For a key General Assembly planner, Saturday’s Community Day will set the tone for the in-person gathering in Milwaukee

MILWAUKEE — If there’s one thing Kate Trigger Duffert is looking forward to as commissioners and advisory delegates gather in Milwaukee for the in-person portion of the 227^th General Assembly, it’s Community Day on Saturday.

“I’m looking forward to what that day can bring to this assembly format — to learn for future planning and to being a part of it along with everyone else experiencing the public action and the Town Square, and getting at that element of being a community,” said Trigger Duffert, Director of General Assembly Planning in Presbyterian Life & Witness. “It’s an opportunity for groups throughout the church to be in one space at one time, see the scope of ministries happening, make personal connections and build relationships, then go home and be connected to do the work in their own context.”

The Town Square, set for 2 p.m. through 5 p.m. Central Time on Saturday, will feature more than two dozen staffed tables. “It’s not just committees and groups that report to the assembly. It’s advocacy groups, camps and conference centers, mid councils, and local ministry partners. It’s broad-based,” Trigger Duffert said. “It’s about building connections.”

GA planners left planning Saturday’s public action up to the Presbytery of Milwaukee’s Committee on Local Arrangements, “and they ran with it,” creating and event from 9 a.m. through 11 a.m. Central Time called “Healing Not Harm: A Walk to End Gun Violence.”

The COLA worked with the PC(USA)’s Office of Public Witness “to find speakers who are local and tied to the issue,” she said. Speakers will offer brief talks, and a blacksmith will turn gun components into tools. Participants will walk to City Hall and pray along the way, then return to the Baird Conference Center.

Those who wish to stay indoors can interact with the speakers while others march to City Hall. David Barnhart of Counter Stories Productions will share insights into an update he’s making to “Trigger: The Ripple Effect of Gun Violence,” his 2017 film about gun violence. 

Trusting the technology

Trigger Duffert said she trusts that updated GA training materials will help ensure “people are not overwhelmed by the amount of information and have references they can refer to.” The materials were placed online and were part of the training materials provided to commissioners and advisory delegates. In one section, “we asked them to reflect on what they are excited about and what they have anxiety about,” Trigger Duffert said.

Image

Along with the Co-Moderators of the 227^th General Assembly, the Rev. CeCe Armstrong and the Rev. Tony Larson, GA planners “were intentional about identifying people who know how to lead online meetings. It’s a different skill to be a moderator online,” she said. “We sat back and said, what is a foundational thing they need? We decided it’s knowing how to work together,” not “training parliamentarians to be great parliamentarians, but looking at committee team as a whole.”

MyGA has “been designed well to make sure we are following parliamentary procedure,” she said. “When some seeks to speak, we know a lot about them. On the user side, you might not see those components.”

Once committees had completed their work on Wednesday, a plenary script-writing team began working with each committee to help committee leaders think about what they want to present during plenary, “with enough information but leaving some space for further discernment,” Trigger Duffert said.

A backstage team ensures the livestream is as smooth as possible. A business team manages motions, activates votes and handles the speaker queue, and documents and writes minutes. The finalized docket from the Bills and Overtures Committee is published Sunday. “It can always shift,” she said. “It’s an ongoing conversation” among Bills and Overtures; the Rev. Jihyun Oh, the Stated Clerk/Executive Director; and backstage people.

The production team has about 12 members, with 14 or so on the business team. Eight others work backstage.

“We reach a point in the planning process a month or two out where there’s not much more we can do,” Trigger Duffert said. “We have to know we are ready for whatever happens. All of that is absolutely led by the Spirit making something happen.”

Like most of those in attendance, Trigger Duffert also looks forward to worshiping in Milwaukee area churches on Sunday morning. “We hear so much from congregations who love to share what it’s like to have Presbyterians in their town and to have a full sanctuary,” she said. It’s fantastic for congregations “extending hospitality and having this impact of the broader church, where they can see the diversity of the PC(USA) and hear both sides of what it’s like to be Presbyterian in such a different context. It’s something we don’t get to do in General Assembly in a way that’s so embodied.”

With four teams standing for Co-Moderators, “it shows the strong investment of commissioners in the life of the church,” Trigger Duffert said. “It’s a statement of the work presbyteries have done in finding their commissioners.”

At each of the worship opportunities, “my hope is everyone comes out having experienced something familiar and totally new they can use,” Trigger Duffert said. “The Moderators and Stated Clerk have selected fantastic preachers and there will be great music, largely led by people across the church and the COLA.”

And, as it’s a Presbyterian gathering, there will be bagpipers performing on Sunday afternoon.