APCE 2018: Touring the Presbyterian Center

BY SANDY ASARO

One of the workshops that I attended at the APCE (Association of Presbyterian Church Educators) Conference was a tour of the Presbyterian Center. Being a Clerk of Session and having been raised in the same Presbyterian church in my hometown of Port Charlotte, Florida, touring the Presbyterian Center was a must-do for me! Our tour was led by Kerry Rice, who is very knowledgeable about the ministries, architecture, history, and artwork that are housed at this location. One interesting fact that we learned was that the Presbyterian Center actually used to be two separate buildings that were brought together architecturally with a large atrium connecting them. Ramps and stairs were used to accommodate the different heights of the floors in each building. An insight that just popped into my mind that may parallel this symbolically is that the Presbyterian denomination also used to be separated into two different branches (one representing the North and one the South) before uniting together in 1983 into what we know today as the PC(USA). The Presbyterian Center location was the new home for the denomination’s headquarters following the merger and was dedicated to the Glory of God in 1988. This picture shows the beautiful stain glass windows (seen from both the front and rear of the building) depicting the PC(USA) symbol, and lights are left on in the evening to shine through these stained-glass windows.

Following our tour, we had a roundtable discussion and Q & A Session with two representatives from the General Assembly’s (GA’s) 6 committees. It was interesting to learn about how our denomination works at the national level, and my learning point about this was that the 6 GA committees are the Office of the General Assembly, Presbyterian Mission Agency, Presbyterian Investment & Loan Program, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation, Presbyterian Foundation, and Board of Pensions.

Our last activity was a fun Presbyterian Trivia game. The categories were Book of Order, History, Statistics, Beliefs and Practices, and a bonus category identifying in which U.S. state various Presbyteries were located. Just like children and youth would in our respective ministries, I found myself as an adult getting very excited about playing a game! The rules were explained that it could be played in teams or individually. The way we played was if you answered correctly, you then also got a question from the bonus category. If you missed, then the next player had a chance to try and answer correctly. An ‘aha’ moment for me was how excited I got about playing a game and trying to be more intentional about incorporating games into my setting as a children-and- youth leader at my church.

Sandy Asaro is a M.A.C.E. student at Union Presbyterian Seminary.