 Welcome to this edition of Vantage Point. Today we're going to be talking about General Association, which is the oldest continuing clergy education event in the nation. We're very excited about this year's General Association, which comes up the end of this month. And I brought some members of the planning team to our conversation here on Vantage Point today, and I'm going to invite them to introduce themselves to you all. So please, starting with Jocelyn. My name is Jocelyn Gardner Spencer, and I serve as pastor at First Congregational Church of Woodstock. I'm Matt Emory. I'm the senior minister at the Stores Congregational Church UCC in Stores. I'm Jeff Gallagher. I'm the senior pastor at the United Congregational Church of Tallinn. I'm Mary Nelson Abbott. I serve on the staff of the Connecticut conference, and I'm the staff person to the GA planning team. So this year's planning team, in the past what we've done at General Association has been to invite a guest speaker. But this year, the planning team is taking things in a very different direction, and I'm very excited about what's coming up at General Association. So I'd like each member of our planning team to say a little bit about where we're headed at this year's General Association, and I'll start with Jocelyn. Sure, thanks Kent. One of the things that I'm excited about this year is that we're really taking advantage of the wisdom that's in the room. Each time I've been at GA for the last couple of years, I've been so engaged by all of my colleagues who are there, and just wanted to hear more from them. So we had an application process for people who'd like to share some of their wisdom with the gathered body, and we've got six really fabulous speakers lined up. Excellent. Matt, what about this year that excites you in being part of the team? What excites me is the way in which we are being much more intentional and privileging of worship during this experience. GA often, I think, functions for many of us as sort of the primary clergy retreat experience we have in this conference each year, and myself and Shelley Stackhouse from Church of the Redeemer in New Haven are heading up the worship planning efforts for this event, and we have many more worship experiences and much more intentionally integrated into the theme of the event. Great. Looking forward to that. Jeff. In addition to what Matt and Jocelyn have said, I think what excites me is the idea that there are just six different topics and the fact that we can explore multiple ideas, multiple resources as we converse with one another, multiple opportunities to learn from our colleagues, just the idea that we can walk away from this meeting with hopefully a whole wealth of information that can feed ourselves but then feed the congregations that we serve is pretty exciting. That's great. We're doing a riff on TED Talks, which is a way to present information in about a 15-minute chunk of time, and so as you've heard from our team, there are six different experiences that are going to be offered, and I've asked Mary if she would tell us who's going to be at General Association presenting those six talks. Well, our first speaker is Jocelyn herself, who is serving as the moderator this year, which is very exciting, and the moderator's talk is always a highlight of General Association. Then we have five speakers from around the conference who are each presenting a different topic. First, we have Max Grant, who is going to be talking about the ethics of pastoral ministry. Then we have Liz Miller, who is going to be talking about spirituality of caregiving. We also have Marilyn Kendricks, who will be speaking about her own journey of coming to faith through music and specifically through organ music. We have Bob Naylor, who's going to be talking about theology and the arts, and we have a special guest who's joining us from the Widening the Welcome Conference, which is happening just before General Association this year. Alan Johnson from the Widening the Welcome Group will also be sharing his talk about disabilities and welcoming folks into our churches. So a really diverse group of topics that are going to be covered. Now, to register for General Association, we already have people that have figured out how to register and signed up online through our online registration. Mary, would you tell us how to register? How would I register? Because now I'm excited about coming to this event. Registration is really easy. All you need to do is go to ctucc.org slash general association. And everything you need to know to register is right there. The form is right there when you go to that URL. Excellent. And I think the last day to register without paying a penalty of an additional surcharge is September 18th. So you want to do this and register right away using the method that Mary has spoken about. But there's still more that we want to share with you. So I'm going to invite Jocelyn to share. Sure. So I'm excited about the bookstore that will be at GA. Hopkins Bookshop in Burlington, Vermont comes to GA every year with a wonderful selection of books on a whole variety of topics that are relevant for church leaders. I had a really hard time limiting to myself to those that I could carry last year. So I'm sure that Denny will have some great things for us. Excellent. Matt, you've got something to share. Another very new aspect of the format this year is on Tuesday morning we're having what we're calling an idea fair. And that's an opportunity for anyone who's in attendance to, if they want to have a table or a booth, sort of to present information about a topic of particular passion. So we're really trying to capitalize on that feeling that the wisdom is in the room and it's not only the exciting slate of speakers but it is also everyone else in attendance and everyone has that opportunity to present. Great. And Silver Lake is a beautiful spot. Jeff, why don't you tell us about some, is it only talks or are we going to have some free time? So it sounds like there's a lot of information that's going to be shared and there will be and that's wonderful but we've also been really intentional about building in some time for everybody who attends to retreat a little bit and so there will be an opportunity on Monday afternoon hopefully to go for a walk if the weather's nice, to enjoy the grounds, to maybe get out in a canoe or do the ropes chorus or just find a picnic table and have a conversation with one of your friends and we want to make sure that people have that opportunity to break away and really experience some retreat time while they're at Silver Lake. So we want to encourage you to come to General Association September 27th through 29th registration at ctucc.org slash general association and we are ungrateful for these folks who are on the planning team. They represent a part of the planning team and for the good hard work that they've put into this particular event. It's something completely different, completely new and very post-modern. So we invite you to come and be part of GA Talks this year. Blessings to you this day.