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.