Category Archives: GA business

2014 General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In Ireland

Leave a reply

Just as the Assembly in Canada is wrapping up we shift our sights eastward again to Belfast and the 2014 General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. The Assembly convenes at 7:00 PM local time today, 2 June, and runs through Thursday 5 June.  Some items to help you follow along.

There are plenty of social media contact points for the Assembly, beginning with the official Twitter account @PCIAssembly which in the past has provided a very helpful and comprehensive news feed on the actions of the Assembly. The outgoing Moderator, Rev. Dr. Rob Craig, has been tweeting at @PCIModerator. We will see if the new Moderator, the Rev. Dr. Michael Barry, assumes the account. (And look for Mr. Craig on his personal account @RobCraig54) The official hashtag for the Assembly is #pciga14 but the church has been promoting the hashtag #lifeinpci for dialogue and sharing about the life and work of the church.

Others to watch for interesting and useful updates include Alan in Belfast (@alaninbelfast), William Crawley (@williamcrawley) of the BBC Northern Ireland and I will add Rebecca McConnell (@PurpleRainPR). If you want an account with a little more, shall I say, bight, you can find some humor, satire and parody mixed with a bit of serious commentary at Presbyterian Ireland (@pres_church). UPDATE: Missed the announcement of the end of this account – see their announcement or Alan in Belfast for more.

Finally, I want to highlight PCI SPUD (@pcispud), the Youth Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. In addition to their report to the Assembly, they will have a SPUD Space in the Assembly building where they will be hosing their Fringe Event. In addition to being a conversation space, it will include events on Wednesday and Thursday and prayer space and prayer boards. I will be watching their Facebook page for updates and to see how this new initiative develops.

So our prayers are with the Assembly this week and Moderator Barry. Best wishes in your discussions and discernment.

140th General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In Canada

2 Replies

As I finish writing this the 140th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada is getting under way. The Assembly will run from today ( 30 May ) through Monday 2 June, 2014. The meeting is being held in Waterloo and Kitchener, Ontario, with business meetings and most activities at Wilfrid Laurier University.
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 #ga140.

The official publication, the Presbyterian Record, is posting updates on their Facebook page.

Based on the first few minutes of the Assembly on Twitter I would suggest following Knox College (@KnoxCollegeCA), Jeff Loach (@passionatelyhis) and Matt Brough (@mbrough) for live updates. And I would expect comments from John Borthwick (@jborthwik) although he is not at the meeting.

A couple interesting items from about this Assembly I would like to highlight.

First, they have a program I don’t remember seeing before in any Assembly and that is a mentoring program for first time commissioners. This program, arranged by the Elders Institute, has designated tables that commissioners can sit at with an experienced teaching or ruling elder at the table to answer questions.

Another important event will be the commemoration on Saturday morning of the 20th anniversary of the church’s Confession of 1994 to “God and Aboriginal peoples for its involvement in the Indian Residential School system.” The event will include a keynote address by Phil Fontaine who received the confession in 1994 as grand chief of the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs. He has since served as the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations. His address is scheduled for 11 am Eastern Time.

Best wishes and prayers to the Assembly and the Moderator, the Rev. Dr. Stephen Farris, for their meeting and we look forward to their discussions and deliberations.

2014 General Assembly Of The Free Church Of Scotland

Leave a reply


In just about an hour from now on Monday 19 May, the Free Church of Scotland will convene their 2014 General Assembly in St. Columba’s Free Church in Edinburgh. The meeting will run until Friday 23 May. Lots of interesting items going on with this meeting so here is some of the info to help you follow along.

To follow along in social media you should be checking the official Free Church Facebook page as well as their Twitter feed @freechurchscot. The host church can be followed at @stcsfreechurch and the hashtag will be #fcga14.

I am trying to figure out where to begin in recommending personal Twitter feeds as there are a number of individuals with interesting ones at the meeting. I will begin with Iain D. Campbell at @revdridc. Maybe the most high-profile minister in the Free Church of Scotland, at least in the public eye, is David Robertson who you can follow at @theweeflea. Let me start there and add others as the Assembly gets going.

Two items of business are getting a bit of publicity. The first is the transformation of the Free Church College into the Edinburgh Theological Seminary. A program marking the launch of the new seminary will take place on Wednesday evening at the Assembly with the Rev. Sinclair Ferguson preaching. The Principal’s Report in the Report of the College Board talks about the nature of this change:

This year, in accordance with a decision at the 2013 General Assembly, the Free Church College will be renamed as Edinburgh Theological Seminary. Some may see this as a mere external facelift but the whole process has encouraged the staff and Board to actively explore ways of making the College more accessible to the wider church. Already, not only has there been substantial interest from various parties but the Free Church itself has become more aware of and excited about our training institution as a vital and indispensable resource. The key to the Seminary’s future is its attachment to a vibrant confessional church which will support its work and ensure its stability. To this effect, the Principal is gratified at the encouragement he has received from the Free Church at large.

The second item is the discussion of the future of Scotland leading up to the independence referendum. This will come up in the Report of the Communications Committee which has arranged for four papers from Free Church pastors addressing the issues of independence from the perspective of the church. While the Committee report provides summaries of the papers links to the full papers can be found under the news item announcing their release.

I also found it interesting that the Free Church of Scotland, like many other Presbyterian branches, is reviewing how they structure their Assemblies. The proposal that comes to the 2014 Assembly in the Assembly Arrangements Committee Report is this (Deliverance item 6):

6. The General Assembly authorise the Committee to make arrangements for the 2015 General Assembly to meet over three whole days, the evenings to involve shorter business sessions and to include worship items. The General Assembly approve the Committee’s recommendation that invitations to other Churches and organisations to send representatives be issued only every third year, phased over a three-year period so that representatives do not all attend in the same year. They also authorise the Committee to examine how more powers may be given to the Commission of Assembly and report to the next General Assembly.

Finally the Report of the Board of Trustees will be bringing an extensive report that deals with two current issues. The first is a new plan for the church boards and committees “related to ordering the Church’s activities in such a way as to bring finances back into balance” based on the charge from the last General Assembly. The second is a Policy for the Admission of Congregations.

I am struck by how they are dealing with issues that are being examined by other Presbyterian branches around the world, including ministerial training and the structure and nature of their Assemblies. We look forward to seeing how the Free Church considers and decides on these pressing issues.

2014 General Assembly Of The Church Of Scotland

2 Replies


Tomorrow afternoon the 2014 General Assembly of the Church of Scotland will convene in Edinburgh and will meet for the following week. This promises to be an interesting Assembly with issues important to the church and to Scotland on the docket.

Here is helpful information to follow along with this assembly.

  • There will be live streaming of the proceedings and you can connect to the stream appropriate for your device from the media page.

  • Most of the Documents pertaining to the Assembly are linked from the General Assembly Publications page. This includes the three Reports volumes, known as the Blue Book but with a nice graphic cover this year. In addition to the traditional PDF the reports are also available in MOBI and EPUB formats for your eReaders. There is also an Order of Proceedings as well as the Daily Papers which will contain late-breaking changes. And there is an option to subscribe to notifications of new documents being posted. In addition, there is a General Assembly App with versions for Apple iOS and Android.

  • 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.

  • A brief order of the docketed events and reports can be found on the General Assembly 2014 page.Also note that sessions start 15 minutes earlier than in past years so those of us on the other side of the world will have to adjust.

What we all want to know of course is how to follow along on social media. You can begin with the Church of Scotland’s official Facebook page.

On Twitter the starting point is the Kirk’s main feed at @churchscotland and the hashtag #ga2014. The church’s official publication, Life and Work, is also a good source for information on the web, on Facebook and on their Twitter feed @cofslifeandwork. In addition, while it is a personal account, you can follow the editor, Lynne McNeil, at @LifeWorkEditor. Similarly, the Church of Scotland Youth will be tweeting at @cosy_nya and you also might want to follow along with their incoming clerk, John Haston (@johndhaston).

UPDATED 18 May: In suggesting personal accounts to follow, let me start with three individual accounts that are probably worth watching as the Assembly gets rolling. The first is the outgoing Moderator of the Assembly, the (soon to be) Very Reverend Lorna Hood who has just switched from an official to a personal account @revlornascot. We can only hope that the incoming moderator has as great of a change in heart as she had and begins tweeting, but don’t look for that this week. The second person is Seonag MacKinnon, the head of communications for the Kirk, who tweets for herself at @seonagm. Finally, even though he may not actually be at the Assembly in person, the Rev. Peter Nimmo of Inverness is at the Assembly and is a good source of information at @peternimmo1. I will expand this list as the week progresses.

UPDATED 18 May: If you are now checking after the opening weekend I would suggest you can get caught up with the daily updates from the Church of Scotland website as well as updates from Life and Work on their General Assembly page. In addition, the Photo Gallery on the Kirk website is now active.

Two less-business related highlights of the Assembly caught my attention. The first is the annual festival, Heart and Soul, that the Kirk sponsors on the Sunday afternoon of the Assembly week that will again be happening in Princes Street Gardens near the Assembly Hall. For those of us not in Edinburgh we look forward to seeing pictures, probably on the Church of Scotland Facebook page. The second item is that the Lord High Commissioner this year will be a member of the Royal Household, Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex.

And now what we all really came here for, the business of the Assembly. Here are a few of the business reports that may be of interest and will probably attract attention within and outside the church.

  • On Tuesday afternoon there will be a special session to discuss the Scottish Independence Referendum. This is not a business item in the sense that the commissioners will vote on a resolution one way or the other on independence. Rather it will be a time of public discussion with featured speakers followed by comments from the floor.

  • On Wednesday the Legal Questions Committee will bring their report regarding Ministers and Deacons in Civil Partnership. The report includes an overture in response to the direction of the 2013 Assembly to affirm the Kirk’s historical position while providing a path for churches and sessions to follow their conscience in the employment and ordination of same-sex partnered individuals. The legislation that is passed will then be sent down to the presbyteries for their concurrence under the Barrier Act. Before this report the Theological Forum will report on related discussions that have been held in the past year.

  • As always, the Church and Society Council, to report on Thursday, has a long report with a deliverance that takes up a wide range of relevant issues in 73 different points. Among the many topics covered in these points are Competitiveness in Sport, Families and the Church in the 21st Century, Food Security, Funeral Poverty and Living a theology to counter violence against women. And that is just a few of the topics the commissioners will consider.

  • The Youth Assembly will bring their report on Tuesday.

  • The Ministries Council will report on Monday. A centerpiece of their report is the shortage of ministers and those training for the ministry to meet future needs of the church. As their report says: 80% of the parish ministers are due to retire in the next 15 years. A variety of options will be discussed.

So there is a taste of the line-up for the next week. With the challenges facing the Church of Scotland and the Scottish people at this time it will be interesting to see what the commissioners think and what decisions they make. I will try to update throughout the week as the Assembly progresses.

So this is not just Stay Tuned, but Tune In…

Looking Ahead To The 221st General Assembly Of The PC(USA)

Leave a reply


Tomorrow we will reach the six-month point ahead of the meeting of the 221st General Assembly (2014) of the the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). As we look ahead to the meeting of that Assembly a number of things are already in place but so much more is to come.

The GA will meet from June 14-21, 2014, in Detroit, Michigan, and while the city has had some highly publicized problems all concerned with the Assembly are assuring us that the issues will not affect the Assembly. The Office of the General Assembly (OGA) issued a statement of support following the city’s bankruptcy filing and the Committee on the General Assembly (COGA) visited the site this fall and was satisfied with the preparations and location. Regarding the situation with the city, the Rev. Tom Hay, OGA’s associate for assembly operations, made the following analogy in the article:

Detroit has much to teach the church, Hay said. The city is an
institution that trusted in old patterns after they stopped working.

“In many ways, that’s something like us,” he said.

In addition, in a bit of a test run, the Fall Polity Conference was held in Detroit in October. However, that was a much smaller gathering and so was held in a hotel and not in the conference center.

The Committee on Local Arrangements (COLA) is up and running and has a web page on the Presbytery of Detroit site, a Facebook page and a Twitter feed (@DetroitCOLA). They have a 23 minute video, Abound in Hope, that introduces the church to Detroit and the PC(USA) ministries and history of the area.

“Abound in Hope” is the theme of the Assembly and will be reflected in the worship. One of the more interesting and significant changes this year is that the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper will be a part of each daily worship service. In addition, GA Moderator Neal Presa has announced on Facebook the individuals who he has invited to preach at these services:

Delighted that Mark Labberton (President of Fuller Theological Seminary), Anne Emile Zaki (Evangelical Presbyterian Church of Egypt & Calvin Institute for Worship), Luke Powery (Dean of the Chapel, Duke University), and Martha Moore-Keish
(Associate Professor of Theology, Columbia Theological Seminary) have
accepted my invitation to serve as the preachers and presiders at the
daily celebration of the Eucharist at the 221st General Assembly of the
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) next June 2014 in Detroit, MI.

The
five of us will preach from the Assembly gathering text Romans 15:13
and theme “Abounding in Hope” with each of us connecting that text to a
Gospel reading.

Jazzed!

Including Mr. Presa, it appears that the list is all Teaching Elders in academia, but it should be good preaching.

The business is accumulating and the PC-Biz system is up and running. It currently lists 31 overtures on the usual wide variety of topics that includes boycotting HP, to a study of drug control policy, to the consultation before redrawing presbytery boundaries. I have so far spotted four overtures related to the definition of marriage in the Directory for Worship and two regarding divestment in companies – one related to involvement in the Middle East and another for fossil fuel producers. There are also those of the “blood on every page” nature suggesting changes to the Book of Order that originated from particular polity issues that have arisen over the last couple of years. I hope to have a closer look as some of those soon.

Along with the overtures the affinity groups are starting to get their priorities together. The one that I have seen published so far is from the Covenant Network. More are sure to come (or I have missed them).

At the present time there are two announced and endorsed candidates standing for Moderator of the 221st General Assembly – RE Heath Rada and TE John Wilkinson. If typical patterns hold there are one or two more waiting in the wings.

A number of special committees and task forces are trying to wrap up their work. Maybe the most closely watched is the Mid-Councils Commission (Continuing) that the last GA rearranged a bit but as of the September meeting it looked like they would be recommending fewer/larger synods but their additional recommendations were still being considered. Likewise, the Special Commission on the Belhar Confession has still not decided on a formal recommendation whether the church should again consider it’s inclusion in the Book of Confessions. It has however produced a study guide, The Bible and Belhar, for the church to look at. In addition, a study document on marriage has been produced and congregations and other groups in the denomination are encouraged to participate in this six-week study ahead of the Assembly. A special committee looking at the Preparation for Ministry Process has released an interim report. These, and a couple other groups, have until February 14 to submit their final reports and recommendations.

Finally, there is a unique video project called Were You There? being curated by Andrew Yeager-Buckley. It is a bit more than Snapchat in that all of us who have been to previous GA’s are invited to share our experiences in up to 60 second videos. As the web site says:

Record a short video on your cell phone or video camera – no more than
60 seconds – that tells what lessons you learned as a commissioner or
advisory delegate. What do you wish someone had told you before the
Assembly, or what would you have done differently during the gathering?
And, don’t forget to tell us your name, presbytery and the Assembly you
attended.

(And the Assembly we attended? For some GA Junkies that could be all 60 seconds. )

Finally, for those of us thinking of going it looks like registration and housing info is not up on the sites yet, but there is a handy link to the tourism site at VisitDetroit.com.

I am personally still mulling over whether I will be there in person but I will certainly be watching as the business and news items build up.  Stay tuned…

UPDATE (12/29/13): An interesting article from the LA Times about Detroit becoming a tourist destination to view the decline and abandoned buildings.

Presbyterian News Headlines For The Week Ending August 25, 2013

Leave a reply


A bit of a busy week for me but I will try to crank this out before I settle in for the holiday weekend here in the states…

When last we heard from the Church of Scotland concerning their staff and changes to their benefits, there seemed to be a bit of confusion about the actual terms of the deal. This week brought reports of the workers considering the news:

Kirk workers to meet in row over pensions – from Herald Scotland

Church criticised by union over pension letter – from Herald Scotland

And the Church of Scotland has announced it is modernizing its Sunday School curriculum:

Church of Scotland to modernise Sunday school – from the BBC

A couple of headlines related to the Free Church as well:

Church joins pleas for an end to carnage on the A9 – from Scottish Express: One of several articles about the Free Church asking for improvements to a dangerous stretch of highway.

Inside Track: Free Church signals its determination to be heard – from Herald Scotland: a column about the Free Church now publicly engaging the wider world with the A9 improvements as an example.

From Ghana we have reports from two General Assemblies that outline a number of the actions taken at each but with an emphasis, at least in the media, on issues that involve the country as a whole:

E.P. Church requests return of property – from Ghana Business news: The Evangelical Presbyterian Church requesting to have some property in Accra returned so they can build offices in the capital as well as talk about partnering more closely with the government on hospitals and universities.

President Mahama lauds E.P. Church – from Ghana Business News: And they got some kind words back from the president

Ghana’s democracy will be strengthened by the SCV– Presby Church – from SPY Ghana: A review of the Presbyterian Church Assembly that highlights their hopes for positive change from the party in power.

And two more headlines from the week that are interesting for the cultural insights they give. First from the Church of Central Africa Presbyterian:

Religious madness! Livingstonia Synod to force Ngoni chiefs back to CCAP – from The Maravi Post: “MZUZU(MaraPost)—Livingstonia Synod general secretary the Reverend Levi
Nyondo has said that all Mzimba Ngoni chiefs belong to the Church of
Central African Presbyterian (CCAP) and those chiefs going to other
churches are wasting their time and declared that his synod will bring
all Ngoni chiefs who have gone to other denominations back to their
mother church, CCAP.” This is based on a 1978 treaty.

And from Mizoram Province of Northern India:

Mizo church may do away with infant burial taboo – from The Times of India: “AIZAWL:
The Presbyterian Church of India, Mizoram Synod, the largest church in
the state, is likely to do away with one of the oldest traditional
taboos associated with infant deaths. In Mizo tradition, infants
below three months are not accorded a decent burial like adults in
village cemeteries. Instead, they are buried in kitchen gardens of the
bereaved families. This practice is called ‘Hlamzuih’.”

So that’s it for this week. See you next week.

166th General Synod Of The Presbyterian Church Of Eastern Australia

Leave a reply


My thanks to a regular reader who brought to my attention the 166th General Synod of the Presbyterian Church of Eastern Australia.

  This branch is not one that I regularly track and the Synod meeting did not make it onto my earlier list. It is a small branch but lays claim to being the oldest Presbyterian denomination in Australia. And while it was not a formal branch of the Free Church of Scotland, it did adopt the “Free Church” label and generally paralleled it in belief and practice. It is a continuing church being the descendant of those churches which did not join the state churches leading up to their federation that formed the Presbyterian Church of Australia in 1901. It is also worth noting that in style of worship they follow the Regulative Principle and their singing is in the style of unaccompanied psalmody.

For further information about this Presbyterian branch I refer you to the various pages that are part of the Introducing Ourselves section of the web site. You can also find their polity documents in their Handbook of Practice and Procedure.

The Annual Meeting of the Synod was held 7 to 9 May, 2013, in Wauchope, NSW. For information about the details of the meeting the Minutes are posted and the church’s publication, Presbyterian Banner, has a summary and some pictures in the June issue with a continuation in the July issue. It also includes the sermons given by the outgoing Moderator, Sjirk Bajema, and the new Moderator, Andres Miranda.

I do not see the reports to Synod online so a couple of the items that caught my attention in the summary and minutes are missing context and details. One of these is the ongoing work related to church property. The property of the denomination is held by trustees with a set of trustees appropriate to each state the church is in. Last fall the Parliament of the State of Victoria adopted modifications to the appropriate property act and this Synod approved modifications for the State of New South Wales. The two presbyteries in the state are now given the opportunity to make minor modifications before it is sent on to the civil government for their action.

I would presume that modifications are similar for the two states. In Victoria, the changes made included some minor ones, but one of the more notable changes was the dropping of the word “Free” from the name of the church. What seems to be the most significant change to the act is the granting of more power to the trustees to manage properties and the funds under their control.

The other business item that looks interesting, and I would be very interested in seeing the final product, is a series of brief statements on the topics of yoga, a Christian’s right to protest, homosexual marriage, and abortion. In the published summary it is suggested that they will hopefully be published in the Presbyterian Banner in the near future.

This looks to have been a productive and efficient meeting and a successful one from the prospective of the business of the church as well as the fellowship and encouragement of the servants of the church. Well done and I will try to remember to include the church on my list next year.

Presbyterian News Headlines For The Week Ending June 22, 2013

Leave a reply


With the numerous Assemblies and Synods that have been happening over the last few weeks I have pushed the news headlines off to the side in favor of my following and commenting on the meetings. Having gotten a bit caught up, let me offer a few of the headlines that caught my attention last week and maybe I will later do an omnibus to cover a couple of interesting items that transpired in the earlier weeks.

First, a few interesting items not from a Presbyterian body but other Reformed bodies that have parallels or application to Presbyterians.

From the Christian Reformed Church General Synod:

Join a Faraway Classis If You Must, Synod Tells Churches – The Banner. CRC Churches allowed to join a non-adjoining classis for theological affinity.

Synod Approves New Study on Ministry to Those Who Are Gay – The Banner

And so far from the Reformed Church in America (The meeting is still going on):

Reformed Church Removes ‘Conscience’ Exemption for Women’s Ordination – Christian Post

Problems at the Presbyterian University of East Africa with financial and academic scandals:

Presbyterian University of East Africa given six months to comply with law – Standard Digital News: Need to get a charter or else license will expire

Students expose more rot at troubled Presbyterian University of East Africa University – Standard Digital News

Uhuru Kenyatta’s principal secretary nominee caught in varsity scandals – Standard Digital News: Political nominee was chair of the University Council

From the Mizoram, India, Synod:

Marriage should be between man and woman only: Mizo church – Times of India

Mizoram Presbyterian Church issues dress code for women – Mizonews.net

In other news…

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance receives grant from Red Cross –
Disaster News Network: To coordinate housing for Sandy relief workers

Obituary: Elizabeth Anne Cameron ‘Betty’ Walls, former general secretary of the Overseas Council of the Church of Scotland – The Scotsman

33rd General Assembly Of The Evangelical Presbyterian Church

2 Replies

Beginning tomorrow morning the Evangelical Presbyterian Church begins ramping up to the start of the meeting of its 33rd General Assembly. There are a variety of workshops tomorrow, Tuesday 18 June, and then the keynote workshop for everyone on Wednesday 19 June. It is not until Thursday morning 20 June that the Assembly actually convenes and the formal business sessions begin and those will continue until noon on Saturday 22 June.

The meeting is being hosted by Cherry Hills Community Church in Highland Ranch, Colorado, on the southern edge of he Denver metropolitan area.

Lots going on at this meeting so here is information to help you follow along:

  • For the first time there will be live streaming – see the bottom of the Documents and Webcast page. Not clear if only the business will be webcast or if any of the workshops and worship will be as well.
  • Most of the necessary documents can be found on the Documents and Webcast page including the complete Commissioners Handbook as a single document or by all the individual reports, documents and communications on that page. Please not that at the bottom of the page are a number of replacement pages.
  • There are a number of schedules for the Assembly posted on the Assembly page, but maybe the most useful for those following the business of the Assembly is the General Assembly Schedule Summary
  • The polity documents include the Book of Order, the Westminster Standards and the Essentials of Our Faith
  • Official news about the Assembly will be found as both press releases and in their electronic newsletter EP News and probably their Facebook page as well.
  • The official Twitter hashtag for the meeting is #epc33 and the church tweets as @EPChurch
  • As the meeting gets going I will update with other individual Twitter accounts to follow, but for starters let me suggest @Matt_Everhard.

In looking through the material for the meeting it is clear that one thing the EPC is working through are changes related to its current rapid growth. For those that may have missed it, churches requesting dismissal from the PC(USA) are going to both ECO and the EPC in roughly equal numbers. As a consequence, this will be the largest GA the EPC has had with 620 commissioners from around the world. In terms of the denomination’s structure, there is a proposal to create the Great Plains Presbytery from regions currently covered by the Mid-America and the West Presbyteries. There is also an overture from the Presbytery of the Pacific to add to its region part of a valley with churches, some coming from the PC(USA), that have an affinity with the other churches in that region.

In another sign of growth, and also of the general situation in the nation regarding new health care regulations, the Assembly will be asked by the Board of Benefits to grant commission status to the Administrative Committee for the limited purpose of evaluating and considering whether the “EPC Medical Plan should be retained, revised, outsourced, or terminated.” And, the EPC now has a Chief Operating Officer, Phil Van Valkenberg, who will be introduced at the Assembly.

To further understand the growth in the EPC you can have a look at the Stated Clerk’s Report where under the statistical information he reports a growth of 92 churches in 2012 for a total of 416. In his report the Stated Clerk also reports that on the advice of the Fraternal Relations Committee he sent a letter to the World Communion of Reformed Churches supporting the membership of ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians. (And the Assembly will be asked to endorse this action.)

OK, on to other business of interest…

The EPC has been revising their constitutional polity documents and at this meeting the Revised Book of Government will be brought for a second reading and approval and the Revision of the Book of Worship will be brought for a first reading. The approval of the Book of Government is requested to take place under special rules for approval of the full report without amendment. The press release about the meeting says of the revision: “The revisions produce a more consistent use of language and formatting
changes. The revisions do not represent significant changes in polity.”

In other business from the Fraternal Relations Committee there is a request to approve the Fraternal Agreement with the Evangelical Reformed Church of Kazakhstan (ERCK).

As I mentioned at the top, the first two days are loaded with workshops and seminars including Wednesday’s keynote seminar on the theme of the Assembly: “In Christ Alone” A day with Lee Strobel and Mark Mittleberg. It should be interesting.

And so we wish the commissioners well and offer prayers for the guidance of the Holy Spirit over the next few days, especially for their discussion and discernment in the issues before them.

183rd General Assembly Of The Cumberland Presbyterian Church

6 Replies

  The second of the three General Assemblies this week is the 183rd General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church convening tomorrow in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Not one of the higher profile Assemblies it will have no streaming and probably very little social media traffic, but definitely some interesting issues that will be considered that have parallels in other branches.

UPDATE: There is some notable Twitter traffic under the hashtag #cpga13. I see no official tweets but @mcBROwn91, Matthew Gore (@cumberlandpres – maybe official?) and Jeff Biggs (@jeff_biggs) are providing helpful, frequent and some entertaining tweets.

Pretty much all of the information for this meeting can be found in the somewhat non-obviously named 2013 Preliminary Minutes of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. For the polity documents, the By-laws of the General Assembly Corporation can be found starting on page 12 of that document while much of the rest of the governance can be found in the Constitution.

The Preliminary Minutes also contain the reports for the meeting (beginning on page 32) and I wanted to walk through those and highlight a couple of business items.

The very first report (pg. 32), the Report of the Moderator, contains a couple of interesting items about synods. The first is this paragraph about the church’s structure:

When the Church realigned presbyteries and synods in 1988, the goal was to have stronger presbyteries with professional staff. For the first few years the synods were to be courts of review, however, I feel strongly that it is time to re-evaluate the role of the synod in our Denomination. Presbyteries are weak and have difficulty developing new congregations due to limited resources. Working co-operatively with presbyteries, the synods were the primary source of developing new congregations.

The second is a note and formal recommendation about unity with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America (CPCA). The outgoing Moderator urges several of the synods to hold general synod meetings this year that are union meetings with their corresponding CPCA synod.

This theme of potential union between the CPC and the CPCA is seen throughout the reports with it being mentioned under ecumenical relationships in the Stated Clerk’s report as well as a request by the Ministry Council (pg. 125) to delay their assigned task of setting Priority Goals until there is a unified body to set goals for. Along the same theme the Report of the Unified Committee on Theology and Social Concerns (pg. 266) encourages congregations to read the study paper Reflections on a Divided Church.

Towards the goal of unification of the CPC and CPCA a joint Unification Task Force (pg. 268) has been set up. Among other things, they present a three-phase program for working towards a union vote at each of the respective GA’s a year from now. They are asking that they can get the word out by visiting presbytery meetings throughout the coming year.

In an interesting recommendation regarding polity the Permanent Judiciary Committee (pg. 258), jointly with the Theology and Social Concerns Committee, had referred to it a memorial concerning ministers of other denominations serving communion in CPC congregations. The joint committees are recommending that the 1987 action permitting this be rescinded as a matter of “strengthening our Cumberland Presbyterian identity and connectionalism.”

In other business, the Ministry Council brings a handbook (begins on pg. 92) with the recommended process for training and certifying Elders as Lay Leaders for Small Congregations. And the Board of Trustees of Memphis Theological Seminary (pg. 224) asks the Assembly to encourage all probationers to consider being trained for ordained ministry at their seminary as well as a request for permission to undertake a capital campaign.

It should be an interesting meeting and I look forward to whatever updates or reviews of the discernment are made available. Prayers for the Holy Spirit’s guidance in your deliberations.