227th General Assembly offers meaningful worship for assembly-goers and beyond

Hundreds of Presbyterians are descending on Milwaukee for the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s 227th General Assembly. The national biannual gathering represents the denomination’s highest governing body, and the primary focus of the week-long event will be discussing and voting on dozens of items of business submitted by presbyteries and others from all over the country. The decisions made by the assembly will shape the denomination in the years ahead.

However, matters of governance are not the only meaningful work assembly participants will have the chance to participate in. The week will also offer multiple opportunities for worship both during the assembly sessions themselves and within congregations on Sunday morning, both locally and across the country.

The Rev. Dr. David Gambrell, Associate for Worship within Presbyterian Life & Witness, noted that “the whole assembly will be steeped in worship from the online committee meetings to Sunday morning in local congregations to services that take place throughout the week of plenary.”

The General Assembly Worshipping Planning Team, which includes Gambrell and the co-moderators of the 226th General Assembly — the Rev. CeCe Armstrong and the Rev. Tony Larson — has spent the months leading up to the assembly working to organize four worship services that will take place throughout the week.

Each of the services is grounded in the assembly’s theme of “Persevering toward Wholeness” which was chosen by the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly and Executive Director of PL&W, the Rev. Jihyun Oh, as well as the image of the tree of life, with leaves “for the healing of the nations” (Rev. 22:2). Worship will include “passionate preaching, stirring song, fervent prayer, and inspiring testimony to the healing and reconciling work of Christ among us.” Three of the services will feature different preachers, with a fourth service centered on prayer.

Image

Armstrong and Larson, who will also moderate this assembly before new moderators are elected near its conclusion, will preach and preside at the opening worship service, scheduled to take place on Monday morning from 8:30-9:30 a.m. Central Time. That service will focus on the sub-theme of “planting and feeding” with scripture telling the story of the resurrected Jesus encountering disciples on the road to Emmaus. The service will also include the celebration of Communion and an offering to support the Office of Public Witness, the Young Adult Volunteer program, and Milwaukee’s Habitat for Humanity program.

Tuesday morning’s ecumenical worship service will focus on Revelation 22:1-5 and will focus on “walking together toward wholeness.” The preacher for that service is the Rev. Dr. Kevin Vandiver, the senior pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Reformation (ELCA) in Washington, D.C. Vandiver was selected and invited to preach by Oh, in consultation with Dr. Dianna Wright, who heads the Office of Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations within PL&W. That service’s offering will benefit Common Ground in Milwaukee, an ecumenical community partnership chosen by Vandiver.

On Wednesday there will not be a morning worship service, but there will be a powerful service of prayer that evening from 8:30-9:00pm Central Time with an emphasis on “Remembering, Lamenting, Hoping.” The prayer service, which features Taizé music, will include the listing of over 100 names, commemorating ministers of the Word and Sacrament who died between January 1, 2024, and December 31, 2025.

Finally, closing worship for the assembly will take place on Thursday at noon with the Rev. Laura Mariko Cheifetz, the Transitional Executive Presbyter for the Presbytery of San Francisco, preaching on Isaiah 58:6-12 with a theme of “sending with healing in our hands.” Newly this year, the election of moderators will take place at the close of the assembly rather than the start, and closing worship will follow immediately after that election and include the installation of those new moderators.

As Gambrell noted, these full group worship services are not the only opportunities for worship offered throughout the assembly. Commissioners, advisory delegates, and other assembly participants are encouraged to sign up to worship at local Milwaukee congregations on Sunday morning. In addition, the worship planning committee and the Committee on Local Arrangements worked together to produce a 10-page worship resource called “Gathering in the City,” which has been made available for free to all PC(USA) congregations to join with assembly-goers in theme and spirit, even as they worship in their own churches and contexts.  

The upcoming week of in-person plenaries in Milwaukee is the second portion of the assembly, with commissioners meeting virtually in committees over this past week to make recommendations about what items of business go before the full assembly for consideration. The three long days of Zoom-based committee work were also grounded in worship. Gambrell worked with Phillip Morgan, the Associate for Music, to produce nine brief daily prayer services — for morning, midday, and evening during each day of committee meetings. Committee members were then asked to lead those prayer services using the resources Gambrell and Morgan developed.

Gambrell mentioned that this assembly the worship planners made an effort to connect with the Presbyterian Association of Musicians (PAM) Worship & Music Conference, which will be taking place at Montreat Conference Center in North Carolina during the same time as the assembly. In that spirit, one of the assembly worship services will feature a video of choral anthem from the PAM gathering.

Gambrell said he’s also excited about the inclusion of local gifted musicians in this year’s worship services, including local church organists and pastors and a brass ensemble made up of members from Milwaukee congregations. This year will also feature a new hymn called "Leaves of the Tree," which was written especially for the General Assembly by the Rev. Dr. Deborah Block, who is pastor emerita at Emmanuel Presbyterian Church in Milwaukee.  

Emphasizing the important role of worship in the assembly, Gambrell said, “We are gathering as the body of Christ, and it’s important for everything that we do to be grounded and centered in an encounter with God in Christ … We come knowing that God is already there and that Christ is ready to meet us in unexpected and transforming ways.”

In addition to Gambrell, Morgan, Armstrong, and Larson, the GA worshiping planning committee includes Deborah Block, Randy Bush, Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri, Ann Gibbs, Andrew Holmes, Carlton Johnson, Lisa Lynne Kirkpatrick, Elona Street-Stewart, Lee Tan (COLA Chair), Kim Trimboli, and Dianna Wright, with support from Deb Davies (Manager, Meeting Services) and Nathan Young (GA Producer).