Geneva, Ill.

In about four hours, the limo will arrive to start me on my journey to Fort Worth, Texas, site of this year’s General Assembly. (General Assembly, or “GA”, is the annual gathering of Unitarian Universalists from around the United States.) My plan is to post daily installments of a “GA journal” on this blog — my observations and impressions of General Assembly this year.

I’m looking forward to a number of GA events this year. Elaine Pagels is one of the featured speakers, best known for her current scholarship on the Gnostic Gospels. Pagels’s lecture will be streamed live on the Web, as will a number of other key events — a schedule of those live Web broadcasts will be posted within the next few days on the GA Web page. Another event I’m particularly looking forward to — UU theologian Paul Rasor is going to speak. I think he’s the most interesting UU theologian out there right now. And there will be a number of other workshops and events that look pretty good.

Of course, GA is really the business meeting of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), the association of congregations of which our church is a part. I have to admit that I’m not exactly looking forward to attending meetings for business, but it does feel important. This year, a number of elections worth paying attention to will take place at GA. Bill Sinkford, current president of the UUA is running unopposed for his seond (and final) term of office — while the election itself is of little interest, I will be curious to hear what he has to say about the overall state of the UUA.

Before GA begins, I’ll be at “Professional Days,” a gathering of ministers, Directors of Religious Education, and other church professionals. Professional Days always immediately precedes GA. I’ll also post some reports from that event, but the program doesn’t look all that interesting this year — the big draw of Professional Days for me this year will be catching up with colleagues from around the country, and trading ideas and insights with them.

So that’s my little introduction to GA — hope you follow along by reading this blog, watching live Web broadcasts, and reading the GA reports that will be posted daily on the GA Web page.

My next post to this blog won’t be until Monday evening,as I am taking the train down to Fort Worth (I do hate flying). See you then!

Update: Links removed, some no longer active

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