Tag Archives: General Assembly

Church of Scotland General Assembly 2022

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It is General Assembly week in Edinburgh and the meetings are returning to a more in-person format than in the past couple of years. And Saturday the first of the GA’s kicked off with the usual ritual and pageantry.

Saturday morning 21 May the 2022 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland convened in Edinburgh in a hybrid format with some commissioners joining virtually from around the world.

And in both the early press coverage as well as in the afternoon business it became clear that there is plenty of important business to be discussed in the week ahead. But more on that in a minute.

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If you are interested in keeping track of the business and activities this year, here are the starting points:

  • There will be live streaming of the proceedings and you can connect to the stream appropriate for your device from the livestream page.
  • Most of the Documents pertaining to the Assembly are linked from the General Assembly Publications page. This includes the Assembly Reports and Order of Proceedings volumes, known as the Blue Book, in several different electronic formats including the traditional PDF as well as EPUB format for your readers. There is also a Dyslexia-friendly version. The Reports and Order of Proceedings are available separately on the Publications page in all those formats as well. The Daily Papers will contain late-breaking changes and worship material and the first for Saturday through Thursday is posted. We can expect a second concluding one later in the week.
  • Individual reports and some additional documents can be found on the Reports and Additional Documents Page.
  • If you need to refer to the documents about how they do this decently and in order most of those are linked from the Church Law page. This web page also used to have the useful “An Introduction to Practice and Procedure of the Church of Scotland” but it was being revised and seems to have disappeared. While dated, I have a copy of the 2009 Third Edition available from my Resources Site. There is also a Guide to the Assembly page that covers some of the basic actions and terminology.
  • There is a News Round up for the GA news items on the 2022 General Assembly Page.
  • There is an official photo gallery of the Assembly.

What we all want to know of course is how to follow along on social media and there will be no lack of that. You can begin with the Church of Scotland’s official Facebook page. There is also the Kirk’s Instagram feed and YouTube channel. And the YouTube channel is now the place to watch the proceedings after they have happened and they have the meeting broken up into individual reports.

On Twitter, the starting point is the Kirk’s main feed at @churchscotland and the official hashtag #ga2022. There is an official account for the Moderator of the General Assembly, @churchmoderator, but during the Assembly, we will have to see how many opportunities there will be to tweet. The church’s official publication, Life and Work, is also a good source for information on the website, on Facebook and on their Twitter feed @cofslifeandwork. In addition, there is the individual account of the editor, Lynne McNeil, at @LifeWorkEditor, who does the most comprehensive live-tweeting of the Assembly. (As always – Thank You Lynne)

In suggesting personal accounts to follow, let me start with past Moderators of the General Assembly: To lead off there is a recent Moderator, the Very Reverend Martin Fair (@wmartinfair). Others include the Very Reverend Lorna Hood who is always an interesting read at @revlornascot and has been very active the past few years with projects related to Srebrenica justice and remembrance and also serves with YouthLink Scotland. Another is the Very Reverend Derek Browning at @DerekBrowning2. I will conclude with three other former Moderators who have Twitter accounts but have not been as active recently: the Very Reverend Susan Brown (@VicarofDornach), the Very Reverend Albert Bogle at @italker and the Very Reverend Angus Morrison (@angusmorrison6).

As for others following along and Tweeting about the Assembly let me start with Paul Middleton (@ProfPMiddleton) who is present and actively tweeting. Others appearing in the Twitter feed include Doug Gay (@douggay), Sue Cord (@sue_cord),and Daren Philip (@darphilip). One interesting contributor is Daniel Scott (@ScottDdscott), the Moderator of the Presbyterian Church in Canada and an Ecumenical Delegate. And a commissioner is tweeting at Live Tweeting the General Assembly of the COS (@church_scotland).

Concerning the business before the Assembly there is a nice summary of each report on the Life and Work website.

With a day and a half of business completed following the formal convening Saturday morning, a number of high profile items have been decided. In the Saturday afternoon session in the Report of the Assembly Trustees some decisions related to the reform of the church and the realignment and funding of presbyteries were debated. Some of that has been put off to the Faith Nurture report tomorrow, Tuesday. In addition, in a motion from the floor the Assembly asked the Trustees to take action regarding ministers in manses who face the issue of fuel poverty for houses owned by the church and not by them. The headline report this morning was the final affirmation of the ability for Kirk ministers and churches to preform same-sex marriages. This action has been developing for several years and since the last GA the necessary changes were approved by 29 of the 41 presbyteries. The Legal Questions committee brought it back to the GA for the final action and the Assembly concurred 274 to 136.

This afternoon the Assembly, as part of the Ecumenical Relations Committee report, the Assembly overwhelmingly approved a Declaration of Friendship between The Church of Scotland and the Catholic Church in Scotland. It has been proposed and tentatively accepted by the Catholic Archbishop to call it the Saint Margaret Declaration. This report was followed by the main report of the Theological Forum who brought to the Assembly a proposal to supplement the Westminster Standards with additional subsidiary standards in a Book of Confessions. While the Scots Confession was mentioned as a possible part of the new confessional collection, the Assembly approved the next step to study what should be included in the book. The Assembly also approved the creation of resources to help the office holders and others in the Kirk understand the confessional nature of the Reformed Faith. The Theological Forum will return with another report related to Creation Care as part of the Faith Impact Report tomorrow.

As has already been mentioned, tomorrow, Tuesday, will be a day with major business for the Kirk. It has been labeled in the schedule as the “Faith Action Plan Day.” This will include more business related to the reorganization of the church, particularly at the presbytery level, as well as the social witness of the church. The Faith Nurture Forum report includes a new Code of Practice for ministers as well as adjustments to recruiting and preparation of individuals for the various forms of ministry. The Supplemental Report and actions from Saturday will deal with adjustments and corrections to the allocations of ministers to presbyteries. The Faith Impact Forum will be addressing business related to Creation Care, including getting the church to Net-Zero carbon emissions by 2030. There is also business related to refugees, including those from Ukraine, and encouraging the the UK Government to work to get COVID vaccines to areas of the world that have not gotten adequate supplies.

Further down the week Wednesday is titled “Witness and Service Day” with reports by the Chaplains, Social Care Council, the Guild, and the Safeguarding Committee among others. The GA concludes on Thursday and as it looks back and looks forward so in addition to the business traditionally transacted as the Assembly concludes, there will be a time of looking at “Life in the New Presbyteries.”

GA 2022 Logo - See, I make all things new

So here we go. It has been an interesting Assembly already and while the next few days may not grab the headlines we have had so far, the business still to come is no less important to the future of the Kirk. We watch and pray for the commissioners and all involved in the meeting.

2021 General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In Ireland

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The General Assembly Season continues with a regular GA that has been delayed from the usual week in the Spring.

Tomorrow morning in Belfast the Presbyterian Church in Ireland will convene their 2021 General Assembly in Belfast with a worship service and the installation of the Moderator, the Right Rev David Bruce. If the name sounds familiar, he was installed as Moderator in 2020 but without an Assembly to preside over. It was the consensus of the church that he should serve a second term thus giving him the opportunity to preside over an Assembly.

The Assembly runs through Wednesday 6 June in an Assembly Hall and an overflow conference room with socially distanced seating. There will be no in-house gallery with observers.

Here is some info to help follow along:

There are plenty of social media contact points for the Assembly, beginning with the official Twitter account @PCIAssembly which always provides a detailed and comprehensive report of the Assembly. Please note the comprehensive part, because the level of detail can make the feed very busy. This is generally a good thing but you have been warned that the number of tweets will be very high. (Don’t say I didn’t warn you.) The official moderator’s feed at @PCIModerator has become a great source as well, but don’t count on a lot during the Assembly itself. We will see if Mr. Bruce tweets during GA. The official hashtag for the Assembly is #pciga21. And it is worth keeping an eye on the PCI Facebook page as well. I would add at this point the church’s divinity school, Union Theological College (@UnionTCollege).

My list of others to watch for interesting and useful updates always starts with outside reporter and insightful commentator Alan in Belfast (@alaninbelfast). For following some of the active leadership of the church, I would point to former Moderator Rob Craig (@RobCraig54) and Cheryl Meban (@cherylmeban) who is a university chaplain and has been active on church committees. It is also worth watching the folks at PCIcast (@PCIcast) who do a podcast about the activities of the church. And so far David McCullagh (@wdsmccullagh) has popped up but others have been a bit quiet up to this point. I will be updating over the next day as things get rolling.

The business of the Assembly this year is extensive and for a better review, I would point you to the GA preview news article and the comments there by the Clerk of the General Assembly, the Rev Trevor Gribben. In particular, Tuesday will be a particularly busy day and that specific preview is available as well.

A couple items coming up Tuesday are an extension, or maybe better termed “fallout”, from the 2018 Assembly. One of these is the adoption of language of membership that referred to “a credible confession of faith” for admission to the Sacraments and pastoral guidance in relation to homosexuality. This was a term that caused some confusion and was used without substantial guidance as to what it meant. A task group is bringing a report on this (found in General Council Report – Section 2) which includes two resources on these areas that have already been reviewed by the presbyteries and revised by the task force.

This Section of the General Council Report also includes a resource on Human Identity from another task group which will certainly be closely watched as well.

Another important report from a task group reporting under the General Council Report (this in Section 3) looked at how the General Assembly operates and how controversial items are handled, especially when they are so actively discussed leading up to the GA. Their report on “Decision Making and Dissent within the Presbyterian Church of Ireland” outlines some additional discussion that can occur on the Presbytery level leading up to the Assembly as well as Assembly procedures during the meeting.

To get the 10,000-meter overview you might want to check out the Executive Summary in Section 1. It is important to note that the General Council Report (in four sections) makes up almost one-half of the whole Blue Book.

There is more in the General Council Report so it should be a full day. One other item in the spotlight ahead of the Assembly is the Council on Global Mission’s report including recommendations for a “divest and engage” policy regarding fossil fuels as well as a statement about “Reviewing PCI’s Investment Policy” that talks about the importance of creation care in the how the church invests its money.

There will be lots going on in the next three days and this will be an Assembly to watch closely. Our prayers are with the commissioners and leadership of the Assembly and the church for this meeting and the year ahead.

87th General Assembly Of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church

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The 87th General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church will convene this evening, Wednesday, 7 July, at 7 PM Central Time on the campus of the Dordt University, Sioux Center, Iowa. The meeting will conclude by noon on Tuesday, 14 July. This represents the complete postponement of the 2020 Assembly.

This GA does not have live streaming but we usually have the next best thing: There is a tradition of very well done running daily reports for the OPC GA and in expecting the tradition to continue see if this works when the assembly gets underway.

The agenda and reports are not posted online but you can access the Book of Church Order and the Standing Rules and Instruments of GA if you need background material. There is also a collection of reports from previous GA’s that have become guidance for the church.

The OPC has elected to keep a perpetual hashtag for their meeting (no sticking a year or GA number in there) so it should once again be #OPCGA. In terms of who to follow, I can start with the OPC Twitter account (@OrthodoxPC) and the OPC Home Missions account (@opchomemissions). You can also follow them on their official Facebook page. For individuals tweeting there are already a number warming up for the meeting. It seems the mantle of the lead live tweeter has been handed to Jim Stevenson (@RevJimOPC) and David Mahaffy (@davidmahaffy) is in the building as well. It is probably worth keeping an eye on the Reformed Forum (@ReformedForum) crew including Camden Bucey (@CamdenBucey) and Jim Cassidy (@jjcassidy). While Forest Braden (@fbraden8) is active he advises us his contributions will not be from on-site. And other OPC related accounts to keep an eye on include D. G. Hart’s feed (@oldlife), maybe The Daily Genevan (@TheDailyGenevan), and an autoretweeter tied to one of their denominational associations, NAPARC. A couple other possibilities include Christopher Drew (@ChristopherDrew), Zach Siggins (@zachsiggins) and David Chism (@chismville). As always I will update as the meeting progresses.

Since reports and detailed agendas are not available to anyone but the commissioners, it is difficult to highlight any particular business items that will be coming to the Assembly in advance of it being considered on the floor. Keep an eye on the running report and maybe Twitter for info on what is being discussed. One tweet by Jim Stevenson does indicate that the GA “has 9 complaints on appeal and 4 appeals of judicial cases.”

So as this General Assembly gets underway, our prayers for the teaching and ruling elders of the OPC as they spend a week reflecting on what the Spirit is doing in their branch and their discernment of the future. May you indeed discern God’s will in your decision making.

[Editorial note: I did not forget about the PCA GA but due to family commitments the week got away from me. I am working on a review and commentary and hope to have it posted in a few days.]

41st General Assembly Of The Evangelical Presbyterian Church

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The 41st General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church beginning today will be gathering at Second Presbyterian Church, in Memphis. Today, and most of Wednesday, there are workshops and classes as part of the annual Leadership Institute. Business sessions convene Wednesday afternoon, 23 June, and will continue through Friday afternoon, as needed.

Due to local capacity restrictions and COVID-19 protocols, the facility has a capacity for 400 commissioners, so the GA will be a hybrid event with both on-site and virtual participants. The Assembly will make the necessary adjustments to the Rules for Assembly to facilitate the arrangement.

The Assembly meeting will be live-streamed on the web and through the General Assembly app. This will include not just the business sessions but the plenary talks of the Leadership Institute.

There is a lot of information online, most linked through the Documents page and the GA 2021 page. Here are some of the links for information about Assembly business and operation:

As for social media, there is a bit of that out there. There is a Facebook page for the EPC that is currently being updated regularly with Leadership Institute and Assembly items. The official EPC Twitter feed is @EPChurch and the active official hashtag (#epc2021ga) has sprung to life. There are other official but inactive Twitter accounts for EPC Student Ministries (@EPCStudentMin), EPC World Outreach (@EPCWO) and the Stated Clerk Jeff Jeremiah (@Jeff_Jeremiah ) so not much to follow there.

As for individuals, based on the lead-up to the GA we can expect coverage from Zach Hopkins (@Zhop59) and Joey Sherrard (@jhsherrard) has checked in as well. There is also activity from a former Moderator Case Thorp (@casethorp) and my friend Brandon Queen (@BQPhotos). There is an account from the host church that might provide helpful information (@2pcmemphis). And maybe we will see a bit more color and correction from Decent & In Order (@Decent_Orderly) although he has been quiet since the last EPC GA. I will update you here as the meeting progresses.

The theme of the Assembly is “God Will Restore,” based on Joel 2:25-27. The theme will be reflected in the worship services throughout the meetings.

There is a good summary of all the action items coming to the Assembly this year. A couple of items of business stand out. One that caught my eye was an overture from the Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic that it be divided into three new presbyteries. Another is a report by the Theology Committee that addresses the definition and meaning of the terms “connectional” and “connectionalism.” The report concludes with this statement:

“Perhaps the best definition of connectionalism in the EPC can be found in Book of Government 5-6A. In this section, any church seeking entry into the EPC must affirm that ‘[T]he congregation and its governing body have concurred in the request, and have agreed to walk together as a church, based upon the faith and government of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, to be faithful to one another, to the Lordship of Jesus Christ, to the support of the whole Church, to be obedient to the order and doctrines of our faith, submitting themselves to the government and discipline of the Church, and promising to promote its purity and peace‘ [emphasis added].”

It will be an interesting week and we wish the EPC commissioners well and we will be lifting them up in our prayers as they meet.

146th General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In Canada

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It is now the month of June and the General Assembly Season is about to get busy. First up, the 2021 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada is underway. It convened yesterday with worship and the installation of their new Moderator. And it is being held online this year after being canceled last year.

The meeting will continue through Wednesday 9 June 2021.

A few things to know to help follow along:

The theme for the meeting is “Do Not Fear, I Am With You”.

The Assembly can be followed on social media through the PCConnect Facebook page and through their official Twitter feed @PCConnect. The hastag for the meeting is #pccga2021. And maybe there will be pictures on the PC Connect Flickr feed although an online Assembly is not as photogenic as an in-person one.

The Twitter traffic is fairly light so far, but a bit of traffic including from Daniel Scott the new Moderator (@ScottDdscott). In addition, his congregation St John’s Bradford West Gwillimbury (@StJohnsBWG) and his son Jonathan Scott (@J_Scott_) have been tweeting. Pleased to see that another GA veteran John Borthwick (@jborthwik) is tweeting. And some commenting from Kristine O’Brian (@bloomingrev) and John Borthwick’s congregation St. Andrew’s Guelph (@standrewsguelph).

Over the last few years, the continuing discussion has been on human sexuality and what path the church is going to take. The process towards inclusion has been moving forward and there has been a team crisscrossing the country that has been listening to stories from those in the church. They will be reporting and it is anticipated that apologies will be adopted.

In related actions, the Bills and Overtures committee reports there are 30 overtures related to Gracious DIsmissal from churches concerned with the direction of the denomination. The recommendation from Bills and Overtures is that they be referred to the Assembly Council, in consultation with the Clerks of Assembly.

The other topic which is currently in the news is the history of the residential schools some of which were run by the Presbyterian Church. The Assembly will include times of apology and lament for that history.

So prayers and best wishes for the members of the 146th General Assembly and as they address issues so difficult, but so important to the future witness of the church. May you indeed be guided by the Holy Spirit in these substantive matters of witness and ministry.

Church of Scotland General Assembly 2021

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It is General Assembly week in Edinburgh.. well, sort of in Edinburgh.

A few hours from now, on Saturday morning 22 May the 2021 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland will convene in Edinburgh and around the world virtually. The meeting will be “blended” with some activity in the Assembly Hall, primarily with the major players, and most of the commissioners attending online.

That being said, the meeting is no less significant as there are a couple of major items of business before the Assembly this year.

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If you are interested in keeping track of the business and activities this year, here are the starting points:

What we all want to know of course is how to follow along on social media and there will be no lack of that. You can begin with the Church of Scotland’s official Facebook page. There is also the Kirk’s Instagram feed and YouTube channel.

On Twitter, the starting point is the Kirk’s main feed at @churchscotland and the official hashtag #ga2021. (And be alert – there is an event called Gamers Assembly that is using the same hashtag so don’t be surprised at the first-person shooter video(s)) There is an official account for the Moderator of the General Assembly, @churchmoderator, but during the Assembly, we will have to see how many opportunities there will be to tweet. The church’s official publication, Life and Work, is also a good source for information on the website, on Facebook and on their Twitter feed @cofslifeandwork. In addition, there is the individual account of the editor, Lynne McNeil, at @LifeWorkEditor, who does the most comprehensive live-tweeting of the Assembly.

In suggesting personal accounts to follow, let me start with past Moderators of the General Assembly: To lead off there is the current Moderator who will shortly be the Very Reverend Martin Fair (@wmartinfair). Others include the Very Reverend Susan Brown (@VicarofDornach) as well as the Very Reverend Lorna Hood who is always an interesting read at @revlornascot and has been very active the past few years with projects related to Srebrenica justice and remembrance and also serves with YouthLink Scotland. Another is the Very Reverend Derek Browning at @DerekBrowning2. I will conclude with two other former Moderators who have Twitter accounts but have not been as active recently: the Very Reverend Albert Bogle at @italker and the Very Reverend Angus Morrison (@angusmorrison6).

As for others following along and Tweeting about the Assembly let me start with two of my regular recommendations, Peter Nimmo (@peternimmo1) and Doug Gay (@douggay). To that, I would add Paul Middleton (@ProfPMiddleton) and Daren Philip (@darphilip). Finally, for the moment, I will add Sue Cord (@sue_cord), Alistair May (@alistairmay), and Susan Pym (@susan_pym).

I should also note that this year the Queen’s representative to the Assembly, the Lord High Commissioner, is a member of the Royal Family and the first grandchild to hold the position – Prince William the Earl of Strathearn (his Scottish title). There is coverage of the appointment from the Church of Scotland and the Royal Family. He will be attending in person and addressing the Assembly from the Assembly Hall. He will also be undertaking the traditional tour of Scotland. No stranger to the area, he is a graduate of St. Andrews University. You can follow his work on the official Twitter account at @KensingtonRoyal and the account has already been covering his activities in Scotland.

Concerning the business before the Assembly there is a nice summary of each report on the Life and Work website. In addition, each of the conveners has recorded their speech for streaming during the Assembly.

And once again, Scott Paget is doing some heavy lifting for us. He has his series of posts on his blog Reading the Blue Book, now the 2021 edition.  He breaks down reports from the Blue Book individually with his comments. You can follow him on Twitter at @smpaget.

The challenge of how to reform the church to remain viable for the future has been an ongoing issue for the Kirk, especially over the last three years. One of the pieces of this has been the Special Commission on the Effectiveness of the Presbyterian Form of Church Government. As part of the restructuring of the Church of Scotland, they will be presenting their final report. It has discussion points regarding the local churches, presbyteries, and the national organization and the deliverance asks that the questions be sent out to all of them for discussion and feedback. There are no proposed changes to the form of government at this time, but a couple of interesting sections of the report:

[T]he Special Commission made a conscious decision not to undertake a detailed comparison of other ecclesial governance models. Contact with and experience of other forms of church government has shown that what is true of Presbyterianism is true of other ecclesiologies. All systems have strengths and weaknesses. Depending on the actions, attitudes and competencies of the people who work within them, all can foster innovation and creativity, and all can equally be prey to inertia and caution. Our task is not to reshape the Church of Scotland into the
likeness of another denomination.

Section 1.33

And the conclusion of the introduction:

The Special Commission wonders if a continuing preoccupation with fixing structures will detract from the work of mission and of being the Church in our communities, nation and world. Whether we tinker with our structures or take much more radical action, the ultimate proof of our effectiveness is not in the machinery of our governance (though to ignore that machinery entirely would be a mistake; we need structures that work). The ultimate proof of our effectiveness is the depth of our personal and corporate devotion to God, the provision of regular opportunity for meaningful worship and the promotion and supporting of mission, provided by local congregations, regional bodies, and the national Church. Our focus has to take into account the ‘what’ of our governance; but this must not take away from the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of what it means for us to be people of ‘The Way’ in the twenty-first century.

Section 1.38

The Special Commission report is scheduled for the first half of Monday afternoon.

Another report related to the restructuring is that of the General Trustees who are looking at the future of the church’s land and buildings. In one line it says ‘there can no longer be an assumption that any building can survive without a critical assessment of its contribution to the future mission of the Church’. Similarly, the report of the Assembly Business Committee talks about their work to streamline the General Assembly and they are proposing a change to reduce the number of commissioners to the Assembly, an action which must be approved by the presbyteries under the Barrier Act. The Assembly Business Committee reports on Saturday morning and the General Trustees on Thursday afternoon.

In one of the more closely watched business items the Legal Questions Committee is bringing an action, requiring presbytery concurrence, to permit a Minister of Word and Sacrament or a Deacon to apply to be authorized to officiate a same-sex marriage. (Polity note: for American readers the office of Deacon, while carrying the same description of one of caring and tending the flock, is a professional position like the position of pastor.) On another note, they outline their work on rewriting the polity of the church courts (i.e. governing bodies or judicatories) and give notice they will bring new material next year. The Legal Questions Committee is scheduled to report on Monday afternoon.

Finally, one of the items I have been keeping an eye on is the report of the Theological Forum. Three years ago there was an overture to examine the place of the Westminster Confession of Faith and the possibility of other subsidiary standards. The Forum put together a workshop on the topic and the papers were published in Theology in Scotland. This interim report presents discussion questions about options presented in the report for the church to give feedback to the Forum. They are scheduled to give their report on Tuesday afternoon.

So here we go. It will be an interesting week and among the questions the Assembly Business Committee is bringing is whether the use of videoconference technology should be used regularly for General Assemblies. We will see how this year goes.

So stay tuned…

224th General Assembly Of The PC(USA) – A Summary Of Summaries and Responses

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Now that the 224th General Assembly of the PC(USA) has concluded I will be collecting the various summary pieces I see and linking them on this page.

I will begin with my summary.

GA224BriefSummary

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There are a couple of summaries that I am expecting that I don’t see yet, but I will insert them here when they appear.

Some local summaries include ones from…

In addition, there have been several reactions to the General Assembly, particularly in regards to how it handled racial justice issues. Here are the blog posts and open letters I know about that address this

224th General Assembly of the PC(USA) – GA Business Resumes

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Logo - The GA Business resumes

In a short while today, Friday June 26, the plenary sessions of the 224th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) resume. Looking ahead at the GA business on the docket it will be interesting to see how the next two days develop.

Meeting Structure

The approved docket has the meeting starting at 11 am EDT on both Friday and Saturday. On Friday it begins with Worship followed by a recess of one hour. On Saturday it begins with an order of the day for the election of the Stated Clerk to serve another four-year term.

The order of business, proposed by the Business Referral Committee, is posted and awaiting Assembly approval.

The objective is to do two hours of work followed by an hour recess to help avoid videoconference fatigue.

On Friday the meeting is docketed to recess for the day at 6 pm EDT and on Saturday the adjournment is docketed for 6:30 pm EDT. There are a total of nine and a half hours of business meeting time listed. Will that grow?

Growing list of business

Coming into the meeting the Assembly Committee on Business Referral and the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) brought a list of business items sorted into categories of Information Only, Critical Business, and Referred to the 225th General Assembly.

From that, the Business Referral Committee constructed a consent agenda from which a few items were pulled last Friday night so that 17 items remain.

Also last Friday night some more items were added to the list of GA business. The first was a list of late-submitted items to add to the Critical Business list. Most of these were information items or routine but necessary matters.

From that list, there is a new item from COGA “On the Church in this Moment in History” [00-29]. There is also a separate item from Business Referrals that was added: “On Responding to the Covid-19 Pandemic” [00-30].

And from the opening night, while there were several items proposed to be moved from the referrals, only two items related to Native American ministry and related property were approved to be pulled from the referral list. These are now numbered [00-95] and [00-96].

After that work on Friday night, on Saturday morning the motion has been made to reconsider the action on Item 01-04 that contains the list. At the time the Assembly closed debate on the item on Friday night the Moderator let it be known that there were up to eight commissioners waiting to move that other items be pulled from the referral list. I am not sure what all of these items might be, and I suspect that there are multiple people proposing the same ones, but a clear favorite is one of the actions to add the requirement for family leave to the Book of Order. ( Items 02-092 and 02-122) Another item I have heard a suggestion of is fossil fuel divestment, maybe Item 02-126. And I would expect at least one more social justice-related item to be moved. It will be interesting to see how some of these topics are handled when there are multiple overtures or recommendations related to them in the referral list. UPDATE: The motion to reconsider was not approved by a commissioner vote of 97 to 377.

So we will first see if the motion to reconsider is successful – it is one of the first items when business resumes, right after adopting the order of business. Then we will see which items are requested and whether the Assembly agrees. And as most of these are not routine matters but will probably have a certain amount of debate, we are most likely looking at extending the meeting if a couple of them get added.

Assembly Operations

One of the interesting things to watch in Plenary 1 (last Friday night) and Plenary 1A (the election of the Co-Moderators) was how the Assembly operated in the virtual format. As noted previously, the Co-Moderators of the 223rd General Assembly, Ruling Elder Vilmarie Cintrón-Olivieri and Teaching Elder Cindy Kohlmann, did a great job of running the meeting from their multiple screens. What we learned is that extra time is needed because of the latency and time delays in the videoconferencing system as well as the time necessary for translation for some commissioners.

The other component is that commissioners and advisory delegates have none of the visual and audio ques that they have in person. Cindy Kohlmann had to announce that there were still eight individuals waiting to make a motion rather than commissioners looking around to see the lines at the microphones and what color cards each waiting speaker was holding. The other interesting thing is that with an in-person meeting it was common for an advisory delegate to find a commissioner to make a motion for them to get something on the floor and then they could speak to it. In the virtual setting we discovered that this assistance is harder to get and it seems that some networking has been established in the last week.

So considering everything mentioned above, I have to wonder if an extra session will be tacked on tonight or tomorrow night to get everything accomplished. The good news is that there is no physical conference center that the Assembly has to be out of at noon on Saturday. But with the anticipated extra business and the necessary deliberative pace of the Assembly we saw last Friday night, how much will the Assembly fall behind schedule? We will see that as today goes on.

UPDATE (Friday afternoon): So yes, the business agenda is sliding. Plenary 3 has gone almost two and a half hours and the only business completed was 00-29 “On the church at this moment in history.” The Assembly agreed to recess for just over an hour and pick up the other three items on the Plenary 3 agenda. At least it will be caught up in the morning.

The other thing that would extend it, of course, is a long debate or set of parliamentary motions on controversial items. Right now nothing strikes me as controversial enough to add significant amounts of time, but maybe if something like fossil fuel divestment makes it into the necessary business a longer debate might be in the offing. As understand the rules of engagement the Assembly, on a controversial business item there will probably not be a minority report and the time necessary for that process to happen. And will the SFTS/COTE debate arise again? I suspect it will, but based on the tone of the Assembly Friday night it will probably not get very far. That topic will be left for the remedial case now before the GAPJC.

So get ready and buckle your seat belts out there all you GA junkies. As the first virtual General Assembly, today will be interesting even if everything proceeds smoothly today. And will one of these days go long? I have to think it will. But we will see if it is for technical reasons, parliamentary reasons, or because a lot of GA business needs to be accomplished in a relatively short amount of time.

Stay tuned…

PC(USA) 224th General Assembly – Election Of The Moderators

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The session for the Moderator Election was delayed a day due to the length of time dealing with business Friday night, but the election evening went smoothly and finished a bit ahead of what some of us expected.

It helped that we had the Co-Moderators on the first ballot with Elona Street-Stewart and Gregory Bentley receiving 304 of the 459 commissioner votes. And yes, the YAAD’s called it with 41 of the 71 Young Adult Advisory Delegates recommending that team.

For more on Elona and Gregory, you can look back at my Moderator Team Introduction of them.

Elona Street-Stewart and Gregory Bentley at the Press Conference after the Moderator election
Elona Street-Stewart and Gregory Bentley, Co-Moderators of the 224th General Assembly (screen shot from the post-election news conference via Zoom)

The election process began with short statements by each of the teams, and the teams generally echoing their pre-Assembly materials. Marie Mainard O’Connell and Arthur Fullerton talked about the denomination continuing to moving forward and their skill-sets to help make that happen. Elona Street-Stewart and Gregory Bentley emphasized their backgrounds and heritage and place in the Presbyterian heritage and how they want to move forward in the context of the Matthew 25 initiative. And the third to present, Sandra Hedrick and Moon Lee, emphasized addressing inequality and inclusion in the context of sharing the Gospel and being empowered by the Holy Spirit.

There was time for five questions from the commissioners to the candidates.

  • How do you envision yourself being an agent for change? What three things would you do immediately?
  • How can we as a church come together and unite as a people and make everyone feel included and feel the love of God?
  • How can we expand the work within congregations and communities?
  •  In light of the current unrest, what is the role of the Presbyterian Church regarding racism? And how do the local churches address the issue of racism in light of being mostly white?
  • So far we have been discussing domestic issues. The center of Christianity has been shifted to the Global South. How can we learn from them?

The first four questions were submitted in advance by video and of these four only the fourth question was asked by a person of color. The fifth question was asked live by a Mission Advisory Delegate. The responses to the question included that the world is becoming a globalized place, that we have a lot to learn from them, and important to visit to get to know them. Answers to this question did avoid some of the rough patches that the PC(USA) has had in the last decade in its relationships with other churches regarding ordination standards, for example with the Mexican Presbyterian church.

Following this, it was time to vote and as noted above 41 (57.7%) of the 71 Young Adult Advisory Delegates voted for the team of Elona and Gregory. With the commissioners, the support was even stronger with 304 (66.2%) of the 459 commissioners voting for them.

Veteran GA observers might note that the first ballot election is the less frequent occurrence and 66.2% is a fairly high level of support. Since reunion 11 of the 29 moderator elections have been decided on the first ballot. Of those, only one was a two person or team choice (the 222nd in 2016). The only Moderator since reunion to receive a higher percentage of votes was Robert Wayne Bohl in 1994 with 73.9%. It is important to point out that for three years, 1985 to 1987, the posted minutes do not include vote totals. Therefore, the support for first-ballot moderators William H. Wilson (1985) and Benjamin Weir (1986) are not readily available.

And in terms of firsts, it is important to celebrate that Elona Street-Stewart is the first Native American to serve as a Moderator of the PC(USA) General Assembly.

Sankofa bird symbol for Elona and Gregory (from the Moderatorial Candidate booklet)
Sankofa bird symbol for Elona and Gregory (from the PC(USA))

At the post-election press conference, one of the early questions was about the team’s symbol of the Sankofa bird. The bird itself is a mythical animal and symbol from the Akan tribe of Ghana with the feet facing forward but retrieving, or carrying, an egg while looking back. The Elona and Gregory chose to place the bird in water, representing the Mississippi River, a river that flows across the nation with importance to both the indigenous peoples and the African American culture. The symbolism of the bird is the bringing of the best of the past to what lies in the future. As their statement in the Moderatorial Book says “Like the Sankofa bird of our logo, we look back beyond this time of uncertainty and fear to learn from those who have gone before, even as we look forward to a faithful and fruitful future.” At the press conference, it was discussed that the symbol ties the best of cultures together merging Native American and African American cultures.

Since a major emphasis of their materials and comments has been the Matthew 25 initiative that was also a major topic of the press conference. They emphasized the number of resources that have already been developed and that one of the three parts of the initiative is congregational vitality. Gregory Bentley emphasized that the church in general, and individual congregations, need to align priorities with the initiative. This is another add-on – it’s purpose is not to supplant but to supplement. In terms of getting the initiative into churches, Elona Street-Stewart emphasized that we “need a beachhead.” The initiative gives clarity and focus to our mission and what the defining features of Christian ministry are.

In talking about the business of the Assembly, especially the business that will be referred to the next Assembly, Elona discussed how the church needs to understand that there is the formation of work going on all the time. There is a fear that if we don’t deal with it at the GA it won’t get done.

Asked about whether GA has too much business to deal with and whether the volume is a problem for people in the churches to understand or participate with GA actions, Elona discussed the nature of GA. She said that many in our churches view GA like they view the civil government, particularly a legislative body. If you have a problem you send a request to GA to fix it. Rather, GA should be viewed as a fellow participant in ministry and should reflect on-going work. If there is a ministry a church is involved in and participation or resources from the national level would be useful – that is the role of GA.

And it was no surprise that when asked about how the church can support them the response was “Pray for stamina, perseverance and patience.” But they added that they are aware of and will need to address and overcome stereotypes. They are not what some people imagine a moderator would be. Elona Steet-Stewart said that they will be “Going to go to places where we are unimagined yet.” They are aware that they won’t fit the profile and will need the whole church to be able to talk about the stereotypes.

And so, as the General Assembly prepares to return to business sessions tomorrow, we do pray for them and many hours ahead. They have now travelled from their respective homes to Louisville so they can moderate in close proximity to their polity and technical support. May they indeed have the stamina, perseverance, and patience for the task ahead.

For more on the Election of the Co-Moderators and Elona Street-Stewart and Gregory Bentley, there is the PC(USA) News article, as well as an election article and a press conference article from the Presbyterian Outlook.

Friday Evening At The 224th PC(USA) GA

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Well that was an interesting evening.

The 224th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has begun and the opening session certainly is one for the history books.

Under normal circumstances, the opening session of the General Assembly on Saturday afternoon is mostly training and business done as a formality. This includes the adoption of the Standing Rules, report of the outgoing Co-Moderators, the first report of the Nominating Committee and information on challenging a nomination, and a formal vote on distributing the business to the Assembly commissioner committees. It is mostly routine business to get the meeting going and do the decent and in order stuff to be sure the business and polity is set for the rest of the week. Then everyone comes back Saturday evening to elect the Co-Moderators.

For this Assembly it was already known that things would not be that routine. A special set of standing rules had to be adopted to facilitate a virtual GA with less time to do business. There were none of the regular committees so the business had to be tailored to fit a meeting that was always in plenary. And with the limited time some items had to be removed from the docket so the load was manageable.

The docket originally had scheduled one hour for this work. At a meeting yesterday afternoon the Business Referrals Committee – the only committee at this assembly which will handle the schedule and polity matters – added an extra hour to the opening business. So into tonight we went…

Four and a half hours later the GA finished the opening business. Since it was 11:30 pm on the east coast the Business Referrals Committee recommended adding another session by moving the election of the Co-Moderators to tomorrow night and the commissioners agreed by a vote of 349 to 120. So, another meeting and a change to my dinner plans.

The good news for the week was that only two closely-related items were removed from the list of business that was not considered critical or necessary enough to squeeze into this year’s abbreviated meeting. That is good news in the sense of the business load for this meeting has only increased by a little. It is bad news for the eight commissioners who were waiting in the queue to make motions removing other items from the list to refer. In particular, multiple individuals expressed disappointment that the Family Leave provisions would have to wait a couple more years. (And since it was a Book of Order change, two years beyond that.)

In the midst of all this there we a few interesting polity issues that arose.

The first are the necessary steps to allow this General Assembly to happen online. With an in-person GA not practical for a number of reasons, and with the Book of Order requiring a GA, pretty much the only option was to go online. The problem is that the PC(USA) does not have the bylaws or standing rules in place to make this happen so it was mentioned by a couple of individuals that this meeting is sort of happening outside Robert’s Rules of Order but everyone was trying to be clean and transparent about the whole thing. As the polity wonks know, this can be cleaned up by having the next regular, in-person meeting of the body – which would be the 225th GA in two years – ratify all of the actions taken by this assembly. (And I think it is a good bet that some language will be proposed to provide the option for virtual GA’s again if the need should arise.)

Another polity issue that was of concern and on the floor a couple of times was one of the special standing rules for this meeting that prohibited commissioner resolutions and new business to be brought to the assembly. The first instance was when the rules were being adopted and multiple commissioners had concerns about that prohibition. A motion was made to amend that standing rule to add an exception to allow motions to create “an Assembly-wide committee to discuss how PC(USA) will address social injustice prior to the 225th General Assembly.” The motion was defeated by 132 yes to 335 no. From the debate, the opposition to the amendment included both those who did not think adding such a significant item to a short meeting was wise and those that felt that carving such a narrow loophole was the way to go.

The second instance was when the Business Referrals Committee made a motion to suspend the standing rules to add two items of new business to the list of business for the meeting. That passed with the necessary 2/3 super-majority for suspending the rules. And one of these new business items helps address the issues for which the loophole noted above was concerned with.

And it was pointed out a couple of times that this latter approach is a permissible way for new business to be introduced. If the standing rules don’t allow it then move to suspend the rules and see if you can get the 2/3 vote.

The hot topic of the evening was the relationship of the San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS) to the PC(USA) through the Committee on Theological Education (COTE). The first instance was when a commissioner moved that the Dean of SFTS, the Rev Dr Jana Childers, be seated as a corresponding member as the other seminary leaders are. Turning to the Stated Clerk for advice, J. Herbert Nelson explained that when SFTS was “bought” (yes that is the term he used) by the University of Redlands they ceased to have status as a Presbyterian Seminary. As he said, “At this time there is no standing that would allow them to be seated.” The moderator ruled that the motion was out of order and moved on.

A couple minutes later the motion was made to challenge the ruling of the Moderator and after some discussion and explanation of this parliamentary procedure the ruling of the Moderator was sustained 334 to 133 and the challenge failed.

A bit later in the meeting when the business sorting was before the Assembly, the motion was made to not refer the Assembly Organization for Mission section related to COTE to the 225th GA but to deal with it in this Assembly to help sort out the status of SFTS. This move was defeated by a vote of 102 yes to 363 no.

So, the first plenary of the 224th General Assembly is suspended and will resume at 7 PM tomorrow, Saturday June 20th, with the only item of business being the election of the Co-Moderators.

But in a general sense, this was a slow start to the meeting and it raised some concerns in some peoples minds about whether the pace would pick up later in the week. A couple of the SMADs (Social Media Advisory Delegates) on Twitter wondered if the 224th GA would finish by the time the 225th begins. As I pointed out, at least with a virtual GA there is no convention hall that has a hard limit for the meeting to clear out on Saturday.

So that’s the opening night. Big credit to the Co-Moderators of the 223rd GA who handled the online meeting with grace, humor and a steady hand. Best wishes to them as they finish their term tomorrow – and I hope they enjoy this extra day. And prayers continue for all of those standing for Co-Moderators of the 224th GA. Being ready for the pressure of the election and suddenly having it moved back 24 hours can not be easy. Blessings on you as you regroup and get ready to do it again tomorrow.

Sleep well everyone.