week on. (That is the ecclesiastical perspective, for the geological angle I really appreciated the great photos of faulting that GNS has up on their scientific response page.)
So in the same way that prophet Amos marks time with an earthquake in his day this GA will probably be remembered for its temporal and geographical proximity to the Darfield earthquake.
Stay tuned in the coming week and let us see what God does among his people as they meet on the South Island. Prayers for the meeting.