VGEC Team Heads to Salt Lake City for the 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church

Ask your clergy or lay General Convention delegates to bring you one of our popular VGEC Color Changing beverage cups.

By Margaret McLarty, VGEC Immediate Past President and General Convention Worship Committee Member

Many of us are packing our bags to head out to Salt Lake City for the General Convention of the Episcopal Church which starts on Thursday, June 25, 2015 and ends on Friday, July 3rd. Barry Norris, Bill Gleason and Scott Smith are leading the pack by arriving on Sunday June 21st to start setting up the VGEC exhibit booth which will open on Tuesday, June 23rd.

The Vergers Guild of the Episcopal Church will have an incredibly prominent booth located just to the right of the entrance of the Exhibit Hall at the Salt Palace Convention Center. A very large and recognizable blue sign, “got vergers?” will be hanging from the rafters and will clearly identify our booth. If you are going to General Convention, please come by and see us. Invite any verger or groups interested in verging to go by our booth, identify themselves, and choose from some of our take-away materials. If you are not attending, ask any clergy and laypeople from your parish or diocese who are coming to visit our booth and pick up a VGEC cup to bring home to you. This will be the third convention in nine years that we have given out magic souvenir cups branded with the GC logo. The magic feature is they are frosty white at room temperature, but turn a color when filled with a cool beverage. We have purple ones for bishops that come by and visit with us!

We want you to be a part of the booth activities and to join us for a get together on Friday night, June 26th. Please send your contact information to [email protected].

Expect regular Vergers Voice blog posts, reporting news, happenings, and details of the convention!

Join in the worship whether you are in Salt Lake City or in your own home! There are daily Community Eucharists starting at 9:30 am MDT every morning except the last day, Friday, July 3, which will start an hour early at 8:30 am MDT to welcome the new Presiding Bishop. The big Festival Eucharist and UTO Ingathering on Sunday, June 28, 2015 will start at 10:00 am. This year the Order of Service bulletins are available for download. There will not be printed bulletins for the services. This is another exciting leap of faith as our church moves forward technologically. There is a media hub, which will live-stream the worship and legislative sessions. You should see buttons for Worship, Press, Features, Deputies and Bishops plus, as you scroll down, a calendar of events for each day. The Society of St. John the Evangelist has an interactive process for anyone to offer intercessory prayers during the convention worship at prayersofthepeople.org.

The worship at General Convention is exceptionally unique. Every day the liturgies are crafted with superb music and musicians, gifted preachers, and brilliant lectors joining with various Bishops as celebrants to offer Holy Eucharist to the Glory of God. Daily services typically serve around 2500. The attendance for Sunday is expected to be 5500.

The 78th General Convention also has a Mobile Guide. All of this information and the legislative sessions can be found once you download the Guidebook app. Download it at: guidebook.com/g/GC2015.

The Convention Worship Committee is looking to the VGEC for support. On each of the service bulletins, the General Convention Worship Committee has acknowledged the VGEC and expressed thanks for our support and service. The daily community Eucharists are supported by two vergers (non-vested) serving as escorts for the platform party moving to the stage. This will be in an open area and will be reminiscent of the ancient verger moving the clergy from his home to the church through the town.

I will serve as the platform Master of Ceremonies. This will be the third time for me to have the honor to serve in this capacity and as a member of the General Convention Worship Committee. At the Sunday morning Festival Eucharist, four vested vergers, will lead the various processions into the hall. It is the practice to use local Utah vergers and vergers attending the convention for this responsibility.

Join us in Salt Lake City in person or by computer, keep all of us in your prayers, and anticipate the upcoming Vergers Voice blog posts. I look forward to seeing many of you on the exhibit floor. And remember, "got vergers?"

---

Click the big red button to register for the 2015 Annual Conference being held October 1-4, 2015 in St. Louis, Missouri:

---

Abstract:  Your VGEC presence at the 78th General Convention of the Episcopal Church is prominent. Our advance "GC" team is on the road to Salt Lake City today. We'll have their reports while they set up our booth over the weekend. Watch for frequent Vergers Voice Blog posts during the convention.