Category Archives: news

Looking Ahead: 218th General Assembly of the PC(USA)

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For a GA Junkie, two years is a long time to wait.  While the webcast of the Church of Scotland GA goes a long way to helping me get my fix of polity and politics, there is nothing like your own General Assembly to really satisfy the cravings.  So, with a little over seven month to go until the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) kicks off in San José, California, what can we look forward to?

The first item is that the web site is up and running and beginning to be populated.  Now, it takes some real detective work to find the web site because I did not see any links on the major front pages for it.  In fact, in looking for it I found that the Office of the General Assembly General Assembly page still lists the 216th in 2004 as the last one there is information for and the 217th in 2006 in Birmingham is still “upcoming.”  The best way to find the 218th page that I have found is to look for the coverage of the Stated Clerk search.

Speaking of which, that is the major news that I have seen to date.  I don’t think anything has changed there since my “ Want to be a Stated Clerk?” post.  Nominations/Applications are due December 23.  I have not caught wind of any “announced candidates” yet.

A major item, probably the one that will mark this GA, is the report of the Form of Government Task Force (FOG) and the proposed re-write of the Book of Order.  Here there is plenty of action and that web page is loaded.  So loaded that I am still trying to find time to digest it all and figure out what the proposed changes really mean.  This makes me wonder if the commissioners will have time to reflect upon it or will depend on the interpretations from various groups and individuals.  The presentation by FOG will probably be very important in the commissioners decision.  Again, I have not heard much buzz about whether people like or dislike the rewrite and I’ll probably be spending some down time in December digesting it myself.

An always closely watched item are the overtures to GA.  At the present time there are 13 overtures posted.

Of these, three overtures (001, 003, and 013) that deal with the status of churches:  Two form union churches and one transfers a congregation into a Korean non-geographic presbytery.  The union churches seem to be good news/bad news as I read them.  For 001, this appears to be a joint church-plant in Wyoming by the PC(USA) and the ELCA.  The other, 013, in central New York could be interpreted as a PC(USA) and UMC church joining forces to continue ministry in the face of declining membership.  Finally, 003, the transfer of a church to a Korean presbytery, and there are continuing rumors of a push for a Korean synod, even though at one point language presbyteries were to be phased out. 

Overture 004 appears to be a bit of housekeeping to clarify a point in the Rules of Discipline about pronouncing censure.  This may have resulted from some questions that arose in a PJC case I was peripherally involved in and that I had offered to overture from my presbytery.

And overture 002 asks to reinstate the annual mission season offering.

There are the usual overtures about speaking out on national and world situations: 006 on Peace and Justice in Palestine and Israel, 012 on Calling for Tolerance and Peaceful relations between Christian and Muslim Communities, and 008 on the Church Addressing Intergenerational Injustice in America.

Finally, the balance of the overtures address the PC(USA) internal issues, principally ordination standards.  With the success of last year’s Authoritative Interpretation (AI) in the PUP Report that provided a polity statement without Presbytery approval, many of these contain new authoritative interpretations.  One interesting approach is overture 010 from Beaver-Butler that would broaden the definitions of presbyteries and permit presbyteries based on theology. (The web page notes that they are awaiting a clarification about something from the presbytery.)  There is overture 005 which would completely rescind the action of the 217th GA regarding the PUP report. And then there is 011 which would strike G-6.0106b and issue an Authoritative Interpretation canceling all previous Interpretations and Guidance on ordination standards.  And in more moderate actions 009 proposes an AI that would apply to G-6.0108 indicating that Freedom of Conscience does not apply to the ordination standards of G-6.0106b.

An in an interesting move, the Presbytery of East Tennessee submits overture 007 that would have the Moderator announce each vote with the words:

As sisters and brothers in Christ, sharing our
common faith in, and allegiance to, Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior,
let us proceed to vote on the question before us.


As commissioner voting is just beginning it is a little bit early to start tracking Moderator candidates.  The one that I know of is the Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow who, in modern style, announced in his blog on Friday that he would be asking his presbytery, San Francisco, to endorse him as a candidate for Moderator if they elected him as one of their commissioners.  I’m sure we’ll be hearing about more moderator candidates soon.  But in a similar vain, my son will be going before our session this month to ask to be endorsed as a candidate for Youth Advisory Delegate (YAD) from our presbytery.

Finally, I need to mention that the Committee on Local Arrangements (COLA) has their web site up and running at this time as well.

Moderator Designate for the Church of Scotland 2008 General Assembly

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The Church of Scotland nominating committee has selected the Rev. David Lunan, Clerk to the Presbytery of Glasgow, as the Moderator Designate for the General Assembly to be held this coming May.

The Rev. Lunan was ordained in 1970 and served as a youth worker before that and in parish ministry in Moray and Glasgow until 2002 when he became the clerk of the presbytery.  He served as Moderator of both the Presbyteries of Moray and Glasgow.  The Church of Scotland press release talks about his implementation of alternate styles of worship during his parish ministry as well as his extensive youth work.  He is also credited with “raising the profile” of the organization Christian Aid.

While the news coverage pretty much just covers the material in the press release, the Scotsman.com has an article on the six nominees that the selection committee considered.

PCUSA Communication: No apparent change yet

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Previously in my blog I have noted two things that pertain to today’s comments:

1)  The Presbyterian Church (USA) seems to be better at sending Presbyterian News Service reporters to “progressive” events than “evangelical” events.  [ Previous Post – See the last paragraph] (Pardon the labels.)

2)  The Presbyterian Church (USA) has a new communications person in Karen Schmidt, the deputy executive director of the General Assembly Council for communications and fund development.  And at the GAC meeting Karen talked about a unified message. [ Previous Post]

While I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt, unfortunately enough data points are developing to form a trend.

My latest observation:
In doing the research on the latest convocation of the New Wineskins Association of Churches I found information in other blogs (like Toby Brown’s Classical Presbyterian), The Layman, and the Presbyterian Outlook.  As far as I can tell, the Presbyterian News Service was silent.  While the PNS did not cover the NWAC Convocation, they did cover the meeting of the Covenant Network the following week with two articles, one on the meeting in general and their statement from the meeting and the other article on the testimony given at the meeting given by gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgendered individuals.

Now, I do not have a problem with the coverage of the Covenant Network meeting, but I do question the continuing trend to cover “progressive” events like the Covenant Network meeting while not covering, at least in the same detail, “evangelical” meetings that occur at almost the same time.

Federal Vision Controversy: Current Events and Judicial Decisions

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As I follow the developments of the Federal Vision Controversy I see that there have been a couple of recent events that make a new blog entry worthwhile.

The most significant of these are two associated rulings from the Presbyterian Church in America‘s (PCA) Standing Judicial Commission (SJC) in the two cases related to the Federal Vision controversy.  To make a long story very short… Central Carolina Presbytery complained to the GA to have the SJC investigate Steve Wilkins, pastor of Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church in Monroe, LA, or at least to have his presbytery, the Louisiana Presbytery do it.  The SJC had the presbytery do it, the presbytery did it, and reported back to the SJC last spring that there was not a problem.  In the mean time the GA adopted the report critical of the Federal Vision/Auburn Avenue Theology.

With that as background, a couple of weeks ago the SJC unanimously decided these cases and they have just become available on the web on Puritan Board.  You can either read them in a post to the board with some interesting follow-up discussion or as links to documents on their server. ( Central Carolina complaint decision, Louisiana response decision, agreement to copyrights will be necessary)  And if my very crude description of events in the paragraph above makes no sense to you, each of the decisions has the respective time-lines in them in great detail.

To give a one-line description of the SJC decision:  Louisiana Presbytery did it right, but came to the wrong decision.

Now, the detailed version:
In the SJC Report on the Memorial from Central Carolina Presbytery the SJC originally found a year ago that Louisiana Presbytery had not properly “dealt with the allegations that TE Steven TE Wilkins’ views are out of accord at key points with the system of doctrine as summarized in the Westminster Confession of Faith and Larger and Shorter Catechisms” and as a result the Louisiana Presbytery “has not met its responsibilities under BCO 13-9.f and 40-4, 5, and thus has not adequately protected the peace and purity of the Church.”  The SJC then directed the presbytery to conduct an examination with six specific requirements.

Part II of this decision then examines the actions of the Louisiana Presbytery in response to the original decision.  The SJC found that while the presbytery complied with the directives of the SJC, they did not reach a decision “consistent with the Constitution of the Presbyterian Church in America.”  And this is were we jump off to the second decision released…

In the presbytery action on the examination the vote was 13 to 8 to exonerate Pastor Wilkins.  Following the vote Teaching Elder (TE) James Jones filed a complaint that quickly found its way to the SJC.  TE Jones was joined by one additional Teaching Elder and five Ruling Elders.  The points in the complaint are that it is a matter for the GA, that TE Wilkins redefined theological terms, and that TE Wilkins had “serious variances” with the Westminster Standards.  This became the second SJC decision that was released.

In their decision, the SJC ruled that the Louisiana Presbytery had failed to apply the correct constitutional standard and that in doing so it had erred and should have found a strong presumption of guilt that some of TE Wilkins’ views were “out of conformity.”

Now, here is where I am not sure what happens next.  Problems were declared with Louisiana Presbytery and TE Wilkins, but I have not found in these decisions an order about what to do next.  I will keep looking around but my guess is that it will return to the GA and this year’s Assembly will determine the corrective action.  (Let me know if I missed this somewhere.)  It should also be noted that while the SJC found the strong probability that some of TE Wilkins’ theology is out of conformity, the actual decision only says that the presbytery did not use the correct standard.  The problem is not the Federal Vision theology itself but how the presbytery decided if there was a problem.  Judgment on the Federal Vision/Auburn Avenue theology has not been directly rendered.

In a related action, on his blog De Regnis Duobus (Concerning the Two Kingdoms) the Rev. Jason Stellman posts a letter from the Pacific Northwest Presbytery declaring that the Rev. Peter Leithart, in compliance with the fifth recommendation of the Federal Vision report adopted by last year’s GA has posted a public letter declaring the differences in his views.  Rev. Stellman also reports that he was elected to be one of the members of the study committee to look at Rev. Leithart views.  It is interesting to note that Peter Leithart, while apparently a member of Pacific Northwest Presbytery and therefore a PCA Teaching Elder, is pastor of Trinity Reformed Church in Moscow, Idaho.  The church is a member of the Confederation of Reformed Evangelical Churches (CREC).  The committee is to report back in January.
 
I think that to no one’s surprise the conversation about the Federal Vision controversy continues in the blogosphere.  In some cases it contains harsh criticism on both sides producing more heat than light.  But in others it is very civil and even sheds light on the nuances of the controversy.

One of the more interesting was a well as enlightening was a discussion held on the blog De Regno Christi back in late September.  If you look at their Federal Vision thread you can find a multitude of posts and comments about very specific points under discussion.

In another twist Jeff Meyers reports that an overture is being introduced in different presbyteries of the PCA about informing the presbytery if ordained individuals views differ from the standards.  The twist is that while the constitution and ordination vows refer to differences with the “Standards,” that being Westminster, the overtures refer to differences with the Federal Vision report, raising it to the level of constitutional standard.

Well, I think that is enough for now.  The discussion continues and will undoubtably surface at the PCA GA in June.

Update on the Proposed Merger of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches and The Reformed Ecumenical Council

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Late last week it was announced from the World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) meeting in Trinidad and Tobago that their recommendation to The Reformed Ecumenical Council (REC) for the new name of the combined body after they merge is the World Communion of Reformed Churches.  The proposed name is the topic of a WARC news story.  However, to make things clear a definition of “communion” was included:

Communion is an expression of our being together in the body of Christ as we move towards that oneness which is the gift and calling of God, fully expressed in the Trinity. Our desire to enter into communion signifies the commitment of our churches, in the richness of diversity, to mutual caring, respect and service of one another, as witness to our common
calling by the Spirit of God in Jesus Christ.

The proposed name first goes to REC for approval and then to the WARC member churches according to the story.

WARC, headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, is clearly the larger body with 214 member churches in 107 countries.  These include the major Reformed churches worldwide such as the Church of Scotland and the Presbyterian Church (USA).  In the US it also includes the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Reformed Church in America, the Christian Reformed Church in North America, and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America.

The REC, headquartered in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is roughly one quarter the size of WARC with 39 member churches in 25 countries.  In North America the only member is the Christian Reformed Church in North America.

The proposal is for a uniting convention in Grand Rapids in 2010.

It has been a long week around here

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Has it only been a week?  It seems much longer, but it was only a week ago today that the fires broke out around Southern California.  We have lived with a week of evacuations, uncertainty over the status, or continued existence, of homes, and smoke-clogged air.  We have had closed roads, canceled sporting events, and fire crews and aircraft moving around us.  It has been a long week.

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance workers arrived last Sunday and they stopped by our Synod Meeting on Friday evening to introduce themselves and let us know what they were doing. ( Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, California wildfire response page).

There were numerous people who called in to request to be excused from the Assembly because they were under evacuation or otherwise affected by the fires.  Even the Synod Moderator was checking in with family several times a day to find out the status of his home.  By adjournment on Saturday he could report that the evacuation had been lifted for his area and his home was safe.

And at the Assembly we twice sang a new hymn, “O God of Mighty Wind and Flame,” by Carolyn Winfrey Gillette written in response to the current disaster.  I appreciate the tie-in to the tune Ellacombe which is also the tune frequently used for “I sing the mighty power of God.”

But it was also a long week for me as part of a Synod Task Force that was working on a new mission design for the Synod.  We had our last meeting on Tuesday with the Synod meeting starting Thursday evening.  The Synod meeting was pretty full with reports and we gave ours on Friday afternoon and then did two rounds of Q&A.  “The devil is in the details,” if you will pardon the expression.  Much of the questioning was about details:  why people were selected this way or that, why this or that was put where-ever.  And some of the questions were due to the fact that certain details did not agree between our three documents.

The surprise came on Saturday morning when the Assembly debated and voted on the new design.  While there were several proposed amendments and a few that were approved, overall the design was approved in its basic form with only details changed.  In general, the new design strips the synod organizational chart down to its essentials:  Ecclesiastical matters, corporate matters, and cross-presbytery ministries.  The synod size is reduced with reductions by almost half to the Assembly and the council.  And only Book of Order committees are specifically mentioned in the design so the design is flexible allowing each division to organize themselves as they see best for their function at any given time.

But maybe the biggest surprise, and stress, of the week was being asked to take a significant role in the new structure and help shape the cross-presbytery ministry piece.  No good deed goes unpunished.  Anyway, after prayer and talking with several people I agreed to do it, but I committed all of them to keep praying for me as I take on this position.  We shall see what the next year holds.

Earth, Wind, Fire, and Water (or lack thereof)

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One of the names for the Los Angeles area from the indigenous peoples was “Valley of the Smokes” because the mountains and the on-shore winds worked together to trap the smoke from campfires in the basins.  In the last four days our area has lived up to that name, but interestingly it is because the off-shore Santa Ana winds are stirring up the fires.

Last night the moon was a pumpkin orange color and the past few mornings the sunrise has been spectacular, all due to the smoke in the air.  But our neighborhood smells of smoke, there are white ash flecks on everything outdoors, and pretty much all outdoor sporting and recreation events are canceled.  The other day on my way home from work I passed a fire strike team from the San Francisco Bay area that was headed to one of the fires.  And I don’t even live that close to the current fires.  It has made for some interesting NASA imagery.

I am sure that you are aware that since early Sunday morning an almost unprecedented series of fires has been burning throughout southern California.  One of the fires very first casualties was Malibu Presbyterian Church.  The Presbyterian News Service issued an initial news story on Monday about the Malibu Church loss and the fires.  Today the News Service posted a “ special update“, reprinting an update that Rev. Steve Yamaguchi, Executive Presbyter of neighboring Los Ranchos Presbytery, put out.  Steve also talks about how in the midst of this loss the church is still a witness to the community talking about Christians being a “resurrection people.”  Updates are also available from the Presbytery of the Pacific web site, the Presbytery of which Malibu is a part.

In addition, Presbyterian Disaster Assistance has two staff members in the area and I am hoping that we can hear from at least one of them at our Synod meeting that begins tomorrow.

But while the Malibu fire has gotten a lot of press, it is among the smaller of the fires that are burning.  The two major fires and several smaller ones in the San Diego area have displaced 250,000 people, including several Presbyterians I know.  The Presbytery of San Diego lists several of its churches as evacuation centers, but one of those, Solano Beach Presbyterian Church, had to be evacuated itself, at least for a day or two.

The good news is that the winds are slowly calming down, the temperatures are dropping, and the humidity is rising.  But there is a lot of brush and timber burning and even under ideal conditions it would take a while to get this much acreage under control.  I don’t know if any of these fires will, by itself, pass the record Ceder Fire of 2003 that caused major destruction in the San Diego area, or the slightly smaller Zaca Fire that burned most of this past summer in the wilderness north of Santa Barbara.  But as of this morning’s situation report the Harris Fire on the north side of San Diego was at 194,000 acres with 1% containment so it could set new records.

Just as the smoke is casting a shadow on southern California this disaster will be casting its shadow on the meeting of the Synod of Southern California and Hawaii the next few days.  We appreciate your prayers and as interesting news and Presbyterian specific information becomes available I’ll post updates.

Official Presbyterian Blogging

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Official Presbyterian Blogging.  Or is that Blogging Presbyterian Official?

The Presbyterian News Service is reporting that Linda Valentine, the Executive Director of the General Assembly Council, is blogging her three nation Asia trip.  As the article says:

LOUISVILLE — In what’s believed to be a first for a top Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) official, General Assembly Council Executive Director Linda Valentine is writing a blog during her three-nation mission tour of Asia.

The article is only three paragraphs long but this blog is a milestone in PC(USA) communications, using the “New Media.”  As of this writing there are four entries from Linda Valentine about the trip.

What I found more interesting was the apparent “back story” (sorry, I’m from the LA area) to the blog.  If you go to the top level of the blog it appears that the PC(USA) started one on TypePad ( www.presbyterian.typepad.com) about a year ago but it appears that it never got past three entries on Sept. 5 and Sept. 11, 2006.  I don’t know what else is buried in subdirectories like Linda’s is, but subscribing to the top level feed did not get me Linda’s rss feed.  Have to do that through Linda’s page.

I am curious to see if this blog continues once Ms. Valentine’s trip is over or if the trend spreads.  And I would hope that entries would not be too “scripted” by the corporate image people and lacking candid comments or written for the leaders by staff writers.

Want to be a Stated Clerk?

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The Stated Clerk Nominating Committee (SCNC) has begun taking nominations/applications for the position of the Stated Clerk of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) General Assembly.  The opening of the application window was announced on the committee web page as well as in a Presbyterian News Service press release.  If you are interested, you have until Dec. 23 to apply and the Nominating Committee will announce their choice by April 22, 2008.  However, any other persons who submitted applications and were declared qualified by the Nominating Committee may chose to continue in the process and run against the committee nominee at the GA vote in June.

While the process talks about “qualified applicants” (if you want to read the details it is available in an extract of the Standing Rules of the General Assembly) from reading over the section of the Standing Rules and the application form it appears that you simply must be a Minister of Word and Sacrament or an Elder in good standing in the PC(USA) with no charges pending against you or disciplinary cases that prohibit you from serving.

Well folks, start praying about it.  Not just for whether God is calling you to do it, but also pray for the Nominating Committee to do its work and the GA to select the person God is calling to serve the denomination in this position.

PC(USA) GAC Meeting: Change is coming. Will it be enough?

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To expand the alphabet soup in the title, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A)‘s General Assembly Council (GAC) concluded their fall meeting just over two weeks ago in Louisville and everywhere there was talk of change.  The question of course is will it happen and if so, will it be enough?  Let me discuss what has come out from the Presbyterian News Service.

It should be noted that this meeting included the executives of Middle Governing Bodies (MGB’s, that would be presbytery and synod representatives).  This was highlighted in the article titled “ Consensus sought on communication strategy.”  This reports begins by saying:

General Assembly Council (GAC) Executive Director Linda Valentine has
said that Presbyterians around the church repeatedly tell her the
denomination needs to improve its communication efforts.

I would disagree somewhat:  I think that the communications efforts are generally good.  I think it is the message, coordination, and uneven levels of coverage that need to be improved.  OK, maybe that would be included in “communication efforts” but I think there are levels of nuance here.  I’ll get back to that in a moment.

This article continues on to talk about Karen Schmidt’s presentation to the GAC and MGB representatives.  Ms. Schmidt is the new deputy executive director of communication and funds development for GAC.  She comes with corporate experience and is looking to  develop a corporate approach to communication strategy for the PC(USA)  including “branding.”  To help develop this strategy she asked those at the meeting a series of questions.  By a wide margin, the representatives said that “the whole church” is “doing the talking,” they agreed that we are “the church” (as opposed to a type of charitable organization), and that the audience is the people in the pews.  Also by a wide margin those present felt that communication should be identified as coming from the Presbyterian Church (USA) as opposed to one of its agencies.  Finally, the participants ranked “Foster/improve climate of trust,”, “Engage to empower/drive support,” and “grow membership/worship attendance” as the primary purposes of the communication.

All of this sounds nice, but part of the problem over the years has been agencies, or even corporations, related to the PC(USA) making statements (or publishing books) that don’t represent approved policy or doctrine but are viewed as coming from the PC(USA) as a unit and not that branch of it.  And yes, it does speak to the people in the pews.  At least that is the audience that pays the most attention even if that is not the intended audience.  So, if the PC(USA) does develop a unified communication strategy it had better be just that – unified.  And if they are going to speak for the denomination as a whole, it needs to be consistent with the policy and doctrine of the denomination.

Now, on to some more change…

Another article from the Presbyterian New Service titled “ Sea Change: New PC(USA) staff transform evangelism and world mission efforts” shows the new directions in Louisville.  The article begins with:

New staff people are bringing about a sea change in
the way the Presbyterian Church (USA) carries out its ministries in
evangelism and world mission.

Tom
Taylor, deputy executive director for mission, Eric Hoey, director of
evangelism and church growth, and Hunter Farrell, director of World
Mission, outlined their new approach to the Evangelism and Witness Goal
Area Committee of the General Assembly Council meeting here Sept. 20.

In the article it talks about how Rev. Taylor wants to “develop a culture of evangelism and mission in the whole denomination” and that the seven GAC “program areas” have been renamed “ministry areas.”  He also talked about their “buzz word” acronym CARE in decision making.  Does the decision conform to “Collaborative, Accountable, Responsive and Excellent.”

I have come to appreciate the very candid and honest comments from Eric Hoey.  (I note his comments on the PCUSA membership decline in this previous post.)  In this article it talks about his talking to his staff in Louisville about what they understand their work to be.  The article says of his impression of the staff from talking to them since he arrived a few weeks ago “…they lack focus and cohesiveness and are somewhat dispirited by
uncertainty about funding and the continuation of their positions as
the new GAC structure unfolds.”

Finally, the brand new Director of World Mission, Hunter Farrell, spoke.  The article says of his comments:

He said he wants to bring together the new
Presbyterian Global Fellowship, middle governing body executives,
seminary professors of mission, the Witherspoon Society, Antioch
Partners ( a joint effort of the Presbyterian Frontier Fellowship and
the Outreach Foundation), General Assembly mission staff and others.
“All these groups have their perspective about what God is doing in
this world.”

Instead of each group doing their own thing, he wants them to see how they can more effectively accomplish mission together.

Again, focusing the effort and trying to get a variety of groups on the same page.  And an impressive accomplishment if he gets all those groups at the same table.

While I have previously talked about whether the new blood would be able to make changes in the corporate culture, after hearing these comments, and the unified front of Taylor, Hoey, and Farrell, I now have guarded optimism that they will be successful.  The questions do remain about whether they will meet resistance, how much change they can affect, and will it be the right type and enough to revitalize the denomination?  Time will tell.