Sept. 15, 2007

Three visitors from the General Assembly office in Louisville, KY  visited our Presbytery meeting Sept. 15.  The Rev. Gradye Parsons, Director of Operations for the Office of General Assembly (OGA), explained the process by which the General Assembly gathers and what is expected of our presbytery as hosts... HOSPITALITY!

Gradye Parsons, the Director of Operations, Deb Davies, Manager of Meeting Services and Kerry Rice, Manager of Meeting Services met with the Committee on Local Arrangements (COLA) after the Presbytery Meeting to start the process rolling to welcome 5,000 Presbyterians and ecumenical guests from around the world to San Jose Presbytery June 21-28.

August 20, 2007

The Committee on Local Arrangements (COLA) for the 218th General Assembly in June of 2008 is pleased to be moving right along. We have opened an office in Suite 211 of 888 N. First Street in San Jose (familiar address?), and our COLA Executive Director, Charlotte Powers, is already at work.

We are pleased that Elder Lea Lawrence has consented to the Committee Coordinator of the Welcome Committee work groups, replacing the Rev. David Rodriguez who has been re-deployed to Iraq. Our first formal COLA meeting and training with Deb Davies and Kerry Rice from the Office of General Assembly will be following the September Presbytery meeting at Sunnyvale.

Things will ratchet up in the months ahead until the Assembly itself. Stay tuned, and be prepared to serve.

Charlotte Powers, COLA Exeutive Director

Communion Chalice for GA 08

March, 2006
It’s much too early to hitch up the wagons, but it’s not too early to let you know that we are right where we should be in preparation for the 2008 Presbyterian General Assembly. By this time on the recommended timeline we should have developed and initiated a plan for local funding. This we have done. The Synod of the Pacific continues to collect a nickel per capita each year toward our General Assembly. They began this when we thought Sacramento was going to host the 2005 annual GA. When the Church went to biennial Assemblies, Synod simply carried that money forward. Also, Presbytery approved last year an item in the Ecclesiastical Budget to augment our funds for GA. By this time Presbytery needed to name a Moderator of the Committee on Local Arrangements (COLA). This we have done, and by God’s great sense of humor (and your!), I am he.

We are also on the timeline in that I am prepared to show a video about San Jose and to give a five-minute speech at the very end of the Birmingham General Assembly (right before the closing prayer!), inviting people to come and celebrate the Church with us in 2008.

We are ahead of the timeline in that Presbytery Council has approved the five Committee Coordinators who will oversee twenty-one work groups that will be recruited in about a year and a half. Thank these folks when you see them. They include: Worship Committee Coordinator Fred Oliver (Stone); Media and Communications Committee Coordinator Pat Plant (Sunnyvale); Information Committee Coordinator Rev. Ben Daniel (Foothill); Welcome Committee Coordinator Renate Frick (Stone); and Special Events Committee Coordinator Rev. Lyle Schmidt (Hollister).

John Lococo, Jane Odell and I have met several times with the three talented individuals from Louisville’s Office of the General Assembly (the Director of Operations, the Manager of Assembly Programming and the Manager of Assembly Services) who manage this process full-time and year-round. They strongly recommend no further recruiting until late Spring or Summer of 2007, lest folks tire of the idea long before they are needed, so things will be quiet for a good long while. But be assured: there are no spare Disciples, and in God’s good time we will find a way for you to be a part of this great adventure.