GA update 7/1/2026
Dear Trinity Church Family,
Hello From General Assembly! WOW, what an amazing experience. I’ll admit, they had me at the bagpipes at the opening worship service. I am so grateful to be here, and I appreciate all of you making the space for me to go.
Your Shenango delegates are having a thoughtful and joyful experience, watching the Presbyterian children of God discern Christ’s call on our lives and our churches. It is hard work, but good work. Last night we paused our conversation and discernment at 10:30 p.m. to go to bed. I thought it might be helpful to share with you what a day looks like for a General Assembly voting commissioner.
Our days start with an opening worship service. Yesterday, we heard an amazing sermon from Rev. Dr. Kevin Vandiver, senior pastor of the Lutheran Church of the Reformation (ELCA) in Washington, D.C., during an ecumenical worship service that included pastors from churches around the world. We normally start deliberating and voting on items around 10:00 a.m. every day. While we are physically present in the room, we all vote and make motions using a system on our computers. This system also allows us to read and track all the business at hand. Sometimes our work includes watching videos that celebrate something, like the work of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (which is where Trintiy sent our One Great Hour of Sharing offering this year!) We also recognized two exceptional seminary professors and remembered two past Moderators of the General Assembly who are now in the church triumphant.
Lunch and dinner are usually provided right here in the conference center, and then we continue our work at 1:30 p.m. every day. Yesterday, I attended a luncheon for friends of Louisville Seminary (you might have heard President Pomerville preach at our church), while my mom attended one for friends of Pittsburgh Seminary. Dinners are also normally provided. However, last night, Shenango’s delegates headed to a nearby restaurant to celebrate our time together before Tyler our Youth Advisory Delegate from Shenango headed home this morning for a flight to Germany on Friday! One thing I love about the Presbyterian Church is the way we value the voices of our young people in all our deliberations. Along with speaking on the floor during our deliberations and adding in our discernment, they have a separate vote on every issue and “advise” us on what they think before we vote. That is why they are called Youth Advisory Delegates.
After dinner, we start deliberating at 7:00 p.m. and go as long as we need to go. Things are going well today, so I’m hoping we end our discernment tonight before 10:30! During our deliberations, we stop for prayer and moments of silence as we pray about issues. We also have dance parties during “comfort breaks.” One of my favorite moments at G.A. was during our difficult deliberations regarding our PCUSA mission coworkers, someone spontaneously started singing the doxology and we all joined in.
During this amazing and slightly sleep deprived week, I’m reminded that Jesus can show up in the sanctuary at Trintiy, in the beauty of a mid-summer day, and in the midst of the hard work of Session, Deacon, congregational, and General Assembly meetings.
Thanks again for your prayers. I miss your smiles and will see you on Sunday!
~Catherine
Saturday, June 27th- We’ve arrived!
After 3 days of looong but fruitful committee meetings, 500 miles in the car and one Cracker Barrell blueberry pancake breakfast stop, we have safely arrived in Milwaukee! Thank you to all of you for your prayers. We have unpacked our suitcases in our hotel rooms, we have our official delegate name badges and we are ready to worship, discern and vote starting on Sunday afternoon! Blessings to all of you as you worship together in church on Sunday morning. Our prayers are with you all, for where two or 500 are gathered, Jesus is there.
Grace and Peace and Thanks Shenango!
Catherine and Judy
Wednesday, June 24th- Well That Was Exhausting!
Today we finished up our last day of committee meetings before heading to General Assembly on Saturday. Catherine’s committee, dealing with world mission, finally wrapped up their work around 9:30 p.m. Wednesday night! Each one of our committees looked at resolutions sent to us from different presbyteries. These resolutions also had to have support from a few other presbyteries to be discerned by our committee. Once our committees looked at each resolution, we would amend them or adapt them as we felt called and then vote to send them (or not send them) for consideration on the floor of General Assembly.
Judy’s committee on Theological Education and Ordination looked at issues like what kind of training and or education is currently required for commissioned lay pastors and ordained pastors, and what kind of training should be considered in the future. And what about those 5 ordination exams pastors are required to pass to be ordained. Should we keep them? Or adapt them?
Catherine’s committee on our “Reformed Identity in the World” looked at resolutions on everything from “nuclear disarmament in the 21st century”, to speaking out on behalf of people living in Cuba and Palestine. We also spent a lot of time learning more about the dismissal of our mission co-workers in the PCUSA and calling for a task force to review the restructuring of the PC(USA) World Mission. This task force will look at what happened and where we all might go from here. (This resolution came to my committee with prior support from Shenango Presbytery!) This committee is also sending along a resolution to General Assembly asking for a clear mission statement on the direction of mission in the PCUSA moving into the future.
Most of the things our committees talked about for 3 days were very emotionally and spiritually heavy. Sometimes we paused our meetings to just pray. We were talking about people’s sense of calling, their life’s work, or hearing about the lives of those who live in war zones. Catherine and Judy were grateful that each day of discernment and conversation started and ended with worship and prayer and was supported by lots of great moderators and resource people to answer our questions.
Catherine’s favorite part of the day was during online worship each morning when the worship leader would ask “for what are the people of God thankful for today?” and “for what are the people of God praying for today?” It was always a very sacred moment, even over Zoom, to hear the beautiful things and the heartbreaking things people around the nation were carrying in their hearts and lifting up to God. You could always sense the Holy Spirit moving, even though we weren’t physically present together.
Thanks for your continued prayers for us and for Shenango’s Young Adult Delegate, Tyler, as we head to Milwaukee. They are felt and appreciated.
Grace and Peace and Thanks Shenango!
Catherine and Judy
Monday, June 22nd, 2026
Hello from a proud Presbyterian!
Catherine Craley, here! I just finished up my first day of online committee meetings, and it was a great experience. We started the day at 9:00 a.m. EST with an opening worship zoom for the whole assembly. This worship service included greetings from our co-moderators who will be guiding us throughout the General Assembly. I feel like we are in good hands with Rev. Cecelia Armstrong & Rev. Tony Larson who were both very capable leaders but also quite funny! At one point while they were waiting for all our online votes to come in, Rev. Tony suggested someone play the Jeopardy theme song during the awkward silence, to which Rev. Cece said… “it’s under copyright. They will just have to hum a hymn!!” We all laughed. You can learn more about our Moderators, who were elected by the last General Assembly, here: https://pcusa.org/about-pcusa/church-structure/general-assembly/co-moderators-general-assembly
At 10:00 a.m. our committee meetings started online. This is where I spent the rest of my day, on Zoom with 80 other people and a whole bunch of snacks! My committee’s topic was World Mission, which means we reviewed resolutions coming to the G.A. dealing with World Mission. About 50 of the people on my committee Zoom were voting delegates…pastors and elders from all around the country. The “zoom room” also included my committee moderator and vice-moderator, a parliamentarian who kept us in good and decent order, a tech person and lots of PCUSA staff people and resource people (like college professors or mission co-workers) who answered questions of all kinds as they came up.
While my committee ended our work for the day at 5:30 p.m. Shenango’s voting Elder, Judy Book from New Wilmington Presbyterian (also my mom!), was busy in her committee meetings until nearly 10:00 p.m. She is on the committee dealing with questions about theological education and ordination. Judy said there was a lot of conversation around the nuances of language, the “shalls” and “shoulds,” in a task force report on theological education. She still has a long docket of resolutions to review ahead of her!
On both of our committees, everything was done thoughtfully, faithfully, decently and in order. We both had wonderful committee moderators who fulfilled their calling well. I got to hear thoughtful comments from wise elders, Young Adult Delegates, and everyone in-between. When I signed off my Zoom at 5:30 p.m. I was proud to be a Presbyterian!
Thanks for your continued prayers for me and Judy as we head into two more days of committee meetings. They are felt and appreciated.
Grace and Peace and Thanks, Shenango!
Catherine
This is what a GA committee meeting looks like in 2026