Tag Archives: PCANZ

General Assembly Season 2021

A Very Different General Assembly Season 2020

Yesterday May 1 – my official starting point for General Assembly Season. But as many of you are aware, this will be a very different General Assembly Season. With the Covid-19 virus circulating almost all of the early meetings have been cancelled or postponed. Many are simply listed as “postponed” with hopes of rescheduling in 2020. Some have specifically stated that they will not happen this year. Still waiting on a few and I will update as announcements are made.

So this is the line-up for General Assembly Season as I know it now. Please let me know if I have missed an announcement or a presbyterian branch.

46th General Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Malaysia
~~23-25 March 2020~~
Postponed, date to be determined.

65th General Assembly
Presbyterian Church in Taiwan
Taipei
~~21-24 April 2020~~
Postponed to a date not yet decided

60th Synod Annual General Meeting
Presbyterian Church of Trinidad and Tobago
~~April 2020~~ – Postponed Indefinitely

Synod
The Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia
~~May 2020~~ – Postponed

45th General Assembly
Korean Presbyterian Church Abroad
~~5-7 May 2020~~
~~Orlando, Florida~~
Postponed to 4-6 May 2021
(I am seeing various info on this, still sorting through it)

General Assembly & Family Camp
Covenant Presbyterian Church
5-9 May 2020
Westcliffe, Colorado

General Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Tasmania
12 May 2020

44th General Assembly
Korean-American Presbyterian Church of the Americas
12-15 May 2020
~~Cancun, Mexico~~
To be held by Videoconference

General Assembly
Church of Scotland
~~16-22 May 2020~~
Edinburgh
Cancelled (breaking an over 300 years streak of Assemblies)
There will be a service to install the new Moderator on May 16

General Assembly
Free Church of Scotland (Continuing)
18 May 2020
Edinburgh
The Assembly shall convene by teleconference and suspend the Assembly to reconvene on or about 6 October in Inverness

General Assembly
Free Church of Scotland
18-21 May 2020
~~Edinburgh~~
The Assembly will meet virtually this year with a single session the evening of Monday 18 May.

General Assembly
Presbyterian Church in Ireland
~~1-4 June 2020~~
~~Belfast~~
A Virtual meeting of the 2019 Assembly cancelled the 2020 Assembly – this is a break in a 180 year sting

87th General Assembly
Orthodox Presbyterian Church
~~3-9 June 2020~~
~~Eastern University~~
~~St. Davids, Pennsylvania~~
The 87th General Assembly has been postponed and will now convene on 2 June 2021

146th General Assembly
Presbyterian Church in Canada
~~7-11 June 2020~~
~~Wilfrid Laurier University~~
~~Waterloo, Ontario~~
The Assembly has been cancelled.

145th General Assembly
Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America
~~7-12 June 2020~~ – Rescheduled 27 June – 2 July, 2021
Louisville, Kentucky
Concurrent with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church

190th General Assembly
Cumberland Presbyterian Church
~~7-12 June 2020~~ – Rescheduled 27 June – 2 July, 2021
Louisville, Kentucky
Concurrent with Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America

216th Stated Meeting of the General Synod
Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church
~~9-11 June 2020~~ – Rescheduled 18-21 August 2020
Bonclarken Conference Center
Flat Rock, North Carolina

General Assembly
United Free Church of Scotland
~~10 June 2020~~
Perth
The Meeting has been cancelled

48th General Assembly
Presbyterian Church in America
~~15-19 June 2020~~
~~Birmingham~~
Postponed to 29 June – 2 July 2021

224th General Assembly
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
~~20-27 June 2020~~
~~Baltimore~~
Will be held on-line with plenaries on June 19, 26, and 27

General Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Queensland
Including the Presbytery of South Australia
~~22 June 2020~~ – Rescheduled for September202 0, date pending
Brisbane Boys’ College
Brisbane

40th General Assembly
Evangelical Presbyterian Church
~~23-26 June 2020~~
Hope Church, Cordova, TN
Rescheduled to September 17-18, 2020

189th Synod
Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America
~~23-26 June 2020~~
~~Indiana Wesleyan University~~
~~Marion, Indiana~~
Cancelled as of 30 April

N.S.W. State Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Australia
in the State of New South Wales
13 July 2020 (begins)
Presbyterian Ladies’ College
Croydon, N.S.W.

Reformed Presbyterian International Conference
28 July to 3 August 2020
Indiana Wesleyan University
Marion, Indiana
Not an assembly or synod but a significant quadrennial gathering of Reformed Presbyterians
At this time still accepting reservations but may be cancelled shortly

Convocation of Sessions
Vanguard Presbytery
30 July 2020
Stephens Valley Church
Nashville, Tennessee
A meeting that is part of the development of a new denomination

84th General Synod
Bible Presbyterian Church
6-10 August 2020
Bible Presbyterian Church, Grand Island, NY

General Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Victoria
5 – 8 October 2020

General Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand
~~7-11 October 2020~~
Lindisfarne College
Hastings
(biennial)
The Assembly has been postponed until October 2021

113th General Assembly
Presbyterian Church in Western Australia
23 October 2020 (begins)
St. Columba’s Church, Peppermint Grove

I will again reference the series of articles I wrote as an introduction to Presbyterian General Assemblies eight years ago. My GA 101 series consists of the following

GA101: Preface
GA101: Introduction – Why in the world would anybody want to do it this way?
GA101: Connectionalism – The Presbyterian Big Picture
GA101: The Cast of Characters – A score card to identify the players
GA101: The Moderator – All Things In Moderation
GA101: Where does the GA business come from? – Incoming!
GA101: Doing the business of GA — Decently and in Order

So GA Junkies, this is a very different season. By my count, there are currently seven Assemblies or Synods that are still on as scheduled, seven that appear to be postponed to later in the year, two to happen by videoconference approximately as scheduled (not counting electronic meetings to decently and in order reschedule the meeting), and twelve that appear to be cancelled/rescheduled for next year. I am still collecting info and some of the later ones may yet be rescheduled as well. We will see.

So with that, I pray that you stay safe and healthy at this time and may it pass quickly. And for the hard-core GA Junkies out there may the withdrawal symptoms not be too bad and may you find something else to do to fill the time.

And finally, with the prospect of video GA’s coming up, I will start working on a Bingo Card for the occasion. Let me know if you have one and I will share all that I find.

So stay decent and in order my friends.

Presbyteries Begin Voting On Same-Sex Marriage Actions

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With General Assembly season now behind us we move into the portion of the year where the actions of the General Assemblies that require presbytery concurrence are now being considered by the lower governing bodies.

Coming from three of the Assemblies we have proposed actions that have implications for same-sex marriage/partnerships within the church and the progress is being closely watched within each branch. Here is a brief summary of what to watch and where each is at this time.

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

The 221st General Assembly (2014) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) adopted a proposed constitutional amendment that now needs to be approved by the presbyteries. This change in the language of Book of Order section W-4.9000 has been bundled into the Amendment booklet and is now referred to as Amendment 14-F.

Presbytery voting has begun and the Office of the General Assembly is, as always, the official tracker of the votes. They have created a page specific to the marriage amendment that has not only resources about the GA action and that amendment, but a nifty map of the presbyteries that have reported their vote and which way it went. I have to admit that with only a few recorded so far it is a bit tough distinguishing between the shades of purple they use for yes and no, but once it begins to fill in the difference should be more obvious. And interesting to see that the Dakota nongeographic presbytery was geographically placed in southern Saskatchewan.

If you want the official tally of the voting on all amendments that is still there and shows that to date three presbyteries have officially recorded their votes ( 1 yes and 2 no on both 14-F and Blehar at this time ). Also interesting to note that the official page for the Belhar Confession does not have nifty map.

And for the polity wonks it is helpful to remember that the PC(USA) now has two less presbyteries for a total of 171 meaning that it takes 86 to approve a Book of Order Amendment and 114 to approve a change to the Book of Confessions.

For up-to-the-minute unofficial reporting I see that the Covenant Network is keeping an on-line tally with the presbytery voting results including the number of yes and no votes, something the OGA does not include. As of two weeks ago their tally was two presbyteries on each side.

While I will be doing a much more detailed analysis as more data are available, here is a quick comparison of the first four data point in comparison to 10-A. I will leave it for another time to discuss whether the comparison of two amendment that deal with significantly different equality questions is appropriate. Abstentions are included in the totals and the percentage after the total is the change in the number of total votes from 10-A.

Presbytery	14-F Yes	14-F No	14-F Total	10-A Yes	10-A No	10-A Total
New Castle	73 (74%)	24 (24%)	99 (-14%)	79 (69%)	34 (30%)	115
Palo Duro	25 (45%)	30 (55%)	55 (-35%)	35 (41%)	50 (59%)	85
San Diego	22 (22%)	76 (77%)	99 (+14%)	21 (24%)	66 (76%)	87
Yukon	27 (59%)	19 (41%)	46 (-22%)	21 (36%)	38 (64%)	59

So far we have two presbyteries with no on both, one yes on both and one switch from no to yes. In three out of four cases we see a significant decrease in the number of total votes cast. With 167 presbyteries left to go there is still a lot of data yet to be collected so I won’t go any further with this analysis now.

Church of Scotland

This past May the General Assembly 2014 of the Church of Scotland approved an act related to ministers in civil partnerships that affirms traditional language but includes proposed language (all found as an Appendix to the Legal Questions Committee report) for churches to request to depart from the traditional standards and it is now being voted on by the presbyteries as special legislation under the Barrier Act. There are 46 presbyteries and a majority of 24 are required for concurrence leading to the General Assembly giving it final considering in 2015.

The Principal Clerk’s office does not keep the official tally of the votes online but a group of evangelicals in the Kirk, Forward Together, has been monitoring voting. In a statement from last week (30 October) they indicate that they know of three presbyteries who have already voted no on the overture. That statement also contains a list of known dates of presbytery votes with the largest single day on the list this past Tuesday (4 November). The deadline to vote is in December.

In particular, the vote against by the Presbytery of Lewis received some publicity probably enhanced by the issuance of a statement following the vote. The story was picked up by the Stornoway Gazette and the KaleidoScot web site, among others.

Holding an alternate viewpoint on the question is Affirmation Scotland which says that they are disappointed the legislation does not go farther but supports it as an intermediate step. One of their affiliated churches, Greyfriers Church in Edinburgh, has recently made it clear that they are an inclusive congregation and that should the act be confirmed they will be an affirming congregation and request a departure from the act should the circumstances arise.

Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand

In their General Assembly about a month ago they reaffirmed their support for marriage between one man and one woman and the Assembly sent to the presbyteries special legislation under the Barrier Act that would confirm that language in their Book of Order.

The act must be approved by a majority of the eleven presbyteries, two synods and two church councils.

It is relatively early in their process so we will see what announcements are made as it moves forward.

Conclusion

At this point the process is moving forward in each of the branches. While the Church of Scotland voting will be wrapping up in the next couple of months the other two branches will take a bit longer. As I indicated above, I will be taking the PC(USA) voting data and adding that to my database to see what observations we can make about that branch. For the other two there is a paucity of previous votes for statistical comparisons so we can only keep an eye on them as current snapshots of their denomination. We will see what happens.

PCANZ GA Says Ministers May Only Solemnize Marriage Between A Man And A Woman

Presbyterian Church Of Aotearoa New Zealand 2014 Assembly Week

The GA Junkie

The Politics of Presbyterianism