How to Survive Your First PCA General Assembly as a Korean American TE/RE
By Chris Jhu, Hansoo Jin, and Moses Y. Lee
For Korean Americans, attending your first PCA General Assembly (GA) all by yourself can feel like landing in a foreign airport with unrecognizable languages printed all over the signs. To make your GA attendance more enjoyable, fruitful, and instructive, the three of us (Chris, Hansoo, and Moses) prayerfully put together a short post which we hope will be of some use to you.
Pre-Game Preparation
Chances are that your presbytery conducts business in Korean and may give little regard to Robert’s Rules of Order due to the prevailing Confucian values of honor, respect, and order. Consequently, you’ll need to brush up on the BCO and Robert’s Rules before you come to the GA. Start with a basic knowledge of BCO procedures (download the iOS app here) and read over and save on your phone/iPad a “Robert’s Rules of Order Cheat Sheet” (which can be found on Google). Pay particular attention to the Rules of Assembly Operation. The main sessions can trip you up and leave you in the dust if you go in blind.
If you’re taking the time off and paying all this money to attend the GA, you might as well sign up as a commissioner for your presbytery. You get exposure to GA-level committees and how decisions are made for the rest of the denomination (more information can be found here). If you’re short on funs, we also recommend you sign up for your hotel through the Council of Korean Churches (CKC). You can save a ton of money, be surrounded by other first- and second-generation Korean American TEs/REs, and be shuttled back and forth from the airport at no cost. Applications usually go live several months before the GA on this Facebook Group (be aware of the signup deadline). Finally, like the KALI Facebook Page and be sure to sign up for any KALI GA events for fellowship, networking, and important updates regarding the second-generation Korean American PCA community.
Never Eat Alone
Meal times can be the loneliest or the most enjoyable moments of the GA. If you stay with CKC, breakfast is usually provided by the hotel. You can also save money by signing up for free meals hosted by various committees, agencies, and CKC events. We understand cutting down on costs might be important to you, but we highly recommend that you use the meal times to invite others to go out and eat. It’s a great time to catch up, unwind, and network (more on this below).
Be Ready to Make Sausages
Someone once said, “You know how sausage tastes good but you don’t want to see how it’s made? Get ready to see how the sausage is made in the PCA.” Presbyteries are often small, relational, and charitable, so it might come as a surprise to find the business on the Assembly floor to be much more adversarial. It can be disheartening to hear both public statements and private mutterings demonstrate a distinct cynicism and suspicion among our brothers and fathers throughout the week.
Much like our attempts to overcome cultural and linguistic barriers with the older Korean members of our presbyteries, be ready to process your observations during the GA with a veteran elder you trust. Sit with people you know and don’t be afraid to ask others questions when there seems to be unspoken assumptions or history on an issue. Come ready to grind out long hours of boring (but meaningful) business.
Speaking of Business
As a first year commissioner, you’ve probably begun to think about the business of GA. You’ve read through the overtures and your committee of commissioners material and you’ve noted the times when the assembly convenes and reconvenes. But to fully participate in the business of GA, you have to consider the informal business that’s conducted after hours.
While it may not seem like it, the informal business of GA is just as important as the formal business. It’s an opportunity to glean and share wisdom, to establish ministry partnerships, and to explore changing calls. So be ready to devote as much time and energy to conducting informal business as you are to conducting formal business.
Practically, this means: 1) attend organized and impromptu gatherings and be ready to hang out way past your normal bedtime; 2) seek out specific people (i.e., Tim Keller) or the kind of person you want to meet (i.e., a guy who’s done cross-cultural youth ministry.) to ask questions and learn from, to hire or to be hired by, or simply for your mutual edification; 3) get to know people outside of your comfort zone.
Conclusion
As you can see, attending your first GA can actually end up being instructive and worthwhile. With these tips in mind, we hope your first attendance leads to a second, a third, etc. Finally, feel free to out to us and we can either connect you with other brothers or you can tag along with any of us. We’d be honored to get to know you!
Post-GA Suggestions
1. Request to serve for several days on the Review of Presbytery Records Committee (RPR) or the Nominating Committee (NC). Airfare is reimbursed by the Administrative Committee (AC) and the hotel and meals are covered. You can either shuttle to and from the airport for free or get reimbursed for a rental if you share it with another pastor. At RPR and NC, you’ll be forced to learn the BCO and Robert’s Rules in more detail and in a smaller context as you review the minutes of your assigned presbyteries. And because you’re most likely fluent in English, you’ll have a chance to support your PCA Korean fathers by attending the committee on their behalf.
2. Request to serve on various committees in your presbytery. In the PCA, most of the work is done on the committee-level. This will help you to not only know the processes behind how decisions are made but it’ll also help you to develop an ownership of denominational affairs. If your presbytery doesn’t have one yet, it might be good to start with a “EM Shepherding Committee” to fellowship with, encourage, and develop other second-generation TEs/REs, licentiates, and undercare candidates. From here, you and other like-minded brothers can discuss how to get more involved in your presbytery.
3. Request an opportunity to serve as an assistant recording clerk of your presbytery. You will assist the recording clerk in taking minutes, following the BCO, etc. Just a word of caution: you might also be requested to attend your presbytery’s officer meetings in which case you might have to brush up on your Korean. But who knows? Maybe the officers might all attempt to speak in broken English just for you (this happens frequently on the committee-level in the Korean Capital Presbytery).
Editor’s note: A version of this article appeared on Vintage73.
Chris Jhu serves as the pastor of Christ Central Buffalo in Buffalo, NY and is a member of the New York State Presbytery (PCA).
Hansoo Jin serves as church planter of Harris Creek Community Church in Baltimore, MD and is a member of the Korean Capital Presbytery (PCA).
Moses Y. Lee will be planting Rosebrook Presbyterian Church in North Bethesda, Maryland this fall. He’s a contributing author to the forthcoming, Hear Us, Emmanuel: Another Call for Racial Reconciliation, Representation, and Unity in the Church (White Blackbird, 2020) and is co-editing a book on Asian American Presbyterianism. He occasionally writes for The Gospel Coalition and SOLA. You can follow him on Twitter.