Presbytery, my happy place

Yesterday I spent a lot of time at a Presbytery meeting along with other people from our congregation and the congregations of the SF bay area. While there, I got to share the good news that we have 29 people registered to go to the Presbyterian Youth Triennium this year. My congregation is sending  seven people, to join with people from eight other congregations to make up our presbytery‘s delegation, to join with sooooo many other delegations getting together in Indiana. I am so excited to get to be a part of this.

I know that presbytery meetings aren’t everyone’s cup of tea. Some introverts can get quickly overwhelmed by the number of people bustling about making small talk with one another, and some people find the slow committee-based process to be incredibly taxing on their patience. There are some people who aren’t interested in going to Triennium for much the same reasons. But presbytery is my happy place, and although it will be my first time going to Triennium, I feel pretty confident that that will be a very happy place for me too. I’m glad to serve the presbytery through my role in being Triennium registrar, and I feel really hopeful and positive about how the trip will go. There is something wonderful about having a chance to meet together with other Presbyterians who have something in common with you, even though their congregational contexts may be very different from yours – whether locally (in our presbytery), or nationally (at Triennium). There is something wonderful about singing hymns with a large group of people who really know to how to sing, whether that be 100 people (at presbytery) or 5,000 (at Triennium!!). There is something wonderful about hearing a sermon preached in Spanish, with English translation for those of us who need it, and knowing at a deep level that we English-speakers are not the center of this church, because this church doesn’t have a center, other than our shared faith and commitment to follow Jesus together. There are no popes, bosses, or bishops, other than the gathered community together seeking the mind of Christ. We are all small pieces of one great body that can do far more than we can do individually – or even more than we can do in our individual congregations.

 I’m glad that my church's Triennium participants, who are all white, will join in a delegation from our presbytery that includes people of African-, Mexican-, Japanese-, Korean-, and Chinese-American descent; people whose families have immigrated more recently and those who have lived here their whole lives; people from conservative churches and liberal churches; and communities all the way from up in Richmond down to Portola Valley. I hope that the youth and adults who travel with our delegation will get the same glimpse of the beauty of the church that I got last night at our Presbytery meeting: a vibrant and living community of equals where we all take turns serving. And I hope that all of us will have our faith in God and our commitment to God’s work in the world strengthened, by taking our places as small parts of a greater whole. Thank you for being a part of this greater whole!

PS check out the video if you’re curious about Triennium: https://vimeo.com/273568850