Category Archives: PCG

General Assembly Season 2014


As the First of May rolls around we mark the start of the 2014 General Assembly Season.

Are you ready for an interesting year of Assemblies?

Here is this year’s line-up as I know it now. I will update as I clarify additional Assembly meetings.

  59th General Assembly
Presbyterian Church in Taiwan

  22-25 April 2014
Tainan

  General Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Tasmania
  13 May 2014 (begins)

  General Assembly
Church of Scotland

17-23 May 2014
Edinburgh

  General Assembly
Free Church of Scotland Continuing
19-22 May, 2014
Edinburgh

  General Assembly
Free Church of Scotland
19-23 May 2014
Edinburgh

  General Assembly
Presbyterian Church of South Australia
26 May 2014 (begins)
North Adelaide, S.A.

  140th General Assembly

Presbyterian Church in Canada
30 May – 2 June 2014
Wilfrid Laurier University
Waterloo, Ontario

  General Assembly
Presbyterian Church in Ireland
 
2-6 June 2014
Belfast

General Assembly
United Free Church of Scotland
  4-6 June 2014
Perth

81st General Assembly

Orthodox Presbyterian Church
4-10 June 2014
Kuyper College
Grand Rapids, Michigan

Synod
Reformed Presbyterian Church of Ireland
9-11 June 2014
Dervock

210th Stated Meeting of the General Synod

Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church

10-12 June 2014
Bonclarken
Flat Rock, North Carolina

221st General Assembly (2014)

Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
14-21 June 2014
Detroit, Michigan
(note this is a biennial Assembly)

139th General Assembly
Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America

15-18 June 2014
Chattanooga, Tennessee

184th General Assembly
Cumberland Presbyterian Church
16-20 June 2014
Chattanooga, Tennessee

42nd General Assembly

Presbyterian Church in America
17-20 June 2014
Houston, Texas

34th General Assembly

Evangelical Presbyterian Church
17-21 June 2014
Knoxville, Tennessee

  General Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Queensland

  30 June – 3 July 2014
Clayfield (Brisbane), QLD

  N.S.W. State Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Australia
in the State of New South Wales

 
30 June 2014 (begins)
Croydon, N.S.W.

  78th General Synod
Bible Presbyterian Church
31 July – 5 August 2014
Olympia, Washington

  National Youth Assembly

Church of Scotland

15-18 August 2014
Stirlingshire
(Technically not a governing
body, but still an Assembly I track)

  14th General Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Ghana

15-21 August 2014
Abetifi Kwahu

  General Synod
ECO: A Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians
18 August 2014
Dallas, Texas

  6th General Assembly
Evangelical Presbyterian Church — Ghana
August 2014
Ho

  General Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Aotearoa New Zealand

  3-7 October 2014
Saint Kentigern College
Auckland

  General Assembly
Presbyterian Church of Victoria
  6 October 2014

  General Assembly
Presbyterian Church in Western Australia
  24 October 2014

These are the ones that I am tracking at the moment.  I will update as
appropriate.  If I have missed one, or have information wrong or incomplete, please provide the appropriate information and I will update the list.

And, to make the GA season complete here are two more items…

The first is the series of articles I wrote as an introduction to Presbyterian General Assemblies six years ago.  My GA 101 series consists of the following

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

Yes, what started as a six part series expanded into seven
completed articles with two more unfinished ones in the queue.  (Maybe
this will give me some motivation to finish those up.)

And finally, on to the ridiculous.  Lest we take ourselves too seriously, a couple years ago I had a little fun with the General Assembly and in the post passed along the GA drinking game and GA Bingo. Please play both responsibly.

So, for all the GA Junkies out there I wish you the best of GA
seasons.  May you enjoy the next few months of watching us do things
decently and in order!

Presbyterian Church of Ghana Moderator encourages new sources of denominational funding

The Myjoyonline web site is reporting that the Rt. Rev. Dr. Yaw Frimpong-Manso, Moderator of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana (PCG), has encouraged additional sources of denominational funding.  From the article it appears that he was speaking in a sermon at a worship service to celebrate the “elevation” of the Samreboi sub-district of the PCG to a full district in the Wassa Amenfi District of the Western Region.

Rev. Frimpong-Manso is quoted as saying:

[T]he church could no longer continue to rely solely on assessment payments for the smooth running of the church.

“As a step in this direction”,he stated: “I humbly appeal to you to find ways and means of raising funds from within and outside your congregation for the development of church infrastructure, evangelism and social services”.

and later the article says

The Moderator said the church needed to improve its financial base so as to move away from the ever dependence on the annual assessment, offering and annual harvests, into finding new ways of funding the church, adding: “We need money and this should come out of viable projects and investments”.

From my PC(USA) perspective I would read the “assessment” as something like per-capita and it sounds like the “offering and annual harvests” are like our special offerings.  However, what the moderator seems to be encouraging is not like our additional congregational gifts to higher governing bodies that we call “mission giving” but other sources like revenue from projects and investing in something.

What is clear, from his list of priorities (the development of church infrastructure, evangelism and social services), is that this is for the expansion of the church and its mission, not just the maintenance of the institution.

I also found it interesting the appeal for necessary transportation:

The Resident Pastor appealed to the Head Office of the church to replace the eight-year-old incapacitated Suzuki motorcycle with a strong vehicle, in order to promote evangelism and social services in the hinterland where the road network was in a mess.