Category Archives: PC(USA)

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — The GA At The Midway Point

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We have reached Wednesday morning and the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) takes a short break to catch its breath and get some reading done.  The last two-ish days have been committee work and the next three-ish the full Assembly will act on the recommendations of each committee.  Looking at what the nineteen committees have done over the last couple of days there are not too many recommendations that I find surprising, although a number are disappointing to some in the church.  I’ll return to comment on the ones coming up today in a moment, but I’ll just highlight a few and probably the best place to get a better compilation is over at the GAhelp site.  And of course, full results are on PC-Biz.

I did want to highlight some of the twists and turns committees took and not being there in person here are a few of the tweets I found most interesting and informative from those who were in the committee rooms.

cvpotweet Very proud of the YAADs and TSAD on #cmte09 who were the main force behind the creative solution for the 09-20 YAV overture! #ga219

gspcrobert #cmte04 guy just quoted yoda in debate – love it #nerdfest on so many levels #ga219

brc_live Wowza. Motion to reconsider 04-06, MGB Commission. Oh good golly. #cmte4 #ga219

brc_live This #cmte4 is struggling around parliamentary procedures; not sure it is a helpful tension. #ga219

brc_live The word-smithing during committee meetings may be frustrating for those of us that “know better” but it builds ownership. #ga219 #cmte4

gspcrobert ACC guy in #cmte05 trying to quote the BOO – “I’m more familiar with the nFOG than the current one… how embarssing is that!” #ga219

lauraviau Seeing the desire to do rightby people in #cmte6 but also the frustration of not seeing how to do that #ga219

pasta_amy Wondering why there are folks who believe that our book of confessions is all about sex – seems like it #ga219 #cmte6

rugger_lav@HeySonnie What? Presby’s making amendments that are too long for 140 characters! Unheardof! #cmte12 #ga219

HeySonnie CONFUSION REIGNS! Moderator andparliamentarian consulting. #cmte12 #ga219

gspcrobert #cmte12 – commish trying to move neither report, and only approve covenant – how does that work with 2 other motions on floor? #ga219

Thanks to all these folks and the many in the Twitterverse helping me, and others, feel connected with the process.

So what happens now.  In a little bit (probably before I actually finish this post) the plenary will begin.  Robert has the docket posted on GAhelp so we know that after all the updates (Bills and Overtures and Financial Implications — we will now see those every plenary session) we will have Committee 15: Church Growth, Christian Education and PILP.  There is then an order of the day for the report of Committee 16: Theological Issues and Institutions at 4:30 pm.

In the evening session we can look forward to Committee 7: Form of Government Revision and Committee 17: Review of Permanent GA Committees.

Committee 15: Church Growth, Christian Education and PILP has one high-profile item and that is the Report of the Youth Task Force.  The committee unanimously recommends the Assembly approve this report.  Other business includes the transfer of churches between presbyteries, approval of union churches, and a commissioner resolution to help plant churches in Triana, Albania.  The committee recommends that the latter be referred to the GAMC.  If you want an indication of the routine nature of this committee’s work, with all due respect to the Youth Task Force report, according to the official tracking twitter this was the first committee to finish, completing all of their work Monday leaving Tuesday for a field trip.

Committee 16: Theological Issues and Institutions warrants our first order of the day (i.e. Drop whatever you are doing to now do this) because they will bring the recommendations regarding changes to the Book of Confessions.  Regarding the Heidelberg Catechism the committee is recommending approval of the Special Committee’s recommendations, including the renewal of the Special Committee to participate in a complete new translation of the Catechism, as opposed to new translations of specific questions as approved by the 218th GA.  Also part of the committee report is the recommendation that the church continue in the process of adopting the Belhar Confession, that is, send the Confession out to the presbyteries for their concurrence. On this the committee vote was 43-11-1 and in response to an overture that requested only commending the Belhar the vote was the same to recommend answering that overture with the approval of the Confession.  There are also a couple of other Book of Order changes from the committee, one to add “prayer” to three questions in the ordination/installation service recommending approval, and two others recommending disapproval.

Committee 7 will be recommending the approval of the revised Form of Government with amendments.  This is coming out of committee on a 37-5-0 vote and I would think additional wordsmithing will happen this evening.

Committee 17 is pretty routine stuff and all that they have is the recommendation to approve the minutes of three GA permanent committees that they reviewed.

So there is the line up for today.  Get your live streaming ready to follow along.  Much of this will probably be coming to the presbyteries so you will likely see this again — now is your chance for the “first reading.”

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) — Election Of The Moderator

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Congratulations to Ruling Elder Cynthia Bolbach and Teaching Elder Landon Whitsitt who were just elected the Moderator and Vice-Moderator respectively, of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) .  (OK, technically Cynthia was elected Moderator and Landon will be brought up as the nominee for Vice-Moderator at the plenary later in the week but that is a formality.) They were elected on the fourth ballot with 325 votes.  As Ms. Bolbach said at one point in the Q and A — “Elders rule!”

Now, before I continue let me say that I was at a great family event among other Presbyterians this evening so I was not following much of the live streaming.  Comments on the election process are compiled from the plethora of individuals providing details on Twitter as the event progressed.  Also, you will probably want to check out the accounts from other blogs from people who were present.

Having said that let me comment on what I could follow of the election process.  For both the speeches and the Q and A session the Assembly suspended the standing rules and extended the time for each by 30 minutes because of the large number of candidates so they all had reasonable time to present themselves.

I did see some of the nominating speeches and have the accounts of the candidate speeches and they all seemed to be well delivered and touched on traditional topics.  And from the accounts multiple candidates sang parts of their speeches.

From the Twitter coverage the questions to the candidates all seemed like good ones.  They were: 1) Why is it important to have educated clergy? 2) How do both parts of the PC(USA) constitution relate to each other in decision making? 3) What is at stake in the church if you are not elected Moderator? 4) How would you address mission and evangelism? 5) How do you feel about youth involvement in the life of the church and GA? 6) What do you think about civil union and marriage?

As you can see in the table below the vote went to a fourth ballot.  After two ballots there was a motion to suspend the standing rules and change the procedure to drop the lowest vote-getter.  It would have required a 2/3’s vote and the motion failed.  In the Twitterverse Rock-paper-scissors or a penalty kick shootout were also suggested to speed things up.

 Votes 1  2 3  4
 Belle  71  60  73  51
 Bolbach  149  220  272  325
 Kim  57  52  44  25
 Lauterer  76  78  74  49
 Leeth  73  93  111  148
 Nielson  71  53  64  37
 Total  497  556  638  635


I am normally into reading tea leaves and trying to find something in these numbers.  However, I am reluctant to do that this evening for a couple of reasons.  The first is that from reading the candidates’ statements and from their answers this evening these are individuals who do not nicely fit the boxes we sometimes put them in.  Therefore, I am avoiding the usual descriptive terms and will say that I see certain affinities between Lauterer’s views and Bolbach’s views and would think that the drop Lauterer had on the last ballot went to Bolbach putting her over the top.  Similarly, there seemed to be an affinity between Nielson and Leeth and Leeth’s strengthening appears to be at Nielson’s expense.  Those two shifts don’t completely describe what is going on so there are other shifts as well.  I will say that with Kim’s name recognition in the denomination and his home-town advantage I was surprised that he was consistently last in the voting.

(Update: Jim Stochl, one of our presbytery commissioners and a friend of mine, posted his interesting observations about the election last night.  His take was that Jin Kim was too negative in his speech and answers and came across as too radical about how the PC(USA) needed to change.  Having heard Rev. Kim speak at the last GA that sounds like what he said then so he probably came across as not hopeful enough to many of the commissioners.  Thanks Jim.)

The other reason I’m hesitant to say much is because there may be bad data.  If you look at the total numbers of votes in each round you will see that round one and two are significantly lower than three and four.  There was a long interval between ballot two and ballot three as the tech staff checked the commissioners’ wireless voting devices, the commissioners voted in a few rounds of test or practice voting on whether they had dinner, and they trained the Moderator on how to call for the vote.  The consistency in the totals for the last two votes give me confidence that they got the system working.  We will see if these issues continue to be a problem when the Assembly returns to plenary session in a few days.  These problems led to a number of snarky Twitter comments which included such gems as “Lesson 1: Never do layoffs before a General Assembly” (originated with @revkirby I think) and “wireless voting at #ga219 #FAIL” (originated with @ajc123 as far as I can tell).

So, if you want to follow the new leadership on Twitter you can add @cbolbach and @landonw to your list.  (And people are lobbying hard to get Cyndie Bolbach to actually tweet — Landon Whitsitt will probably see to that himself.)  UPDATE: At the later news conference Cyndie Bolbach is quoted on Twitter by Leslie Scanlon (@lscanlon) of the Outlook as saying “I’m no @breyeschow or @bawade. But @landonw is.”

And thanks to Bruce and Byron for your faithful service over the past two years.  I don’t know if other past-Moderators worked as hard as you two did and we just did not know about it because we did not have blogs and Twitter.  But your on-line updates gave all of us a real appreciation for what goes into holding those offices and how much you do for the other 103 weeks of your term.  Thanks to both of you and God’s blessings as your live return to “normal.” (And Bruce, is your life ever anything like most people would consider normal?)  God Speed!

219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

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In just over 12 hours the 219th General Assembly (2010) of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) will convene in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  Here are resources to help you follow all the action.

This is shaping up to be a major Twitter event.   The major hashtag is #ga219 but the more light-hearted but less efficient hashtag #presbynerdfest10 is in play as well.  The official twitter users are led by the Moderator of the 218th GA Bruce Reyes-Chow at both @breyeschow and @brc_live.  In addition, the outgoing Vice-Moderator Byron Wade can be followed at @bawade.  There are official or semi-official twitter names for @yaads219, @ga219tracker, @gacola2010, @presbyGA, and @DirofOp (Director of Operations – Thomas Hay).  There is of course also the official main Twitter name @Presbyterian but I am not sure that will be used much for GA related tweets.

There are numerous other individuals and groups who will be tweeting, and those are probably best followed by the hashtag or the GA219 Twub.  (A twub is a means of consolidating and having a Twitter community.)  Also, I have previously listed the Twitter handles of Moderator and Vice-Moderator candidates and will add those of the successful candidate to the official list above upon the selection by the Assembly.  UPDATE: With the election of Cynthia Bolbach and Landon Whitsitt as Moderator and Vice-Moderator you can follow them on Twitter at @cbolbach and @landonw.

OK, now the unofficial blog coverage.  There is a lot of coverage out that and I am sure to miss someone but here is what I have right now.  I would start with two individuals who have put together a tremendous amount of information.  Robert Austell has put up a very comprehensive and complete site at GAhelp.net and is there at GA updating and tracking information.  Also, Bob Davis has put together a set of reviews of the business before the Assembly at Presbyblog.  Also, the news sites Presbyterian Outlook and The Layman will be posting their takes on the Assembly.  Each also has a blogger commenting on the action, Carmen Fowler for the Layman and Adam J. Copeland for the Outlook.  (And there is word that Toby Brown will also be blogging for the Layman.) For other coverage:

There are also individuals who will be blogging live and remotely.  I am in the latter group and will contributing my comments as my schedule permits.

So we have one week ahead of us of polity, parliamentary procedure, and discussion and debate.  There will be a live feed but I don’t see that link for that yet.  I’ll add that link in the list above when the GA starts.  So hang on and have fun.

New Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Web Site

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Well, as promised the new web site design for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has been rolled out late today just in time for the start of the General Assembly meeting beginning on Saturday.

My first impression is very positive.  It has interactive media on the front page, a nice clean feel at the top, and good navigation links.  It is a bit more cluttered at the bottom of the front page.  A little checking shows that the front page style is not propagated throughout the site — There is a new style that differs from the front for the GAMC, and the OGA pages still retain the same look and feel as they did yesterday.

As for URL’s there is a new system that seems logical as far as I have explored it.  Previously a web page was a subdirectory of the pcusa.org address.  Now it is a subdomain of the site.  For example, the General Assembly page was www.pcusa.org/ga219 and it is now ga219.pcusa.org and the OGA was www.pcusa.org/oga and it similarly is now oga.pcusa.org.  For simple cases like these two the old addresses forward.  However, more complicated cases do not follow this rule:  www.pcusa.org/research does forward, but not to research.pcusa.org but to gamc.pcusa.org/ministries/research.  And not everything forwards — a lot of my previous links are now broken.  For example, the documents I linked to earlier today are still generally valid links, although one is now broken, and the nice index page for comparative statistics is gone!  There is now a resource page that lists each table seperatly.  That may take some time to get through.  And one other inconsistancy — if you want to get to the current GA it is ga219.pcusa.org as I mentioned above.  All the previous GA’s are oga.pcusa.org/ga216 , or whatever GA you want.

The one other feature of the web site is the quick and easy access to the store.  (And while advertised as a ministry of the GAMC it has its own subdomain and is not under the GAMC domain.)  I would also note that the other arms, like the Presbyterian Foundation, PILP, and Publishing appear to retain their old styles. (And when I typed “investment and loan program” in the search it returned a very plain page with the styles stripped out or invalid.)  Also the new search is not nearly as useful.  The previous one returned a ministry arm, committee or office link at the top if it matched your search above the usual list of documents.  Now you just get the documents listed out.

I’ll keep looking but it will take a little getting used to.  And I don’t know how many of the items I mention above are bugs and how many are features.  I’m sure there is more testing and patching to do so I look forward to the continued work.  And I’ll start looking to fix all my broken links…

Annual Statistical Report Of The Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

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Earlier today the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) released their annual statistics in the form of the comparative statistics summary, a statement from the Office of the General Assembly, and the miscellaneous information which gives some demographic breakdowns.  On the one hand it is temping to say “there it is – nothing new” and move on to other business.  The magnitude of the numbers and the trends seen are generally in line with the trends over the previous decade.  But there are a couple of interesting numbers in the statistics I would like to bring out.

First, for the geeks in the crowd here are the background details.  I will look at the numbers from the statistical summaries for 2001 to 2009.  These can be compiled from the 2004, 2006 and 2009 reports.  (Warning: The PC(USA) has said they will roll out a new web site at the GA next week and I don’t know how many of these links will break.)  More complete statistics covering a greater time period can be found with the full Comparative Statistics but the 2009 report will not be available until the Fall and certain numbers don’t correspond between the two reports so I have limited myself to the summaries.  My compilation and calculations are available from a sheet on Google Docs .

The first number everyone looks at is the total membership of the PC(USA).  That has declined from 2,140,165 in 2008 to 2,077,138 in 2009, a loss of 63,027 members or 2.9%.  On a percentage basis, this is on the high side, only a bit lower than the 3.14% decline seen last year and well above the smallest decline of 1.68% in 2002.  Looking at the gains in membership over the last eight years, the number of youth under 18 has been a very steady percentage of the total at about 20%.  Interestingly, the number joining by certificate has declined from 31% in 2001 to 26% in 2009.  Most of this is offset by the “other” and adult profession of faith categories.

Looking at the losses, it is fairly impressive how steady each of those categories is on a percentage basis over the last eight years – by certificate 17-18% of the loss, transfer to the Church Triumphant (death) 20-21% of the loss, and the remainder, about 62%, in the “other” category which means they resigned their membership without transfer or stopped coming and were dropped from the rolls.

Considering the congregations, on a percentage basis the decline this past year marks a new high with the net loss of 94 churches translating into a 0.87% decline.  However, as you would expect, with the rate of decline of churches being less than one third the rate of decline of membership, the ratio of members per church has steadily dropped from 224/church in 2001 to 195 in 2009.  Another new high was the number of churches dissolved at 88, the previous high being 71 in 2007.

One of the numbers to keep in mind is the number of churches dismissed, 15 this year down from last year’s high of 25.  The conventional wisdom is that these churches are going to the Evangelical Presbyterian Church and in fact their Stated Clerk’s report lists 22 churches received from the PC(USA).  This is not an exact comparison since the clerk’s report is for the year since the last GA and the statistical report is for calendar year 2009.  Of those 22 congregations, the EPC report lists two new mission churches, or church plants, that were “constituted” in 2009 and “came from the PCUSA [sic]” not being “received.”  These churches probably fall into the category of dissolved on the PC(USA) books.  It would be nice to know how many of the dissolved churches were due to the presbytery closing down the church for low membership numbers, and how many were churches that ceased to be viable after a group left en mass to realign between branches without being formally dismissed by the presbytery.  I think the churches dissolved category has some more stories to tell.

We now come to one of my favorite, and maybe most enigmatic, categories, the Ministers.  First let me say that I wish we had a breakdown here between active and honorably retired ministers.  I do realize that the some honorably retired ministers are serving churches.  That breakdown will be contained in the full comparative statistics in the Fall.  Overall, the number of ministers continued the downward trend begun last year — in 2008 the church had a net loss of 82 ministers and in 2009 the net loss was 51.  But with 21,235 ministers at the end of 2009 that decline represents a small one-quarter of one percent.  The PC(USA) has just about two ministers for every church.  The numbers have gone from 1.90 ministers/church and 118 members/minister in 2001 to 1.99 ministers/church and 98 members/minister in 2009.  Lest you think this will change any time soon, the number of candidates for ministry has increased substantially from 892 in 2001 to 1182 in 2009.  That is now more than one candidate for every ten churches in the denomination.  For reference, there were only 351 ordinations in 2009, about one-third of the number of candidates.  Is it a paradox that the PC(USA) is good at developing and retaining pastoral leadership but has been loosing members for years?  (For reference, the 2008 full report listed 13,462 activeministers of which 8457 were in parish ministry.  That means that in 2008 there was less than one parish clergy per church, and that includes the associate ministers, and slightly more than one-third of the active ministers were doing something else.)

Finally, the giving.  For the first time both the total contributions and the per member contributions declined in 2009.  Total contributions were down $37 million or 3.4% while on a per member basis giving declined slightly by $4.42 to $1011.35, which is 0.4%.

Having crunched the numbers let me comment briefly on two comments the Rev. Gradye Parsons, Stated Clerk of the PC(USA) General Assembly, is quoted as making in the OGA statement.  The first is his encouragement at the increase in the number of adult baptisms in 2009.  This is clearly a cause for celebration and I in no way want to negate the importance of this number climbing from 6296 in 2008 to 6820 in 2009.  But allow me to put this in perspective over the last eight years.  Back in 2001 and 2002 there were reported 3.9 adult baptisms per 1000 members.  The ratio peaked in 2004 with 4.4 adult baptisms per 1000 members and has generally declined since then.  The ratio of 3.3 adult baptisms per 1000 members for 2009 is an improvement over both 2008 and 2007, but is still below the numbers of 6-8 years ago.

The other point the Rev. Parsons made was “the overall number in membership losses was the lowest it has been inthe last decade.”  Please allow me to go into mathematician mode and point out that this is not necessarily the good news it may appear.  Consider the PC(USA) with a steady decline, let us say 3% annually.  If it begins at some point in time with 2.1 million members this rate of decline means that in the first year it will have a net loss of 63,000 members.  In the next year the starting number is 3% smaller so the net loss is 3% smaller — 61110 members.  Similarly, the next year the net loss is 59,277 members.  In other words, with a constant rate of decline in total membership there will also be a corresponding decrease in the net loss of members when considering the actual numbers.  Even though you are losing less members on a net basis the rate of decrease remains constant.  Hopefully that makes sense.

So statistically the PC(USA) remains where it has been.  Most numbers continue the trends of the past few years and are in the ranges we have seen most of the last decade.  What this means for the future of the denomination is left as an exercise for the reader… And the GA commissioners next week.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — Candidates For Moderator And… (1) Social Media

As I have been analyzing the nominees standing for Moderator of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I have noticed a number of interesting things.  I’ll do an analysis of their statements and positions in the next post, but in compiling this information I noticed a wide range of approaches to their use of social media in connecting with the church.

Before I begin, let me acknowledge that in addition to the usual search engines, including Facebook search and Twitter search, I have to thank Robert Austell and his GAhelp.net Moderators page as well as the information from the “In their own words” feature published by the Layman.  And for comments on the role of the Moderator and the election of the Moderator you can check out my GA 101 article “The Moderator — All Things In Moderation.”

Before I launch into this let me answer the legitimate question “Why does this matter?”  I would say that it matters because individuals on the national level of the PC(USA) have now bought into the idea that the world has changed and that new technology is the way to go.  After all, the 219th is supposed to be the first paper-free Assembly.  At the 218th GA the election of Bruce Reyes-Chow as the Moderator was supposed to herald a new day and the church was now adopting technology and moving into the 20th 21st Century.  Now I think that we can all agree on two things: 1) Bruce’s use of social media is exceptional and 2) Vice-Moderator Byron Wade did an admirable job trying to keep up with Bruce.  For the record you can follow Bruce on his personal blog, Moderator’s blog, church blog, Facebook , Twitter, and podcast , to name only some of his social media connections.  And in my opinion, Byron has really held his own to Bruce by writing a really excellent blog (think quality not quantity), as well as his Facebook and Twitter presence.

The other thing I am trying to figure out for this analysis is what are typical “Moderator campaign” numbers for social media followers.  At the present time Bruce has 4996 Facebook friends (there is a limit of 5000) and 2688 Twitter followers.  Byron has 1881 Facebook friends and  519 Twitter followers.  But their numbers increased dramatically after they were elected and I don’t know what their stats were during the campaign.  Maybe a good comparison would be the Rev. Bill Teng, who I would judge as the second-most social media savvy nominee for the 218th.  He currently has 531 Facebook friends.  Interestingly, the current nominee I would judge most social media connected in the pool for the 219th GA is Vice-Mod nominee Landon Whitsitt who has 596 Facebook friends and 184 Twitter followers.  So about the 500-600 range for a well-connected nominee before election? What about the rest of this year’s pool…

Web page
This is technically old-school Web 1.0 and even Bruce has not had one of these.  These are sites with static web pages that do not include interaction through comments.

Moderator nominee Rev. James Belle/ Vice-Mod nominee Rev. Wonjae Choi – No Moderator specific site I could find.

Moderator nominee Elder Cynthia Bolbach/ Vice-Mod nominee Rev. Landon Whitsitt – No Moderator specific site I could find.

Moderator nominee Rev. Jin S. Kim/ Vice-Mod nominee Rev. Matt Johnson – No Moderator specific site I could find.

Moderator nominee Rev. Maggie Lauterer/ Vice-Mod nominee Rev. Theresa Cho – Moderator specific site

Moderator nominee Rev. Julia Leeth/ Vice-Mod nominee Rev. Hector Reynoso – Dynamic (music, scripting) site but no interaction

Moderator nominee Rev. Eric Nielsen/Vice-Mod nominee Rev. Marilyn Gamm – Moderator specific site

Blog/Web 2.0 Site
This is like a traditional web site but new articles are easily posted in sequence, there is interaction through comments and the content can be tracked through a “feed” using RSS or Atom.

Belle/ Choi -No blog I could find.

Bolbach/ Whitsitt – Food for Thought (11 entries, all posts closed for commenting) (Landon also has a personal blog with occasional Mod comments.)

Kim/ Johnson –New Church Rising/GA Moderatorial (The main blog has been active as the church blog since October 2009.  The GA Moderatorial specific section has two posts.)

Lauterer/ Cho – Finding Our Voice (Brand new this week, one post)

Leeth/ Reynoso- None I could find

Nielsen/Gamm -The website has a blog page but it appears to only be used to comment to the Rev. Nielsen.  No postings

Facebook
It appears that most nominees have personal Facebook pages but since they are not Moderator related and have privacy set to keep the general public out I won’t link to them.  Here are the Moderator-related pages I found:

Bolbach/Whitsitt
Lauterer/Cho
Nielson/Gamm

Twitter
Most of the nominees have Twitter accounts.  While Cynthia Bolbach has one listed in the Mod lists, it is private so not Moderator related and not listed here.  Here are the others I know of and their statistics:

   Twitter name Followers  Following Tweets
 Theresa Cho  @theresaecho  73  103  132
 Maggie Lauterer  @maggielauterer  16  13  9
 Julia Leeth  @julia_leeth  10  0  10
 Hector Reynoso  @elvicemoderator  5  16  7
 Landon Whitsitt   @landonw  184  171  7155


Other
I was very impressed that two of the nominees also have items up on YouTube:

Bolbach
Lauterer
Nielsen

That is what I and other web sites know about. If I have missed anything or something new is launched let me know and I’ll update the article.

Analysis and Conclusion
As I look at these statistics I have a hard time seeing any of these candidates stepping up to anywhere near the social media connectedness that Bruce and Byron established right from the start, with the obvious exception of Landon.  For the other candidates the level of connectedness so far gives the impression that they are either just getting their feet wet in this sphere or are not placing a major emphasis upon it.

So the question is, does it matter?  If you are of the opinion that the world has not changed then all this is probably interesting but not important.  Or, with the stereotype of the typical Presbyterian being of the “greatest” or “boomer” generation that does not heavily invest their connectedness in social media, this lower penetration into Web 2.0 may be perfectly reasonable since few of the commissioners, whose votes count, would be influenced.

But I think that this does make a difference at two levels.  The first is that the YADs, now YAADs, have traditionally predicted the outcome of the Moderator election on their first advisory vote.  One has to ask if their enthusiasm for a nominee has a conscious or unconscious influence on the commissioners in their voting.  If so, connecting with the YAADs in their native media would be helpful to a nominee.

The second place that I think it makes a difference is connecting with the larger church.  While I don’t know for certain, I have to think that a Moderator nominee who shows they can connect with the younger members, and potential members, of the denomination would be viewed favorably by commissioners when they make their decisions, especially if they are thinking about the graying of the church.  But the other half of the battle is for the successful nominee to actually be connected after they are elected.

As I look through all these media statistics I have trouble seeing any of the Moderator nominees with a strong social media presence or potential.  Conventional wisdom is that a Vice-Moderator choice has little, if any, affect on the Moderator voting so I don’t know if Landon’s strong on-line presence would be any substantial support to Cynthia Bolbach.  But looking through this data that is the only real strength I see at the moment.

Finally, this post is not intended to pressure any of the nominees into redesigning their campaigns to have a more substantial Web 2.0 component.  On the one hand I think it is a little too late for that and on the other I think what is more dangerous than not having a social media connection is one that is forced and unauthentic.  Web 2.0 is, after all, about being yourself and being transparent, right?  My advice is to be yourself, but try to have your on-line presence reflect who you are.

With 17 days left before the election I would not expect a change in presentation now to make a difference in the Moderator election.  So maybe this is more an argument for the successful nominee to figure out how to integrate more social media into their time as Moderator.  Do we expect a repeat of Bruce and Byron’s presence — probably not.  But by the same token we would expect the Moderatorial term to reflect that the world has changed, at least if we believe that it has.  Stay tuned to see how they do.

The 2010 Assemblies Discussing Central Points Of Presbyterian And Reformed Thought

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This past weekend the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland held a special session to celebrate and remember the 450th anniversary of the Reformation in Scotland that produced the Presbyterian church.  (You can watch the two hour long session on the Church of Scotland web site.)  And for those who keep track, this past Thursday (when I started writing this) marked the 446th anniversary of John Calvin’s death.  It seems to me the various Assemblies this year in their business have more ties to Calvin and Knox than happens in most years.

As I think back on the Church of Scotland Assembly I’m sure that for many of us who followed the meeting there was an interesting sense of paradox (or irony or outright contradiction even) having to do with the fact that on the one hand the Assembly endorsed the Third Article Declaratory defining the Kirk as a territorial church with a mission to the whole of Scotland, while on the other hand cutting ministerial staffing 10%.  I probably can not state it any better than Davidkhr who says in his blog post about the Assembly:

It’s all very well making potentially visionary statements looking at alternative forms of ministry, but the education process within the membership will be impossible. Let’s face it, and the Committee/commission didn’t, the vast majority of ordinary members expect a form of ministry that may have happened 40 years ago, and the only ‘visit’ from the church that is valid is the dog collar. That is plainly ridiculous in today’s situation. Parishes will get bigger, more vacancies are planned for, more churches needing covered with interim ministries, it’s a recipe for meltdown….

Or have I missed something in all this ?

And this in a Presbyterian branch which has been proactive about considering the church of the future with their Church Without Walls initiative and the various Commissions and Panels on restructuring the church.

I’ll return to this in a moment, but as I consider the Assembly meetings now adjourned and those yet to convene it strikes me that more than most years there will be a lot of discussion, more than usual, around the application and relevance of several points which many of us consider central to what it means to be Reformed and Presbyterian.  Some of these are…

Worship
We are all familiar with the “worship wars” but the echoes this year seem to be very much concerned with the original Reformed understanding of divine worship and the inspiration and value of the Psalter.  At their Assembly, the commissioners of the Free Church of Scotland agreed to a special Plenary Assembly later in the year to discuss the possibility of permitting flexibility in worship and providing for a congregation to include music other than unaccompanied exclusive psalmody.

But I found it meaningful how much unaccompanied Psalm singing there was at the Church of Scotland Assembly, not just at the special session but throughout the week. A significantly larger amount of the music sung that week was unaccompanied Psalms, more than I remember from previous years.

Teaching and Ruling Elders in Joint Ministry
This gets to the heart of many discussions this year and especially part of the solution of the Third Article and the ministry cuts paradox.  The Special Commission on the Third Article Declaratory in their report made it clear that to accomplish that mission would require new ways of being the church.  And as Davidkhr makes clear above it will fail, meltdown in his language, if there are not new ways.

But that is the beauty of the model of shared ministry that we see in the Presbyterian and Reformed system.  Under no circumstances is leadership for the teaching elder alone.  Authority, responsibility, and accountability lie with both the teaching and ruling elders.  And while there are plenty of service roles for others in the church, in times of reduced staffing there is opportunity and responsibility for the ruling elders to live into their role and help leading the church where there is now need.  Yes, there is need for training regarding some areas, but a great opportunity for ruling elders to be part of the joint leadership the Reformed tradition recovered.

And I would say that many Presbyterian branches would benefit from being intentional about the joint ministry of teaching and ruling elders.  This is not necessarily a budgetary argument but an understanding of call.

But in this regard there are a couple of other points where our GA’s are touching on this joint ministry.  One of these is in the balance of teaching elders and ruling elders standing for Moderator and Vice-Moderator of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  Five of the six Moderator candidates are teaching elders and all four of the announced Vice-Moderator candidates are teaching elders.  Only one in ten, 10%, is a ruling elder.  Now I actually think this says something about how the PC(USA) structures these position and I will rant about discuss that another time, but at a minimum it does implicitly say something about how the church looks at this joint ministry.

Another branch where this joint ministry has been mentioned as lacking is in the Presbyterian Church in America.  Commentators have pointed out that having teaching and ruling elder parity at GA is a problem with more conflicts and less incentive for ruling elders to attend.  This is one of the “back stories” to the Strategic Plan…

Connectionalism
This leads us into one of the areas that is constantly being worked out in Presbyterian branches, and that is our connectionalism — how each governing body is connected to the others.  I have to think that if we were not a fallen and sinful people this would come naturally, or even be unnecessary, but having our sinful nature it does not come as easily for us to determine what of our authority, power and treasure we are to reserve for one governing body and what portion is properly exercised by higher or lower bodies.  Just as we believe that our human nature is such that authority should not be concentrated in one individual but rather in a body, we also believe authority should not be concentrated in one governing body but shared (not necessarily equally) across higher and lower governing bodies with review and appeal between them.  (And this is just the polity argument and not the role of connectionalism as representative of the Church as the Body of Christ.)

Having said this, the connectional level of Presbyterian polity is one of the most sensitive issues in several branches right now and for the PCA Strategic Plan the several ways that it proposes to improve connectionalism may be the most controversial and contentious points.  One thing the report considers is how the Administrative and Assembly functions of the denomination should be supported and how to assess churches for the financial support of these areas.  There are numerous analyses and a counter proposal being circulated so at the Assembly we will have a significant discussion on the specific implications of connectionalism.

At the upcoming Assembly of the PC(USA) a different situation will be on the floor.  The PCA Strategic Report begins with the position that growth has slowed and started to reverse and asks the question “What do we need to do to start growing again?”  The PC(USA) discussion begins with the fact that the current structure was designed for a church roughly one million members larger and asks the question “How do we need to structure ourselves for our smaller size?”  There are proposals for specific tweaks, like abolishing synods, to requests for creating a committee or commission to study the role of higher governing bodies and suggest, and in the case of the commission implement, changes to the presbytery and synod structure of the denomination.

As a parallel proposal, there is also a PC(USA) overture for a “New Synod,” and flexible presbyteries, that would allow connectionalism along the lines of theological affinity.  But the PC(USA) is not alone here because the Evangelical Presbyterian Church also has a proposal before it for presbyteries to have, in my words, “fuzzy boundaries,” to allow for congregations to align themselves in presbyteries that have a similar stance but on one very specific issue, the ordination of women as teaching elders.

And finally, the Church of Scotland, in several reports including the Panel on Review and Reform, is looking at devolving responsibilities from the General Assembly level to the presbytery level.  We will see more of these specifics as the year unfolds and they are discussed and implemented.

Confessions
I would be remiss if I did not mention one more traditional item and that is our confessional nature as Presbyterians.  The PC(USA) GA will be discussing a recommendation to add the Belhar Confession as a confessional standard.  I will leave it at that for now as I am working on a much more extensive post on the PC(USA) and its confessions.

So that is what I am seeing.  In my memory I can’t remember so many Presbyterian branches dealing with so many of the characteristics that we of the Presbyterian and Reformed tradition consider core to our doctrinal framework.  So hold on — it looks to be an interesting summer.

Ecclesia reformata, semper reformanda secundum verbum Dei

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — Sixth Candidate For Moderator And Other Details

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Having hit a short break between Assemblies, the GA of the Church of Scotland finishing this morning (my time) and the Presbyterian Church in Canada scheduled to convene in just over a week’s time, I need to get caught up on some recent developments in the PC(USA).  The first is the announcement of a sixth candidate for Moderator of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).

The Presbytery of Santa Barbara has issued a call for a special presbytery meeting on June 9 to act on the endorsement of the Rev. Julia Leeth, pastor of the First Presbyterian Church of Lompoc, to stand for Moderator of the General Assembly.  In the letter accompanying the notice Rev. Leeth writes:

I feel called to be the Moderator of the 219th Assembly because I love His Church. I feel comfortable and have some experience moderating meetings that are both pleasant and challenging.  I have skills that lend themselves to moderating a meeting that may be at time [sic] pleasant and at others challenging.  I want to be a good steward of my gifts and this is a very tangible way to respond to God’s call.  In the same way that I have tried to foster relationships with every person in our presbytery, including those who may have a different theological perspective than I, I plan to foster relationships at this General Assembly.  In this way, we can all see the wonderful things that God is doing in and through His people across the denomination.

She continues:

Finally, I stand on the Lordship of Jesus Christ.  I hope to proclaim this truth in everything that I do and say and am and am to become.

The Layman has an article on her candidacy published on May 19 that lists the called presbytery meeting for June 1.  The Outlook article of May 20 just talks of a June meeting.  And Robert Austell has added her to his list of Moderator candidates on his GA Help site.  I don’t see an article from the Presbyterian News Service yet, which is interesting because they were quick to jump on the news of the fifth candidate before he was endorsed by his presbytery.

Regarding the Moderator election most of the Moderator candidates have now named their Vice-Moderator designees.  These Vice-Moderator candidates are:

Rev. Landon Whitsitt with Elder Cynthia Bolbach
Rev. Theresa Cho with Rev. Maggie Lauterer
Rev. Marilyn Gamm with Rev. Eric Nielsen
Rev. Hector Reynoso with Rev. Julia Leeth

The General Assembly web site is filling out nicely, including the Moderator Election page with the first five candidates.  Most of the site is basic information for commissioners and the docket is not much more than the planned times for meetings but no listing of which committees will be reporting when.

In addition to GA Help there are a few other GA specific web sites coming on line.  In an individual effort, Bob Davis is putting together material at Presbyblog.  There are also advocacy group web sites tracking GA including Covenant Network,  More Light Presbyterians, Presbyterian Coalition, Presbyterians for Faith Family and Ministry, Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and Presbyterian Voices for Justice.  I’ll add the PC(USA) to my GA Junkie wiki in the near future.  And let me know of resources I’ve missed.

Well enough PC(USA) for now – that GA is still 38 days away.  There is lots more action before then.

The PCA Strategic Plan — How Do You Grow Larger?

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The 38th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America will be considering the new Strategic Plan for the PCA.  The church is putting significant effort into presenting and interpreting the Plan including the main report with the narrative of the Plan, an executive summary dealing mainly with the funding proposals contained in the Plan as well as a slightly longer detailed description of the funding formula, and a concise summary of the changes to the Book of Church Order that would be necessary to implement one part of the Plan.  On the interpretation side, there is a five part video on the Plan web page that I think does a good job explaining the situation and what the Plan includes to address those issues.  There is also an FAQ  and a page of comments about the Plan from “PCA leaders” (a note that all the comments are positive, a fact noted in the file name which contains the word “endorsements”).  The PCA publication byFaith has articles about the committee approving the Plan, reaction to the Plan (again positive) from pastors,  and responses to questions/criticisms that have been raised.  Speaking of criticisms, the PCA blogosphere has been buzzing about the Plan and from what I have read it has generally been doubtful or critical of the plan.  For a collected list of all these responses keep an eye on the blog Johannes Weslianus where Wes White has been keeping track of all this.  He posted his latest list yesterday where it is instructive to note that there are no unofficial positive responses to the Plan but 10 (some in multiple parts) “cautious/skeptical” responses and two “opposed” — But that is the nature of the blogosphere which, interestingly, is something the Plan comments on ( pg. 13 ).  Wes also includes his picks for “Best Concise Summary” of the Plan.

I have made selective general comments about the Plan twice now, but before I launch into my more detailed analysis I think it is important to remind you of the lens that I read the Plan through.  On the one hand I am a ruling elder in a denomination other than the PCA so as I read the report I can miss some of the history, nuances and subtleties that it contains, references, or includes implicitly from the ethos of the denomination.  On the other hand, I am an observer and student of “big picture” Presbyterianism and some of the conclusions I have drawn from the report are similarly big picture and I have not seen them mentioned in the comments on other blogs (although I have fallen behind in my reading so if this is bringing the observation to the party late I apologize).

Let me begin with my two general observations about the Strategic Plan.  The first is that it does a very good job of describing the situation and circumstances that the PCA finds itself in today.  In fact, the point of my first post was that the insight of the report is so good that their observations and isolation of the issues can be applied to not just the PCA but to may of the Presbyterian and Reformed branches at this time.  While I previously highlighted the opening section of Identifying Our Challenges (p. 7) I found the whole section, including the North American and European Challenges, Global Challenges, and Internal Challenges to be comprehensive and useful.  I also found the sections on Identifying Opportunities and Identifying Strengths to be good.  More on some of those specifics in a moment.

The other thing that struck me was that as I read through the report, and especially the recommendations, I kept thinking “that is something a ‘large denomination’ does.”  After thinking that enough times it struck me that what the report seems to be proposing, intentionally or not, are ways for the PCA to make the structural leap from a medium sized denomination to a large denomination.  Let me explain…

There are widely recognized and described styles of congregations based upon their size — one of the most widely used, the Rothauge system, has Family, Pastoral, Program, and Corporate churches from smallest to largest in size.  While the styles and boundaries between them are not hard and fast (I would say that my own congregation well into the Program size still has strong characteristics of the Pastoral style) it is a useful general scheme for understanding congregational dynamics.  A similar system could probably be developed based on denomination size although I am not aware of one.  And while the congregation size system has some variability, I would expect the denomination system to be even more variable depending on where a particular church falls in the congregational-hierarchical polity spectrum.  But having said that, the PCA is one of a few Presbyterian branches in the vicinity of 300,000 members and I have suspected that for Presbyterian branches there may be a transition point there.  One indication of this may be the slowing growth the PCA has seen recently (although there are numerous other possible explanations as well).

Why is there a transition point?  As the Report itself identifies (p. 13) “Our organizational cohesion has not primarily been achieved by shared mission goals, ministry practice, organizational support, worship style, ethnicity, political perspectives or economic status – but by doctrinal agreement.”  To go forward the Report describes the evolution of the denomination in this way:

Our values are well identified in the “motto” of the PCA: Faithful to Scripture, True to the Reformed Faith, and Obedient to the Great Commission.

The phrases of this motto also provide insight into the missional development of the PCA. It is fair to say that commitment to the inerrancy of Scripture was the driving force of our founding and that the churches who initially came into the PCA immediately united in this value. Determining what it meant to be true to the Reformed faith was not as unifying, and created significant debates among us for the next 30 years. These debates both clouded understanding of our mission and inhibited cooperative participation in it. While progress has been made in defining how we will hold each other accountable for being true to the Reformed faith, relational tensions wax and wane around this issue. Thus, the next stage of PCA development likely relates to the last phrase of our motto. How we do mission together, and whether we can do mission together, is the key to our future. If we are able to unite in missional purpose, we have much to contribute to the future of the Kingdom; if we cannot, then our future is likely incessant, inward-focused pettiness.

To put it into general terms – when small a branch can be held together by a strong common tie, probably historical or doctrinal, but as it grows the increase in size creates enough diversity that at a certain point a “critical mass” is reached where well-intentioned and sincerely held doctrinal differences threaten the cohesion of the group and unity needs to be found in something other than shared history or doctrinal conformity.  At least that is my perspective on denominational size and where I see the PCA as I read this report.

So as I read through the report I saw several items that I would identify with a “large denomination.”  These proposals include advisory delegates, representation/quotas/places at the table, pro rated and progressive assessments for Administrative work, and “safe places” to talk.  And when I say “large denomination” I’m sure that many in the PCA would rightly think PC(USA) , but I would also include the few other large Reformed branches, like the RCA and the Church of Scotland as well.  Therefore, to emphasize the generality of my argument I use the generic label rather than a specific denomination.

Now, let me also say that in a general sense the proposals for growth are in and of themselves neutral.  It will be how they are implemented and used that determines their usefulness and missional applicability and validity.

One final comment about the report in general:  As I read it I had to agree with many of the other commentators that when it got to the actual plan portion it got very specific and business-like and it was tough to tell that this had anything to do with a church.  Taking from one of Wes White’s Best Concise Summaries, David A. Booth says this:

Addressing specific details in the PCA’s proposed strategic plan that one Elder or another objects to still leaves the denomination approaching Christ’s Church like a non-profit organization that simply needs to be managed better. This is not to imply that the men involved in crafting the PCA’s proposed strategic plan have anything other than good motives. Furthermore, some of the problems that the report is wrestling with are very real problems for the PCA. What should be called into question is the very idea of grand strategic planning within the Church of Jesus Christ. We cannot manage-in the Kingdom of God.

There is a tension in how we use human means to organize ourselves to do God’s work.

As something of a counter argument I would recommend watching the five part video posted on the web page.  It not only adds substantial and much-needed theological depth that the printed report itself lacks, but provides an interesting commentary on the challenges the church in general faces and the changes in society.  Even non-PCA members might find the first three segments of this presentation interesting where the general challenges are discussed.  (It is about the first 30 minutes of this 49 minute presentation.)

Having now expended a substantial number of words on my general observations I will only briefly touch on just a few of the specifics of the report.

In the report it talks about “animating values” (what gets us interested) and “formal values” (stated standards of the church).  There is a list of 27 animating values of local churches (p. 5) and I did not see where those came from and whether there was a particular order to them.  I must admit that if ordered I would have “Right administration of the Sacraments” and “Good Bible preaching” higher than their respective 8 and 10 on the published list.  I was also a little surprised for a Reformed branch to include “Revival thru viral repentance and faith” in the list but maybe I’m not interpreting that correctly. (Or maybe I’m too T.R. for my own good.)

There is a great list on page 6 related to the animating values of groups that I think does an good job of classifying the various identities within the PCA and how they are viewed by others.  One thought that crossed my mind as I read the report, and that seems to be a sub-text in some of the discussions in the PCA, is how the churches from the former RPCES are, or are not, part of this group identity?  While “Southern Presbyterianism” seems to be a factor in places in the report, the RPCES heritage is not.

Another great list is that of Internal Challenges (p. 12-14) which, as I noted above, transcends the PCA.  I was particularly interested to see item 6 on the list:

6. Pervasive Disregard for Eph. 4:15 and Matthew 18 in Discussions of Differences
Our organizational cohesion has not primarily been achieved by shared mission goals, ministry practice, organizational support, worship style, ethnicity, political perspectives or economic status – but by doctrinal agreement. The downside of so valuing doctrine is that we have little tolerance within or without the church for theological variance. Our tendency is not simply to consider those who differ with us wrong – but to consider them bad (because they are obviously “compromisers” or “unbiblical”). It is easy for us to give moral status to our theological perspective – even on secondary issues, and thus rationalize uncharitable characterizations of those who differ (esp. on blogs)

I think this is an issue that has not been vocalized enough but will have to be in the future as more of our interaction goes into the virtual world.  A topic for another time and nice to see listed, but we must be careful not to uniformly demonize the web.

On that same list item 18 had me scratching my head a little bit: “Lack of Desire among Young Leaders to Assume Positions with PCA’s Most Significant Pulpits and Organizations (perception that they are moribund and dangerous for families)”  If read at face value this is interesting because the “clergy crunch” currently is typically described as small rural churches, not flagship or tall steeple.  But maybe with my lack of connection to the PCA I am missing something here.

Let me move on to the specific recommendations.

Theme 1. Safe Places – This would provide open forums for expressing any opinions regarding the selected topic at GA meetings and encourage similar forums in a presbytery context.  The goal is to provide a safe, non-judgmental environment for bringing up differing viewpoints on Biblical Belief, Ministry and Mission.

Theme 2. More Seats – These recommendations relate to getting representatives at the table from currently unrepresented groups: younger generation, women, ethnic leaders, global church representatives.  Some of this involves participation on committees, in forums, and mentoring.  This theme also includes identifying, credentialling, and encouraging non-ordained vocational ministries.

Theme 3. Global Mission – This is more of a mixed bag and more controversial.

Means 1 – I would describe this as being more intentional about working in Gospel outreach outside the PCA.

Means 2 – “Develop a unifying funding means” – This is the revision of the funding model for the Administrative Committee and the only part of the report that requires a change to the Book of Church Order.  For the details here see the Rules Changes document, but the change to BCO 14-1 would empower the GA to collect the mandatory assessment, and the change to 14-2 specifies that TE and RE commissioners to the Assembly are only in good standing if their congregations have paid the fees.  Otherwise they have voice but not vote.  The last action would change the Rules of Assembly Operations 14-11 to describe the fee, proposed to be capped at 0.4% “of local church Tithes and Offerings.”

Means 3 – To develop a method to evaluate GA level ministry to support only those “critical to our calling.”

Means 4 – “Partner with national & international ministries with whom we can most effectively participate in God’s global mission.”  This would have the church be selective in who they partner with and withdraw from organizations with whom they do not share “ministry priorities,” and NAPARC is mentioned by name to withdraw from.  In other words, put resources of gifts and talents towards ministry and not doctrine.

Well, that is a summary of the document.  There is plenty of reading there for you as well as in all the various responses. At great risk of being too selective I am going to highlight one particular response that seems to have gotten referenced around the blogosphere as much as any of them have…

On the Aquila Report William M. Schweitzer has a commentary titled “Thoughts on the PCA Strategic Plan: Is It Presbyterian?”  In this article he highlights three areas where the Strategic Plan would compromise ecclesiastical standards as Presbyterians understand them.  First, the provisions for future planning and implementation decision making shifts power from the presbyteries to the Cooperative Ministries Committee.  Second, the use of non-ordained vocational ministries would circumvent the process of call, exploration, and response understood in our process of certification and ordination and derived from the Pastoral Epistles.  And finally, the idea of more “seats at the table” compromises the role of “biblically qualified and ordained elders” and shifts power from elders to advisory delegates.

Well, as I said, the on-line response has been very concerned to negative but what will ultimately matter is the discernment of the body through the debate and vote on the floor of the Assembly.  Is the question whether the PCA has reached a point in their size where structural changes are needed to grow?  Or does the church go back to “being the church” and concentrate on spreading the Gospel. (Which is one of the theme of the Plan.)  There are well known names on both sides of this issue at the moment and it will be interesting to hear from the broad range of commissioners as they discuss this.  I’m sure there are a lot more viewpoints out there that have not been expressed yet.  Stay tuned.

The 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) — Fifth Candidate For Moderator

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When I posted yesterday on the third and fourth nominees standing for the Moderator of the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) I thought that I would be waiting a couple more weeks to present the fifth candidate until his presbytery endorsed him.  But I changed my mind when I considered that 1) starting next Monday I want to devote as much time as possible to following the Assembly meetings that will be in progress and 2) a Presbytery endorsement this late brings up some interesting timing issues in the Standing Rules.

Let me briefly point out the timing described in Chapter H of the Standing Rules of the General Assembly.  First, section H.1.b.(1) gives a far limit for endorsing a Moderator candidate and that is not before the previous Assembly adjourns.  But note that there is no minimum time before the Assembly that a nominee must be announced and endorsed.  The implication is that at the time of the election of the Moderator at the Assembly a new name of a commissioner may be brought from the floor.

But there is a big advantage to being endorsed ahead of time and that is your inclusion in the document produced by the Office of the Stated Clerk described in section H.1.b.(3)(e).  This has specific deadlines for inclusion including submission of all materials not less than 45 days before the Assembly convenes and the Office of the Stated Clerk publishing the final “booklet” electronically 15 days before the Assembly.  It should also be pointed out that under section H.1.b.(2) “ordinarily” each Moderator nominee needs to submit the name of the commissioner they will put forward to be confirmed as their Vice-Moderator 45 days before the Assembly.  (But how does that work if they are nominated from the floor? I guess that gets by in the “ordinarily.”)

So what does that mean this year?  If I did the math correctly next Thursday, May 19, is the 45 day deadline for materials and Vice-moderator names.  The packets will be available no later than Friday June 18.  So, with this in mind consider the fifth nominee for Moderator of the 219th General Assembly…

The Rev. James A. Belle has been nominated to stand for election as Moderator with the anticipation he will be endorsed by the Presbytery of Philadelphia at their next stated meeting on May 25.  According to the Presbyterian News Service story, since 2005 he has been the pastor of Holy Trinity-Bethlehem Presbyterian Church.  The announcement is brand new and I have found no formal announcement, web presence, or social media site so there is not a lot more information.  I will update here when I find those.  There is an article from The Layman with a bit of research they have done.

The PNS article provides a bit of background telling us that Rev. Belle is a second career minister having his first degree in music and employment in the army for 10 years using his musical talents.  Training for his second career for the church included not only an M.Div. from Johnson C. Smith Theological Seminary but a master of church music from there as well.

He does make a statement quoted in the PNS article (and probably drawn from his Q&A for the info booklet) that – inserting my bias here – resonates with me:

“I see biblical and confessional ‘illiteracy’ as the major obstacles facing our church today,” Belle wrote in a statement on key theological issues. “I hold ministers of the Word and Sacrament directly responsible within the last 20 years for the lack of confessional and polity training to and for our laity. Without an understanding of the Scriptures and their historic linkage to the confessions, the Book of Confessions is difficult to understand.”

Based on that, I look forward to reading more.  And if the Assembly elects him as their Moderator, and if the Belhar Confession is sent to the presbyteries, with his expressed passion for the confessions it will be interesting to hear him interpret the Assembly’s actions.