Host Committee Chair to General Assembly: Remember your PEAS
By Megan Fowler

If the work of the 2012 General Assembly could be considered a meal, the Rev. Dave Dively, chairman of the host committee, considers overtures, committee reports and recommendations, seminars, and worship to be the meat and potatoes.

But Dively is spending an inordinate amount of time focusing on the vegetable of the 40th General Assembly, which he has declared to be peas. Dively has come up with the acronym PEAS for the aspects of the 2012 General Assembly to which he wants to give special importance: prayer, evangelism, availability and service.

Prayer will take a place of prominence in the official and unofficial activities of General Assembly. Paul Miller, author of A Praying Life, will lead a two-hour seminar entitled “Doing Ministry Through Prayer.” Dively said there will also be a prayer tent at the front of the exhibit hall where attendees can pray with and for each other.

“Our goal is to provide opportunities to pray for the work of the Assembly and the denomination, but also to give everyone in need of prayer the chance to connect with people who will be glad to pray and encourage them,” he said.

General Assembly attendees will have two opportunities for training and encouragement in evangelism. On June 18, Evangelism Explosion (EE) will conduct a five-hour seminar on sharing the faith. This will be a simplified, abbreviated version of the full curriculum, but it will keep the core five-point concept in tact.

Anyone seeking additional encouragement or training in evangelism can stop by the EE booth in the exhibit hall, where members of the EE team will offer encouragement and prayer. EE team members will take with them anyone interested in watching them do street evangelism.

“Availability” means providing resources for pastors to get assistance with problems burdening their hearts and hindering their ministries. Dively recently assisted a congregation in the Ohio Valley Presbytery dealing with a crisis, and he depended on the resources of PastorServe when helping that church. Members of PastorServe will be at General Assembly to offer support, counseling, and resources to pastors in need of encouragement.

“It is shocking to realize things are going on in people’s lives, and you would readily help if you only knew about it,” Dively said. The presence of PastorServe at General Assembly will give pastors a chance to unload their burdens and lean on their brothers for support.

Service will also play a key role at General Assembly, particularly service to the community of Henryville that was recently ravaged by tornadoes.  On June 21, participants are invited to the parking lot of the Hotel Louisville, six blocks from the site of General Assembly, to assist in building one of four Sheds of Hope to be delivered to Henryville families.  Anyone interested can bring work gloves and a hammer or come to watch and learn more about the ministry of Sheds of Hope.

As General Assembly approaches, Dively hopes participants will remember their PEAS and find that, like the vegetable, these PEAS do the body of Christ much good.

For more information, visit www.pcaga.org/peas.

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