As I've mentioned before, this trip to General Assembly feels very different from trips of the past. This is actually only my fifth time to attend GA, but every other time has been with my family - usually as a part of our family summer vacation. But since Clif was gone almost the entire month of June with our trip to Germany and Tanzania, he couldn't get away for this, too. Rob is in a similar situation. So it's just two of us from my family - me and Bethany - this time. There's always been a bigger family element to GA in the past, too. Clif's brother and sister-in-law used to meet up with us and our two families would spend time catching up over meals and the kids would hang out with their cousins. Then there was other extended family - Tom Smith from our high school youth group would often join us for meals. All of these folks are ordained clergy in DOC churches - or they were.
Tom died last January. Greg and Karen are divorced and Greg has started in a new church job so he won't be there. I've heard rumors that one or more of my nieces will be there, so I hope maybe I see them.
The family piece is missing for me this time around. It feels kind of sad, but I still have so many friends that I am excited to see. Many of these pastor-friends live far away so the only time I get to see them is once every other year at GA. It will be great to catch up and share stories and see how much their kids have grown. And then there's the party bus. You read that right - the party bus. Originally, I was supposed to drive to Nashville with Bethany and another pastor-friend, Suzi Goldt. But then another friend of ours, Suzanne Kerr, heard we were driving and said, "You should join our group. We're going in a church van. We'll have snacks, and I'm bringing the DVD set of the Vicar of Dibley." That sounded like a lot of fun, so we dubbed it the Party Bus GA 2011. A group of about 8 of us - pastors and seminary students - all riding from the KC area to Nashville. Should be a wild time, what with the Diet Dr. Pepper and PBS programming on board :-)
Because I am on sabbatical and paying special attention to what God wants to say to me, I feel like there's something else I will get from the GA experience this year - as if there's a reason that all the other things I rely on to distract me aren't available this year. I'm not sure what. I never know what it is that God is up to. I stumbled on a blog from another woman pastor yesterday, and the things I read there have me asking some big questions about my own ministry. I'm taking these questions - this sense of a shifting landscape for American Christianity and what it means for me and my denomination - all of this is going with me to Nashville. I expect that God will address these questions in unexpected ways. It won't necessarily be in a worship service or workshop. It will more likely be in a casual comment made by someone I barely know as we pass in the hallway between sessions. But it will hit me like a knock upside my head. It probably won't be a complete answer - God almost never gives me complete answers. It will be just a glimpse at something, just a hint, just a whisper of what is to come. Past experience tells me that it will be enough. I won't understand it, but it will be enough to keep me moving in the direction the Spirit is calling me to move. Kind of like a cosmic game of Marco Polo.
And that's all I expect from GA this year.
No comments:
Post a Comment