GA Day 0 - Pregame Rituals

Get on flight to Detroit. Check. Get luggage and find the GA Welcome Table complete with colored plaquard. Check. Get to hotel, check in, and arrange items. Check. Find convention center, register, get blue commissioner badge. Check. Peruse Exhibit Hall and pick up lots of free pens, chocolate, tape measure, sunglasses, rulers, post it notes, water bottles, frisbees, iphone stands, and keychain lights (as well as literature at said booths). Check. Get the lay of the land: where are the convention rooms, restaurants, hotels, bathrooms. Check. 

The General Assembly starts tomorrow officially at 11:00 am with opening worship. Today was about the pregame rituals. Preparing for this experience called GA. Getting settled in for the marathon of meetings, conversations, worship, and ministry that comes with GA. 

One pregame ritual I have is to find the prayer spaces. I need to know where to go when I am tired, spiritually and physically. When I am confused. When I am disappointed. When I am overjoyed. Where is the safe space, the sacred space to commune with God. After all, we say we are seeking God's will. Where can I hear that will clearest?

I am proud to report there are 5 such prayer spaces at the General Assembly, all with different sacred space. There is a silent contemplative room. An interactive prayer room with art and mandalas and origami. Another place to post prayer concerns on a board. An art exhibit depicting an immigrants perspective on the stations of the cross. And finally, my favorite, the labyrinth. 

There is something about movement and pray that attracts me. Maybe because I can never sit still or because my body is so used to being in motion from the time my feet hit the floor to the time my head hits the pillow. I seek God best when I am walking, intentionally following a path of twists and turns that inevitably leads to the center, my center.

My pregame rituals for these wonderfully busy, crazy, exhausting events is walking the labyrinth...every day. Taking a time out to re-center myself on the One whom alone I follow, the only one whose opinion really matters on these many divisive issues.

My hope is that each commissioner intentionally finds time each day to be with God, commune with God, hang out with God, listen to God. I believe the General Assembly will be better for it. I believe the PC(USA) will be better for it. I believe our individual churches will be better for it. I believe each person will be better for it.  After all, isn't that why we are here? To listen to the One who called us to be here in the first place?

This makes it official. I am a GA junkie and a PC(USA) nerd.