Monthly Archives: June 2011

Amendment Voting In The PC(USA) — 1. Summary Statistics Of Amendment 10-A Passage

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As General Assembly Season tapers off and the voting on the amendments to the constitution of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) finishes up, I have finally found time to start crunching the final numbers on amendment voting.  While I have several different analyses planned, let me begin with the summary statistics related to the passage of Amendment 10-A and we will see how many of the other ones I would like to do actually get finished.

As of today it appears that the voting on 10-A has finished with a vote by the Presbytery of Kiskiminentas against the amendment 33 to 58.  However, the passage of the amendment was secured back on May 10 when the 87th presbytery voted in favor of it.  For the purposes of this analysis I am going to use the data at about the time of the passage, including a few presbyteries that voted shortly after the unofficial passage.  My intent is to eliminate any change in voting patterns that may have occurred after the concurrence was a foregone conclusion.

As usual, my data comes from an aggregation of the usual sources: Covenant Network, Reclaim Biblical Teaching, Yes on Amendment A, and The Layman Online.  I have posted my spreadsheet with the data and the analysis.

While the unofficial vote count currently stands at 97 yes to 74 recorded no and two not voting, my “freeze-frame” was from the point the count was 92 yes and 68 no. (Not much of a difference I will admit.) The objective of this analysis is to look at the change in voting from 08-B to 10-A. Accordingly, there were 86 presbyteries voting yes this time and 62 presbyteries voting no on 10-A that have recorded votes on both amendments. I will focus my analysis on those 148 presbyteries.

In this population there were 19,607 total votes cast on 08-B and 18,705 on 10-A, a decrease of 4.6%.  For comparison, the membership of the PC(USA) decreased by 3.0% between 2008 and 2009, so the voting decline over two years is a bit less than the projected total decrease if you double the 08-09 decline.  The number of yes votes increased from 9711 to 10,301, an increase of 6.1%.  The no votes decreased from 9896 to 8404, a 15.1% drop.

If the number of yes and no votes decreased in proportion with the total decrease we would have expected 9264 yes votes and 9441 no votes. The discrepancy is 1037 votes more for yes and less that for no.  So, in the simplest analysis, the change in voting can be viewed at a uniform decline of 902 votes (447 yes and 455 no) and a shift of 1037 votes from no to yes. If you wish to attribute all decline to the no votes, it could also be modeled as a decline of 902 no votes and a shift of 590 votes from no to yes. The best answer probably lies somewhere between these two end-members.

Let us now break this down on a presbytery level.  This gets a bit trickier because presbyteries that have small numbers of yes or no votes can have extreme values for ratios when these quantities change by even a few votes.  I have not gone into the data on this analysis to eliminate extreme values but will take this into account by comparison of the mean and the median statistical measures. As it turns out, while the extreme values do stretch out the maximum and minimum values as well as the standard deviations, the differences between the means and medians are generally not exceptional.

On the spreadsheet you will find that I calculated summary statistics for the whole population and for a series of subsets.  There are also some frequency distributions listed.  I will only touch on the measures of the center of the data, the mean and median, for some of those categories in the discussion that follows.  The data are there if you want to see all the numbers.

For the yes votes in presbyteries, overall there was an increase with the ratio of 10-A to 08-B votes having a mean of 1.14 and a median of 1.08. Interestingly, for presbyteries that voted yes on both amendments, the number of votes was on average unchanged with the mean being a ratio of 1.00 and the median 0.99. In an interesting match, presbyteries that voted no both times and presbyteries that flipped from no to yes had means of their yes vote ratios around 1.27 and identical medians of 1.20.  The presbyteries that flipped from yes to no, not surprisingly, is the category that showed a decrease  in the ration with a mean of 0.93 and a median of 0.91.

Overall, presbyteries had a decrease in the number of no votes with the overall mean a ratio of 0.89 and the median a ration of 0.86.  Presbyteries voting yes saw a bit larger of a decrease, presbyteries voting no a slightly smaller one.  Again, the category that was the exception was the presbyteries that flipped from yes to no where on average more votes were seen with an increase shown in a mean of the ratio of 1.21 and a median of 1.26.

Probably the most telling is the total number of votes for each presbytery.  For the total and all of the sub-categories, the ratios are pretty constant around 0.96 in both the mean and the median.  The noticeable exceptions to the down side are the presbyteries that voted yes both times with a median of 0.92.  The only categories having increased ratios are the ones for the switched votes — Presbyteries that flipped from no to yes had a mean ratio of 1.03 and a median of 1.07; presbyteries that flipped from yes to no had a mean and median ratio of 1.06.

It would seem that the message is that change came through better commissioner turn-out, whether it be an organized “get out the vote campaign,” or just informal increased interest on a particular side. And I find it striking that this was true for presbyteries that flipped in either direction.

This of course is only on average and when you consider the details for each presbytery individually you find variability.  For example, for the four presbyteries that flipped from yes to no, two had an increase in the number of yes votes, three an increase in the number of no votes, and one had a decrease in both. So three of the four were changed by improved no vote turn-out, but the one with both declining may be attributed to who showed up for a close vote. (That was West Jersey Presbytery which tied.)

Similarly, for the 20 presbyteries that switched from no to yes, 14 showed an increase in the total number of votes, four a decrease, and two a decrease that was small enough I would consider it noise. All but one had an increase in the number of yes votes, some a very marked increase.  And only one showed a clear increase in the number of no votes, the rest remaining stable or decreasing.

I am painting with a bit of a broad bush here by looking only at the group averages while each presbytery has its own story.  This stands out when you look at the voting in these two groups as combined total.  In the four presbyteries that switched from yes to no total votes increased from 431 to 436, an increase of 1.2% that falls into the range I would consider “noise” or “random fluctuation.” Again, for the 20 presbyteries that switched from no to yes the total of vote counts increased from 2698 to 2726, an increase of 1.4%, again not substantial.  It is on the presbytery level where these changes are larger and become more influential statistically.

So there is a bit about the summary statistics for the Amendment 10-A voting. I hope to write about other details including trends over time, cross-issue correlations, more specifics on the presbyteries, and maybe look at some other variables so see if there are correlations.

“We Are Presbyterian” And “We Are PC(USA)”

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Yesterday was the anniversary of the birth of Ebenezer Erskine in 1680. He would become a respected figure in the Church of Scotland but later in his life he had a disagreement with the Kirk leading him to renounce jurisdiction and help lead a group that would secede and form the Associate Presbytery in 1733.  This was the second division in the Church of Scotland, the Covenanters having divided from the established church a bit earlier.

So where am I going with this?  The point is that even in the earliest days of American Presbyterianism to say that you were a Presbyterian did not necessarily mean the same thing to everyone.  At a minimum, and this is simplifying things a bit, there was a tradition from the established church that would become the mainline, but also the Covenanters of the Reformed line and the Seceders of the Associate line.  And I probably don’t need to tell you that over the last three centuries the complexity has increased and not decreased.  (As a physicist I could point to increasing entropy, but that is not the purpose of today’s post.)

Yesterday also saw the launch of a new project led by the Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow, Moderator of the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). I was glad to see it launched because there has been some build-up to it around the Internet and I was interested to see what would come of it.  One thing I was particularly interested in was the different names for the project and how that would affect the focus.  For example, the Twitter account has the handle @WeArePCUSA but the long description is titled “We Are Presbyterian.”  If you go to the launch site the title is also “We are Presbyterian” yet in the narrative below it refers to the videos coming from a “diverse group of folks from across the Presbyterian Church (USA).”

Maybe I am being too picky here. Am I just splitting hairs with this one? As I spend my free time blogging on global Presbyterianism I am well aware that the PC(USA) is just one local manifestation of this broad and diverse ecclesiastical form. Having watched these videos the We Are PC(USA) title is very applicable, but remember this is one small slice of a bigger fellowship.

OK, soapbox mode off…

In these 16 locally-produced videos submitted to Bruce and his crew we have a great representation of the PC(USA).  If you have a spare hour I would suggest watching them. In the ones featuring individuals, each person comes across as speaking from the heart about their church and their vision and passion for it. The group ones are also interesting, particularly to listen to the individuals and where they agree and where they have different perspectives.

Bruce issued an open invitation to submit videos (with a video invite as well) and asked that they answer five questions:

  1. Who are you and how are you connected to the PC(USA)?
  2. What about the PC(USA) are you most thankful for?
  3. What about the PC(USA) are you most disappointed in?
  4. What do you believe that God is calling us to be in the next five years?
  5. What is one ministry, organization or hope that we should pray for today?

It is interesting that about half of the things mentioned regarding the second question could apply to Presbyterianism in general and are not specific to the denomination: connectional system, joint governance on the boards of the church, confessional nature of our faith, priesthood of all believers.  Likewise, the third question had some more general responses as well: could do better with racial ethnic diversity, need to do better with youth and young adults.

I was also impressed that the spectrum of viewpoints were represented, but while the full spectrum of the theological diversity in the PC(USA) was represented in these videos, progressive viewpoints were more likely to be presented.  In particular, several presenters specifically mentioned that they were thankful for the increased inclusivity in the denomination from the passage of Amendment 10-A.  On the other hand, several of the videos stayed completely away from the polarizing issues in the church and spoke of other bigger-picture issues without having an explicit leaning left or right. And some of the videos did not answer the questions at all and one is almost half promotional for a group. But all-in-all an interesting hour of watching.

Bruce has also scaled back his plans for this project which was originally to be focused on an Internet marathon of sorts. Now he has posted the videos and is considering how much time and energy he has for another phase of the project.

Personally, I may post my own “Why I am Presbyterian” two-part blog post later in the Summer.  Two months ago I finished up a post with my conviction that if we prefer the Presbyterian form of church government we need to let people know why. Having issued that challenge I have now outlined my response and within the next month or two hope to have it ready for prime time.  But don’t expect anything focused on one particular branch – I do intend to make it a “We Are Presbyterian” presentation in the broadest sense of the word.

31st General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church

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Coming up this Wednesday, June 22, the 31st General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church will convene in Cordova, Tennessee.  Here is the rundown of what I know about the meeting…

The GA will meet from June 22 to 25 at Hope Presbyterian Church in Cordova, on the eastern edge of the Memphis metropolitan area. The theme for the meeting is “Transformation,” taken from II Cor. 3:18.

The materials for the meeting can be found on the EPC GA web page, including the Overview of the Assembly Schedule (and an earlier version), the Workshop Schedule, and the Children and Youth Program Schedule.

Business reports for the Assembly can also be found on the GA web page, at the bottom. In the group of reports most are from permanent committees but there are two from Interim Committees, one on Constitutional Revisions and another on Presbytery Boundaries.  More on both of those in a moment.

And if you are looking for background material you can check out the Book of Order and the EPC Position Papers.

There is also a preview of GA in the latest edition of the EPC’s official online newsletter EPnews. That would also be the place to look for official updates, and maybe on the Press Release page. (And my thanks to the communication staff for the email copy of the press release they sent me.) In addition, Hope Presbyterian Church has their own GA web page with a welcome and links to information about the facility and the warning that it is easy to get turned around or get confused where you parked your car.

There is a preliminary Twitter presence with the EPC’s official Twitter feed @EPChurch and the hashtag is #31ga (and not #epcga). In addition, the Director of Communications and IS will let the Assembly know on Thursday which presbytery has the most tweeting churches.

As I mentioned above, the theme of the Assembly is Transformation and the highlight of the first day on Wednesday will be a workshop titled “Transformational Church… A Day With Ed Stetzer.” (He can be found on twitter at @edstetzer.) He is the Vice-president of Research and Ministry Development at LifeWay Christian Resources, an agency of the Southern Baptist Convention. The workshop appears to be based on his latest book, Transformational Church, and he is a noted author and speaker on missional thinking. This fits in with the EPC’s recent Missional Church Primer.

Moving on to business, let me highlight the two Interim Committee reports since they are a good reflection of where this Presbyterian branch finds itself at the present time.

The Interim Committee on Constitutional Revisions is in the process of doing what some other Presbyterian branches are doing right now — revising their constitutional documents.  The committee has been working hard since they were created by the 29th General Assembly and their report indicates that their goal is to complete a new Book of Government section by early September and distribute it for internal review.  They then plan to have the final revision completed for the 32nd GA next year. For the benefit of those of us who might not remember their guiding principles they have included them again in this year’s report:

1. “No bloating”: we will continually ask, “Does this belong in the Constitution or should it go elsewhere in a supporting document?”

2. Language and stylistic elements are to be governed by the “KISS” principle: seek straightforward language as much as possible for clarity, readability.

3. Standardize nomenclature: identify significant titles, terms uniformly and avoid synonymous descriptions.

4. Keep in mind, Jesus’ commands are not burdensome: maintain a clear delineation between the authority delegated to each level of our governance and the responsibilities incumbent upon officers, members as part of Christ’s Body.

5. Allow the Westminster Confession of Faith and its fundamental principles to guide our work.

6. Recognize and preserve those rights reserved in perpetuity by our standards.

7. Scripture is our law; the Westminster Confession is our interpretation of Scripture; the Book of Order is our application of both.

For this year they provide only a progress report with no items for action by the Assembly.

The second Interim Committee is on Presbytery Boundaries. This committee was created last year by the 30th Assembly and their report does a good job summarizing the dynamics of the EPC at the present time and the need for their work:

• Identifying immediate boundary issues, particularly those arising from progressive dynamics within existing presbyteries.

• Assessing the impact of a large number of churches having joined the EPC in the last 12-18 months and anticipating the impact of a large number of congregations joining in the coming 12-24 months. This assessment and anticipation also included the dynamics resulting from the expiration of the transitional presbyteries at the conclusion of the 32nd General Assembly in one year.

• Communicating proposed and potential boundary changes to those congregations
affected and incorporating responses into present and possible recommendations
to the General Assembly.

• Reviewing and revising the criteria for a viable presbytery.

This is a very nice succinct summary of the situation, but at the risk of being repetitive for some readers and using two words when one will do, let me unpack a couple of these statements and the “presby speak” in them.

In the first bullet point
about identifying boundary issues they are particularly concerned about issues around “progressive dynamics” within presbyteries — Remember that the ordination of women is decided by the ordaining body and with the substantial changes within some presbyteries due to forces listed in the next bullet point there are some developing differences over this issue.  The question is whether differences in scriptural understanding can be remedied by adjusting boundaries to aggregate like-minded presbyters and churches.  [Any application of this approach to one or more mainline branches and their new latitude in ordination standards is left as an exercise for the reader.]

Speaking of these changes, the second point about assessing the impact addresses this issue.  This is not about ordination standards but about sheer numbers of churches. There are many churches “in process” now.  If you look at the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery report you find their tabulation of these numbers:

• 29 congregations and their pastors who are in the NWEPC Transitional Presbytery. The Joint Commission is working with these congregations and pastors to assist them in being received into a EPC Geographic Presbytery prior to the 32nd GA.
• 8 congregations and their pastors who have “become one” with their geographical EPC Presbytery while still maintaining relationship with the Transitional Presbytery.
• 8 congregations and their pastors have “become one’ with their geographical EPC Presbytery and no longer have any relationship with the TP.

For perspective, the EPC About Us page describes the church as having “about 300 churches” so this transitioning group represents almost 15% of the congregations.  And note that this does not include any potential future influx resulting from recent changes in other Presbyterian branches.

Quite a task — I wish them well.  They are proposing two new presbyteries be authorized at this Assembly meeting:  Allegheny Presbytery would be formed from churches in western New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, eastern Ohio and a good chunk of West Virginia, the churches coming from three present presbyteries.  Pacific Presbytery would be created by dividing out the Pacific Coast states and part of Idaho from the Presbytery of the West.

It is worth noting that the report of the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery shows no sign of asking for a continuation of their group but lays out the steps they are taking to fold churches into the geographic presbyteries before, or upon, the presbytery’s dissolution next year.  In addition, they recommend changes to the Book of Order that would facilitate a transitional status for congregations and teaching elders into geographic presbyteries when extenuating circumstances would favor a transitional status of up to 12 months.

Let’s see — revising the Government section, questions about the form and size of presbyteries, implications of ordination standards, what does it mean to be missional?  Some of this sounds familiar and not just regarding one particular mainline branch in the Americas but for some non-mainline branches and for other branches around the globe as well. I venture to say that there is a great deal of theme and variation on these issues circulating at the moment.  So as the EPC approaches these topics I look forward to hearing how they work out their approach to them.  Prayers for their meeting and I will be watching to see how they discern God’s will together.

78th General Assembly Of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church

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I have been a little behind the curve on one more General Assembly currently meeting.  So with apologies for the delay, let’s have a look at the 78th General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church.


J. Gresham Machen
(from Wikimedia Commons) 		This denomination was formed on June 11, 1936 when the first General Assembly convened in Philadelphia.  J. Gresham Machen, the first Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of America (as it was know at that time) wrote of that meeting in the Presbyterian Guardian:

“On Thursday, June 11, 1936, the hopes of many long years were realized.
We became members, at last, of a true Presbyterian Church; we
recovered, at last, the blessing of true Christian fellowship. What a
joyous moment it was! How the long years of struggle seemed to sink into
nothingness compared with the peace and joy that filled our hearts!”

This year’s Assembly took time yesterday to mark the 75th Anniversary of that event. An afternoon special program, hosted by the Committee on Christian Education, included comments from one of the founders, the Rev. John P. Galbraith, author of the well known 1939 paper Why the Orthodox Presbyterian Church?  In the summary of yesterday’s session, it is reported that Mr. Galbraith emphasized “that adherence to and proclamation of the Word of God is central to the task of the church.” The celebration includes events all weekend and was highlighted by a banquet last night. And for more on the anniversary there is a Facebook page.

As for the business meeting itself, it convened Wednesday evening, June 8 at the Sandy Cove Retreat Center in Maryland and will adjourn no later than noon on Tuesday June 14.  Most of the background information you will need, like the Standing Rules, Book of Church Order, and GA papers giving denominational stands on particular topics, can be accessed through the regular General Assembly Page.

The web page specific to the 78th GA has links to the Daily Summary page and the Photo Album. I have not found a docket or reports to the Assembly available online.

There is a Twitter presence for the meeting and while small they are yet faithful.  You can get info from the meeting from @dlwelliver and @camdenbucey with a few others commenting using the hashtag #opcga. One of the more amusing comments to come down the line this year, in a play on the nickname “Machen’s Warrior Children,” the GA has been going so smoothly and harmoniously this year that Moderator has referred to them as “Machen’s cuddly children.”

Speaking of the Moderator, from the three nominees from the floor, the Rev. Danny E. Olinger was selected as the Moderator of this General Assembly. He has been serving as the General Secretary of the Committee on Christian Education and is the editor of an anthology of writings by Geerhardus Vos. (Side note: if you are not familiar with Vos, he was the first professor of Biblical Theology at Princeton Seminary.)

Other business already heard includes the report of the Statistician, Mr. Luke E. Brown, who was pleased to report the continued steady membership growth of 1.51% so that the denomination ended 2010 with 29.842 total members. The Assembly also approved the request of the Psalter-Hymnal Special Committee to work together with the United Reformed Churches of North America Songbook Committee to produce a joint OPC/URC
Psalter-Hymnal. The Committee on Home Missions and Church Extension reported that although only four new churches were planted in 2010, there have already been ten new ones planted in 2011 with four more that will probably open this year.  And there was an unusually brief report from the Committee on Appeals and Complaints, a circumstance that possibly contributed to the “cuddly children” comment.

Finally, the annual census of the Assembly regarding the decade of ordination of the commissioners:

With nine minutes until the order of the day, the moderator took the
annual survey of when each commissioner was ordained. This is not merely
a matter of trivia but, rather, it shows the Lord’s faithfulness in
working through men at the Assembly from a wide age range. The older
commissioners often set the tone and exemplify good churchmanship, while
the younger men add a bit of energy to the Assembly. The results from
the poll:

2010s — 9
2000s — 45
1990s — 19
1980s — 18
1970s — 21
1960s — 18
1950s — 3

I am impressed with the relative uniform distribution of numbers ordained in the 1960’s to the 1990’s range.

The Assembly left much of Saturday to presentations and celebration and the Lord’s Day is left free for worship and fellowship.  Business will resume at 8:30 AM local time tomorrow.  We pray for the Assembly and its remaining work.

207th General Synod Of The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church

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With all of the meetings of highest governing bodies of Presbyterian branches currently in progress one would think there would not be anyone left, but we need to add one more to the list…

The meeting of the 207th General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church began yesterday, June 7, at Bonclarken, near Flat Rock, NC, and it will adjourn tomorrow.

The Synod has combined most of the materials for the meeting available as a single large packet, but in three formats — Web, PDF, or ePub.  (Is that a first for an Assembly or Synod distributing an ePub of the reports?)  And as a single packet I will warn you that it is 191 pages long.  In my comments below I will refer to the page numbers in the PDF, trusting in the Grace of God that the ePub numbers are at least close.  (And the web version is one very long page)

Yes, there is Twitter activity for this meeting as well with the hashtag #ARPsynod11.  The major contributors to this stream are @ARStager and @jmcmanus76.  In addition, the official feeds @ARPMagazine and @ARPChurch are tweeting, usually without a hashtag.

As I looked through the packet a few things jumped out at me.

If I read Appendix E correctly (beginning on page 33) there are seven pages of unfinished business from last year’s General Synod which was the first item of business yesterday.

Beginning on page 41 of the packet is the preliminary report of the Strategic Planning Committee. The final report will be presented to the 2012 Synod. The Committee proposes the following Vision Statement for the ARP on which to base the Strategic Plan:

As sinners being saved by the mercy of God in Christ Jesus, Associate Reformed Presbyterians are compelled by His grace to give glory to God in worship, life and witness. By the power of the Holy Spirit, we aspire to be people gathered into churches, who are living obediently to the Word of God; growing in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ; loving one another as Christ has loved us; proclaiming joyfully the gospel of grace freely to all; making disciples among all the nations; and working in unity with all who call upon the name of the Lord Jesus Christ.

From this the Committee says the Plan must 1) be gospel-centered and gospel-driven, 2) empower the people of God to accomplish God’s purposes in God’s way, and 3) marshal the resources of the church in a wise and prudent manner.

The Committee then gives a frank comment about where the ARP finds itself at the present time:

The shape of the emerging Strategic Plan is also conditioned by the peculiar circumstances of the ARP Church today. We are a small denomination with a preponderance of small churches, many of them located in rural areas and small towns. Because of this, humanly speaking, our resources are somewhat limited. As noted above, we continue to wrestle with identity issues and a lack of theological unity that complicate the task of ministry focus. We have also inherited a remarkable variety of denominational agencies and institutions with their own histories and traditions, and most of these agencies look to the General Synod for significant resources. Given that the ARP Church is but a small part of the Evangelical community and the church universal (see sec. I [“Where We Come From”] above), we must be mindful of duplicating the efforts of others who may be better positioned than we to carry on certain kingdom work, and open to creative partnerships with others where such efforts will advance the kingdom of God. As the 2007 “Report of the Vision Committee” identified, “the ARP Church is tolerant of mediocrity. Some have observed that we are ‘addicted to niceness,’ and that we tacitly condone a lack of excellence so that feelings will not be hurt.” These peculiar circumstances present both limitations and opportunities.

Based on all this they present a preliminary list of five things the church needs: 1) Powerful Gospel-centered preaching, 2) Church planting, 3) Christian education, 4) Multi-generational ministry, and 5) Culturally-responsive ministry.

Other branches are also considering what they will look like going forward and so I am looking forward to what this Committee brings back to the ARP next year.

Writing new Form of Government sections is another thing being done in other Presbyterian branches, and a Special Committee is bringing a new FOG to this Synod for a first read and for the church to consider this coming year.  If you are interested, the brief report begins on page 49 and the new FOG is available as a separate download. (If you want to see the current version that is available online as well.)  I simply mention this now and have put this on my list of possible topics for future writing.

A couple of other reports you might be interested in include ones on multi-cultural ministry and lay ministry.  I will conclude with the report on the topic that has garnered the most media attention over the last couple of years.

The report on the denomination’s schools, Erskine College and Erskine Theological Seminary, begins on page 75.  The report updates the progress in the schools and the denomination working together to ensure that the schools properly reflect the church’s doctrine while providing a strong education to their students.  The schools’ responses to four actions of the Synod are included, including an extensive response concerning the ways that the college board is restructuring to reflect the church’s concerns. There is also much more documentation about the changes in the college’s procedures and activities in consideration of the Synod’s actions.  Again, plenty there to reflect on if you are interested and with the high-profile nature of this issue there might be a variety of viewpoints expressed on this after the meeting.

So there are some things to be aware of regarding the General Synod meeting of the ARP.  However, having seen pictures of the Bonclarken center and having heard such great things about it, I sure admire the commissioners that can get work done while visiting such a beautiful area.  Our prayers are with you for your meeting.

39th General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In America

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Lots going on this week for GA Junkies.  Let’s add one more to the mix…

In a few hours the 39th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America will finish up their pre-Assembly committee meetings and activities and get down to business.  The formal meeting convenes at 7:30 pm local time today, June 7, in Virginia Beach, VA, with worship, the Lord’s Supper, and following worship the election of the Moderator.  The meeting is scheduled to adjourn at noon on Friday.

If you want to follow along these resources may be helpful:

The PCA is providing live streaming and has a Flickr stream as well.

The Twitter community is buzzing (is that a mixed metaphor?) already with the perennial hashtag #PCAGA. I am not aware of an official PCA GA Twitter account to follow but there is the official publication’s account for byFaith Online (@PCAbyFaith) which has been pretty quiet so far.  I am a bit hesitant to single out any of the many fine TE’s and RE’s tweeting the meeting so just follow the hashtag.  As things get going the tag may not trend but it will keep your reader busy.

I have to admit that in the past year the goings on in the PCA have been pretty weighty with the Administrative Committee funding plan push and continuing issues related to the Federal Vision theology.  I have been focused on some other issues and have not kept up with my updates here.  Maybe I’ll get caught up some day.

But looking at the Overtures to this Assembly it is worth noting that neither the Federal Vision issues nor the deacon/deaconess discussion is reflected there.  (There are other paths by which they could come before the GA this year.)  However, the AC funding plan is there in full view.

Three presbyteries have submitted alternate plans following the defeat of the Book of Church Order changes from last year that were necessary to implement that plan.

Overture 3 from Northwest Georgia Presbytery would create an Essential Budget for the AC of $1.5M which would have annual cost-of-living-adjustments and be reviewed every five years.  It would also set up an emergency relief fund that all permanent committees and agencies would be asked to contribute to. It would fund the capped budget with a $7 per capita assessment and churches that pay their per capita would receive discounted registration for their commissioners to GA. I would add that this is one of the most heavily footnoted overtures that I have ever seen.

Pittsburgh Presbytery has their recommendation in Overture 11 where they propose an amendment to BCO 25-13 that begins

Communicant membership in the church is voluntary, never to be founded on human coercion (John 3:3-7), and giving by members is always voluntary and never to be founded on coercion or compulsion (2 Cor. 9:7).  From this it follows that the church by its courts has no power to tax, nor to exclude from participation in the courts of the church, those officers who by ordination and/or election as a delegate are lawful delegates to any court of the church. The courts of the church through their committees, agencies and commissions may offer services, however, that are not of the essence of the office of elder, which may be denied to those who do not pay fees.

In line with this principle the BCO amendment calls for an assessment on a particular church of not more than 0.4% of their total budget to be used for specific committees and functions that are administratively related to the functioning of the denomination.  Failure to pay could result in the inability to access non-essential services but, as the language above suggests, the ability of commissioners to vote at GA would never be compromised.

Finally, Overture 15 from South Coast Presbytery takes a more detailed approach.  They present an extensive table that shows what each church would be expected to give to support the basic or essential administrative functions of the denomination based on their “tithes and offerings,” not the total budget as the previous overture did.  For making that payment in full a church could send its full contingent of TE’s and RE’s to GA for no additional registration fee.  For churches that only partially pay the asked amount there is no prorated registration fee and they would be expected to pay a $2000/person fee the same as a church that did not pay anything. Commissioners not affiliated with a particular congregation would register for $200.

Now, I suspect that the polity wonk’s will have something so say about this Overture:  At the beginning of the Therefore section the overture says “South Coast Presbytery overtures the 39th GA, other presbyteries, and the AC to join with us in embracing and approving the following numbered actions… or to improve them… Accordingly, we ask this Assembly to act as follows, without needing any BCO or RAO changes:” It sounds like this is intended as a voluntary consensus agreement.  However, point 5 of the Overture is “5. Any changes to the above table fee structure are to be approved by GA and 2/3 of the presbyteries in the PCA.”  So while the initial implementation is intended to be approved by only the GA, changes would require the same concurrence of the presbyteries as a BCO change. I await the debate on that polity point.

Finally this Overture asks for an item that three other Overtures ( 7, 13, and 14) ask for, and that is to discontinue funding the official publication byFaith magazine and byFaithonline.com and to make it self-supporting.  The contention is that this move alone would bring the Administrative Committee’s bud
get into balance.  (Overtures 7, 13 and 14 are essentially identical and probably written from the same template, as evidenced by the fact that in one instance the writers of 13 overlooked a point where they needed to change the name of the presbytery from that in Overture 7.)

The other category in which there are multiple Overtures are those where the presbyteries have been growing and now the number of congregations has reached a point that a new presbytery should be created to further the cause of the Gospel.  There is a request from Central Carolina Presbytery with a concurrence from Western Carolina and their agreement that an edge of their presbytery be moved to the new presbytery. There is also an Overture from Korean Eastern Presbytery to form Korean Northeastern Presbytery from it’s northern portion in New England and New York. 

The remaining six overtures contain some interesting business as well, such as a request to withdraw from the NAE and promoting a “faithful witness” in Bible translations and presentation of the Gospel among resistant peoples. I look forward to the Assembly’s discussion of these topics as well. [And in late-breaking news, I see that the Committee of Commissioners has recommended the approval of the “faithful witness” overture with some changes.]

So there is what stands out to me about this Assembly and I suspect there are a few more highlights that will emerge from the reports.  Keep on praying and stay tuned…

General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In Ireland 2011

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Beginning tomorrow, June 6, we have the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland.

The General Assembly will convene with worship and installation of the Moderator at 7 PM local time on Monday June 6 in the newly renovated Church House in Belfast, and will continue to Friday afternoon.

The Moderator Designate is the Rev. Ivan Patterson, pastor at Newcastle Presbyterian Church.  For a good opportunity to get to know Rev. Patterson I recommend a video of an interview with him by Alan in Belfast. Alan has a great article on his blog with a discussion of this interview as well as the video and discussion of the interview with the outgoing Moderator the Rt. Rev. Norman Hamilton. (And a note that there is a slightly recast version of this article by Alan on the blog Slugger O’Toole.)

So where do you find the info on this meeting?  The PCI has put together a great narrative of the daily business on the same page as the official programme.  The links to all the Assembly reports can be found on the reports page.  For official announcements and press releases keep an eye on the Press Office page.

There will be live coverage of the meetings of the Assembly, but I don’t see a link available yet.  I will update here when it is announced, but keep an eye on the General Assembly page for the link and Twitter updates in the widget.

Speaking of Twitter, it looks like an active Twitter community is gathering for the meeting. Official tweets come from @pciassembly and the announced hashtag is #pciga11.  Other official accounts for the PCI include @PCIYAC (PCI Youth and Children) which have responsibility for the 12 youth delegates from the Youth Assembly known as SPUD (Speaking, Participating, Understanding and Deciding).  And keep an eye on @AlanInBelfast for his twitter insights. (I will update others as appropriate)

And if you want to refer to their polity document, you can have a look at The Code.

As I said already, if you are looking for a good review of the business you can do no better than the narrative from the PCI.  I will point out just a couple of items.

One of the traditional highlights of the Assembly is the Wednesday evening Celebration that is held in the context of worship.  This year the celebration will focus on the 400th Anniversary of the Authorized Version or King James Version of the Bible.  The theme is “The Word Is Life.”  More details are available on the worship poster for the meeting.  Based on the great worship at this event in past years even non-GA junkies might want to consider tuning in.  (I hope it is being streamed.)

A couple of other business items include the consideration of holding the 2013 Assembly in Londonderry. (Holding the meeting somewhere other than Church House in Belfast is rare but not unheard of.)  Another is a proposed change in the process of electing the Moderator that would accomplish it in one evening by having the presbyteries not adjourn until the first count is complete in case there is a tie so a second vote can be held that same night.  The Board of Finance and Personnel is presenting new formulas for ministerial pay and congregational assessments.

There is more so read the summary, and I might find time to say something about the Board of Christian Training’s Accredited Preachers Scheme. And there will be time to consider and respond in a couple of different ways to the approval of a plan to help out the savers and investors in the Presbyterian Mutual Society.

So tune in and join me in praying for the Assembly.  I’ll see you on the live stream.

137th General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In Canada

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If you thought the last couple of weeks were busy, hang on because now it gets even more active for the GA Junkies, beginning later today with…

The 137th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada

The General Assembly will convene with worship at 7 PM local time on Sunday June 5 at the University of Western Ontario, in London, OT.  The schedule of events and the business agenda are available online.

The Moderator Nominee is the Rev. Dr. H. D. Rick Horst, pastor of St. Andrew’s, Barrie, and who has been active in community organizations, including currently serving as vice-chair of the board of Barrie’s Royal Victoria Hospital.  He has been active helping congregations with strategic planning workshops.

The PCC places almost all of their GA resources on a single page with handy named links to the different sections.  This includes the Reports and News.

There will be live coverage of the meetings of the Assembly.

There is also an active Twitter community for the meeting with the official account @PCConnect and the hashtag #ga137.  In addition Colin Carmichael (@ccarmichael), the Associate Secretary for Communications of the PCC, will be present and tweeting. (I will update others as appropriate)

Links to other items that may be of interest to GA Junkies can be found on the Office of the General Assembly page resource section including the Book of Forms, Acts and Proceedings archive, as well as policies and guidelines. There is also a list of the referrals that this Assembly will consider.

There is a lot of business in all the reports published on-line so I will not attempt a preview of them all.  I will highlight just one committee, the Committee on Church Doctrine, since it touches on a couple of polity issues I have highlighted in other branches.

The first of these is “Ministers ceasing to act as agents of the state.”  This came to the Assembly from an overture in 2007, was referred to the Committee, and the Committee says “The authors of the overture are to be thanked for provoking a stimulating conversation within the Church Doctrine Committee.”  As a personal aside, this topic was also seriously discussed on the Special Committee I was on and while little was actually mentioned in our report, we acknowledge some significant theological issues related to both sides of this issue.

Two years ago the Committee circulated to the church a document titled “Doing Weddings Better.” The Committee received responses from 18 presbyteries and 52 sessions. They conclude “The overwhelming view of the church across the country is ministers in The Presbyterian Church in Canada should continue to sign marriage licenses, and a more significant role needs to be played by sessions and congregations in celebrating the covenant couples make between each other and with God in their marriage vows.”

The Committee recommends that the response to the original overture be this report and no change in policy.

The second item that caught my attention is a notice of future work, not an action item for this Assembly, on “A study of Presbyterian Polity: Its Distinctives and Directions for the 21st Century.” It is found at the end of the report beginning on page 7 and is an interesting read for polity wonks and others musing on what Presbyterian polity will/should look like in the future.  Let me give one extended extract:

A second factor that must be considered is that Reformed or Presbyterian polity at its beginnings, was remarkably flexible. What gave Calvinism, not only its theology but also its polity, an international character was its ability to adapt to different conditions and circumstances in the various lands in which it gained acceptance. This can be seen in the different polities that took root in Reformed and Presbyterian churches in France, Switzerland, Hungary, the Netherlands, Scotland, England, Canada, the United States, South Africa and Korea, to name a representative number. There are common elements in these polities but practices vary on a wide variety of matters. In other words, there is no pure, near-perfect Presbyterian Polity which a national church can therefore claim to possess and of which it can boast…. At the same time, Presbyterian polity is not infinitely malleable. Being an essentially conciliar system it is therefore incompatible with the hierarchical systems of the papacy and monarchical episcopacy. It is true that Presbyterianism opts instead for a hierarchy of church courts but in these courts the movement is both from top to bottom and from bottom to top. It is also incompatible with thorough-going Congregationalism or Independency. While Presbyterianism emphasises the importance and role of individual congregations it stresses their connection with one another within presbyteries, synods and General Assembly in order to maintain the unity of the church.

A related issue that has also to do with flexibility is that originally Presbyterian polity consisted of a number of basic principles as is evident from the Scottish First and Second Book of Disciple and the Westminister Assembly’s Form of Church Government. Inevitably these principles gave rise to more detailed rules of procedure which were necessary. Our book of Presbyterian polity originally bore the name Rules of Procedure and Book of Forms. (The members of General Assembly must have been asleep when it was proposed and adopted that the long title should be shortened to Book of Forms. This misnomer has been perpetuated for decades.) Moreover, we keep adding new rules almost annually. Rigidity sets in and flexibility is cast aside. All too often our rules stand in the way of carrying out our mission and are used by so-called experts in The Book of Forms to intimidate those not so well informed or as clubs to clobber one’s opponents over the head with. We need to heed Jesus’ critique of the multiplication of laws formulated by the Pharisees and Sadducees: “They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear” (Matthew 23:4). What are the principles that lie behind the minute rules? How is it possible to keep them at the forefront and maintain a measure of flexibility in the application of these rules?

Fourthly and finally, an aspect of our new context is that many of our congregations, unlike in the past, are now made up of Christians from other church traditions, Anglican, Baptist, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, United Church, etc. The Pew Foundation, a few years ag
o found that up to forty percent of USA Protestant congregations are now made up of Christians from other church traditions. This is equally true of most of our Canadian Presbyterian congregations…

I should also point out that there are reports from one Special Commission and two Special Committees.  The Commission was constituted to hear the appeal in a disciplinary case and they upheld the findings of the synod trial court.  The first Committee is looking at how the recommendations of a 2002 report regarding Han-Ca Presbyteries (Korean language) have been implemented and is only a progress report.  The second Committee reviewed the “Synod staffing formula” agreed to in 2009.  The Committee was formed when overtures questioning the formula were brought to the 2010 Assembly. The Special Committee found “We believe that the current funding formula, with its emphasis on an equal provision of resources to each region of the church, and its secondary provision for communicant membership is a fair and transparent approach.” They recommend no change in the formula.

So, the time is getting closer (and I got this done in time) for the Assembly will be called to order. Lots going on this week but we look forward to beginning it with the 137th General Assembly.  Our prayers are with you.

General Assembly Of The United Free Church Of Scotland

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Today was the first full day of business for the General Assembly of the United Free Church of Scotland.  The Assembly convened yesterday evening and will conclude tomorrow evening with worship. They are meeting in the Scottish city of Perth.  Here is some information if you are interested in the meeting and what they are discussing:

The Moderator of this Assembly is Elder George H. McRobb from Aberdeen.  The official press release tells us that he is only the ninth elder to serve as Moderator of the General Assembly in the 82 year history of the church.  He has extensive experience and has given significant service to the UFC serving as Session Clerk, and Moderator of the former Presbytery of Aberdeen and the North and the current Presbytery of the North. He has also served as an Interim Moderator of church sessions and has been involved in supporting foreign missions.  Best wishes to him in his moderatorial year.

The docket can be found on the last page of the report of the Administration and Finance Committee. 

All the reports to the Assembly are available from the reports page.

In reading through the reports I find a lot of the business that is generally being done by any Presbyterian Assembly.  But one topic that many Presbyterian branches have been working through is what ordained ministry looks like in this modern age.  There are a couple of interesting items in the Ministry Committee report that reflect on this.

One of these is regarding Readers, a position like a Commissioned Lay Pastor, licensed elder or lay preacher.  The report says this about the new process and focus of the position:

It is the committee’s view that presbyteries should take up a new responsibility for the training and deployment of Readers. Candidates will be interviewed by presbytery, and hopefully space will be made available for Reader candidates to engage in a short church placement within the denomination. The reason for this is that the committee intends to make it possible for Readers to be involved in local situations of team ministry.

Overall and final responsibility for the preparation and approval of Readers will remain with the committee. The training will have academic and practical aspects…

…

After appointment it is hoped by the committee that Readers might be available to serve in a team ministry context, serving in a cluster of UF congregations. This will be overseen by presbyteries, and would be a new departure for the church. The committee has made recent efforts to meet with presbytery representatives, who obviously have a much clearer view of ministry needs on the ground. In the past Readers have been contacted informally by individual congregations about preaching and leading of worship. There is no reason why this should not continue, and the committee is very grateful to Readers for this excellent ministry.

However our vision now is that Readers can and should be deployed in more creative ways, allowing them to exercise a more focused ministry role within the United Free Church of Scotland.

The second topic the report touches on is the Sacraments.  This is the result of a referral last year after the 2010 Assembly adopted a report from the Panel on Doctrine on conduct of the Sacraments.  (I have looked and not found this report on-line so if anyone can point me to it or provide a copy I would be interested in reading it.)  In these days of reduced roles for Ministers of Word and Sacrament and increasing alternate forms of worship leadership, the report adopted by the last Assembly makes the theological case for the Sacraments to be administered by Ministers called out and ordained to that ministry.  The question referred to the Ministry Committee was under what exceptional circumstances could another person conduct the sacraments.  The bring the following response for the approval of the Assembly:

“Except in exceptional circumstances, it is only those who have been set apart and ordained to the ministry of Word and Sacrament who are authorised to conduct the Sacraments. Where there is difficulty in providing sufficiently those so set apart and ordained, a Presbytery may also nominate an elder appointed to serve as an interim-moderator of the congregation to preside at the Lord‟s Supper. Before being so authorised these elders must satisfactorily complete a course of instruction provided by the Ministry Committee. Such authorisation must be granted annually and the names of such elders intimated to the Ministry Committee which shall include the names in the report of the Committee to the General Assembly. Any elder who ceases to be a bona-fide elder within his own congregation, or whose appointment to serve is cancelled or not renewed by the Presbytery, shall not be permitted to preside.”

It is a with the changing nature of the church, tighter budgets and declining membership that each branch is examining what ordained ministry means, how to be creative in providing that ministry, and in what ways the ministry can be broadened to include more people in the ministry.

So best wishes and prayers for the final day of the UFC General Assembly.

Background info:  You might of guessed that the UFC is one of the smaller Presbyterian branches.  Referring to our handy guide to Scottish Presbyterian Churches we can see that the UFC was formed back in 1900 with the merger of the two major branches outside the National church, the Free Church of Scotland and the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland.  (The Free Church that is active today descends from the minority that did not join in the merger.)  Then in 1929 the United Free Church merged with the national Church of Scotland and the UFC that continues today descends from the minority that did not join that merger.

[Editor’s note:  The pattern you see here is typical of Presbyterian mergers in that time period.  Other examples are the present Cumberland Presbyterian Church which is the part that did not join with the PCUSA in 1906 and the Presbyterian Church in Canada which are those who did not join the United Church of Canada in 1925.  But more on this sometime in the future.]

According to the report of the Administration and Finance Committee, there are three presbyteries with 62 congregations, one less than at the end of 2009 — a 1.6% decline. There are 51 ministers, of which half (25) are not retired.  Membership at the end of 2010 was 3394, down 5.8% from 2009.

One more distinctive of the denomination is that the ordained ministry is open to both men and women.