Yesterday, for the first time, I participated in a Webinar. Being who I am, it was a Webinar hosted by The Presbyterian Outlook on issues before our next Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly. (Full disclosure: I’ll be blogging the assembly for the Outlook.) I found the Webinar very helpful, partly because it presented two differing perspectives but also because it helped me to begin to think again in terms of General Assembly debate and policy.

Here’s how it went down: Jack Haberer, editor of The Presbyterian Outlook, introduced the two speakers. Ron Shive spoke on favor of the Israel Palestine report coming before the assembly, and John Wimberly spoke against. Each speaker than gave his position on the issue, using powerpoint that flowed smoothly on my screen.  There was no video of the speakers, but you could see their presentations clearly using the Webinar format.  During the presentations, Jack received questions from the audience via instant messaging. After the presentations Jack asked some of the questions from the audience.

The format, though it did feel more removed than an actual in-person meeting, was more than sufficient. Part of me wishes there were a way to live chat more easily (I ended up doing some of that via Twitter), but I also fear that would be too snarky and angry quite quickly.

The Outlook is hosting a webinar every Tuesday in June. For more information, go to their website. If you’re a commissioner to the assembly, you can participate for free! The cost, for others, isn’t bad at all. Future topics include:

And, for all your GA info needs, check out the main website, as well as a spiffy unoffical GA Help site run by Robert Austell.