PCA General Assembly 2017

If we were Messianic Jews, we would use a shofar¹.  But Presbyterians, it turns out, use a sonnet.
 

1 I miss worshipping at MJAA's annual conference -- 1st week of July at Messiah College, Grantham PA.)

Come to the Table

Our pastor, Randy Edwards, had the honor of opening up the worship session the first night of the 2017 PCA (Presbyterian Church in America) General Assembly with a sonnet he composed. 

Come to the Table
“Come to the table my son, my laughter,
Take wood and knife and let us walk away
Up into His provision.” When Isaac calls after,
“Without a lamb? Do we only go to pray?”
“Come to the table;” stand packed and waiting
Holding your staff, eating pilgrim’s bread
List’ning to the stories of God’s emancipating
Which leaves the darkened kingdom’s firstborn dead.
“Come to the table; long have I waited
To celebrate this Passover with you;
Which I give and pour in love consecrated:
The meal of my body, my body to renew.”
“I am the narrow door, the ram provided, the lamb, slain;
Come you humble, to my table, be filled, rejoice, and reign.”

Randy's blog about it: Backwards Mutters

The video is of the audience (<1/8 of the audience; it was a reeeeeeeeally big room) and the back of Randy's head because I was in the choir loft.  So apologies for recording quality.  It was much more majestic and Mufasa-like in person, both powerful and welcoming.

Hubs and I also were privileged to sing in the "mass choir"² for General Assembly. Using a playlist and some .pdfs shared by the worship leader on Dropbox, with one rehearsal last month and one last night with orchestra, we prepared 13 songs for two nights of worship. And literally, with the opening strings bit of Agnus Dei, I was all over goosebumps. It's no Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir, it's just 45 voices and 10 instrumentalists, plus 5 praise team leaders, but there's nothing like the feeling when God shows up.



2 Spoiled by Heart of the Triad Choral Society. But I invited them too!

Tonight was fun. I'm excited to see what's in store tomorrow.

EDIT: Randy also managed to grab a pic of us onstage. I'm in the back row of altos, next to the upright, and hubs is in the 2nd row of guys, right in front of the other post.