WE NEED MORE VOLUNTEERS!

Just over a month to go! Our role is to serve as hosts for the 5,000 commissioners, advisors, ecumenical guests and their families. One major responsibility for our individual churches—a part of our “Ministry of Hospitality”—is to secure volunteers to serve in many different capacities during the entire week of General Assembly.

We need your help. Some of the tasks for volunteers are listed below:

• Communion servers/ushers on Sunday, June 22nd,
• Prepare and/or cleanup communion at the Civic Center and Event Center
• Prayer Partners for Commissioners, Youth Advisory Delegates
• Monitor the San Jose Presbytery Exhibit Booth
• Help out in the Cokesbury Booth (where books and Presbyterian items are sold)
• Help decorate the area for the Moderator’s reception.
• Serve as a chaperone for the YAD event to the Santa Cruz Boardwalk
• Greet people as they arrive at the convention center.
• We also need people to staff our Presbytery of San Jose Information Booth (which also features our own MicahsCall.org) to answer questions of participants booth to tell people about the good works of our churches (information will be supplied), and choir members to be a part of the Sunday worship service at the Event Center or Civic Auditorium. We need 500 singers to lift their voices in praise.

For more information:

To volunteer for any of these positions and view job descriptions for each one, go to

http://www.micahscall.org/cola

for the Volunteer Registration Form. Most shifts are 3-4 hours; you can sign up for one shift or several. Your
small group can volunteer to handle one hotel or one shift. Job descriptions for each task can be found on the
web site or Call the COLA office at 408-286-0927 or email the COLA office at ga08_cola@yahoo.com.

Attend General Assembly Worship Service

Come and add your voice to 5,000 of your Presbyterian family in worship on Sunday, June 22 at 10:00 a.m.
2 simultaneous venues!

1. Civic Auditorium (across from the San Jose Convention Center)
2. San Jose State University Event Center

• Receive the sermon preached by the Rev. Joan Gray, Moderator of PC (USA)
• Listen to beautiful music featuring choir members from Presbytery of San Jose and Presbytery of San Francisco churches
• Witness the commissioning of General Assembly delegates and missionaries
• Celebrate communion with the worldwide Presbyterian community
• Lift your voice in praise and song

For details: Contact Charlotte Powers at COLA office @ 408/286-0927
PS: You don’t have to register for GA to attend this worship service. You do need to sign up if you want to meet at First Pres for a bus ride down and back at a cost of $20. There will be no Sunday service at First Pres on June 22; there will be a service at Covenant Presbyterian.

First Presbyterian Church Palo Alto and Craig Wiesner / Derrick Kikuchi to be Honored at More Light Presbyterians Dinner on June 21st (purchase tickets to dinner by May 19th)

More Light Presbyterians National Celebration Reception and Dinner

It's About Time: A Church for All God's People! Start your Assembly in good company and with hope.  All are invited to the National Welcoming & Affirming Presbyterians' Celebration reception and dinner, hosted by More Light Presbyterians, a national LGBT Equality Network of individual members, families, churches and local chapters working for spiritual, ordination and marriage equality in the PC(USA). A festive celebration of faith, hope and love for persons of all sexual orientations and gender identities and God-given differences. Speaker: Randall Miller, program officer, Equality & Justice, at the Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr. Foundation.  The program includes national awards, legislative priorities at this GA, a Shower of Stoles Project display and Voices of Hope.  

Reception with cash bar at 4 p.m. 
Ticket - $55.00
Ticket required for dinner at 5 p.m. Marriott Hotel, Convention Center, San Jose

Tickets for the dinner are available through online purchase. Click here to order online or click here to download a registration form you can print out and fax. You'll see this area on the second page of that form. Enter the number of seats you'd like at the dinner under the "O" column (which stands for observer, unless you happen to be a commissioner).

NOTE: You DO NOT have to be registered for GA to attend the dinner.

For more information, email gameetingservice@pcusa.org  or  phone 888-728-7228 ext. 2417.

About the Awards:

(Letters from Michael Adee) It is my deep joy and delight to inform you that the National Board of Directors, More Light Presbyterians, has named your congregation to receive the National More Light Presbyterian Church Award for 2008.  Congratulations. In addition to your faithful and long history of LGBT justice work, you are being recognized for all of the ways you work for peace, justice and care for all of God's children within your community, presbytery and your witness to the national church.  You are a happy, healthy, loving church.  It has been my joy to be with you on many occasions now since I started working with MLP in 1999; I have had the opportunity to experience what makes FPC a remarkable faith community in person. We are deeply grateful for First Presbyterian Church, Palo Alto.  You have long been and continue to be one of most active and faithful congregations within More Light Presbyterians.  You have so generously shared with us some of your own local leaders who have served and serve with us on the national level including Mitzi Henderson, Bruce Hahne, Derrick Kikuchi and Craig Weiser.  MLP is a stronger and more effective organization because of the leadership and service of these fine Presbyterians in addition to the work and witness of your congregation. This award will be presented to you at the National MLP Celebration Dinner, June 21, at the Marriott Hotel, San Jose Convention Center. 

It is my great delight and joy to have the privilege of sharing with you that the two of you have been named to receive the National David Sindt More Light Presbyterians Leadership Award for 2008.  Congratulations! This award, as you know, is named to honor the late Rev. David Sindt, the founder of More Light Presbyterians and the LGBT affirmation, justice and equality movement in our Church.  His coming out at the 1974 General Assembly broke the ground for MLP and our movement in the PCUSA. This Sindt Leadership Award is given to recognize individual leadership within More Light Presbyterians.  And, of course, it has been given to couples before as well.  The National MLP Board of Directors and I could not imagine two more deserving persons that you, Derrick and Craig, for this award and recognition.  First, in who you are in your generous spirits and as a loving couple; second, in your remarkable work in and through Reach and Teach; and of course, for all the ways you support MLP's mission working with us on both the national and local level.  Your loving and faithful leadership and service within your local congregation of First Presbyterian Church, Palo Alto, is both inspired and inspiring.  And, Vikki, Trice, Ralph and I think you are the deal, your help with the web site, setting up online registrations, etc. is of incredible help to us.    Your award will be presented at the National MLP Celebration Dinner on June 21, at the Marriott Hotel, Convention Center, San Jose.  Information about the dinner follows this letter of congratulations.