This month we celebrate the birthday of the Church. At Pentecost the Spirit transformed the disciples, giving them both the courage and the power to reach across differences and proclaim the gospel with their words and with their acts.

We trust that same Spirit will accompany all who gather at the General Assembly. As we go to Louisville, we remember the traditional Reformed principle, lifted up for us recently by Walter Brueggemann:

In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things, charity.