Number of Assembly: 216

Quantitatively speaking, it takes a
good-sized village to raise a GA

by Nancy D. Borst

RICHMOND, July 2—Commissioners always say it's very hard to put the General Assembly experience into words. But the Committee on Local Arrangements has found that it's not so tough to put it into numbers.

GA opening worship,
by the numbers:
16,000 Communion wafers
300 Communion sets
330 Communion servers
280 ushers
425 choir members
20 musicians
2,109 volunteers
8,000 worshippers, including 87 ecumenical delegates
$42,000 put in the collection baskets

For the week:
4: hours it took to sell 2,000 extra Peruvian
manta tote bags
3,000: number of bags distributed
28,000: hours COLA volunteers devoted to
making sure the Assembly ran smoothly
55: doors the COLA volunteers opened for
commissioners all day every day
45: liturgists required for special services
161: exhibitors
83: mantas used as Assembly decorations
800: fans painted by the youth of the
Presbytery of the James

Represented at the Assembly:
113 congregations
2 new-church developments
2 fellowship groups
10 African-American congregations
2 Korean congregations
1 Arabic-language fellowship