The 42nd General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America will convene their plenary sessions tomorrow afternoon, 17 June, in Houston. Committees of Commissioners began meeting today. The Assembly will continue through noon on Friday. The theme of the Assembly is “Proclaim Christ, Disciple the Nations.” The meeting will be live streamed and they have their GA app available for several platforms to follow along. There is also a ShareFile! app there for registered commissioners to download reports and other documents.

While the full volume of reports is available only to commissioners, the docket and overtures are available on line. There is one report available online and that is this year’s part of the Report of the Ad Interim Study Committee On Insider Movements. This is Part Two of Two, with Part One having been presented to the 40th GA two years ago. To track the polity of the PCA you can access the Book of Church Order online.

News updates will be posted through the official news website and online publication byFaith.

Turning to social media, while there is a Facebook page for the PCA, it does not seem to have much build-up to GA. The byFaith Magazine Facebook page is more active.

There are numerous opportunities to follow the meeting on Twitter including the official feed from byFaith (@PCAbyFaith). There is also a feed for the Reasoning_Together (@PCA_Elders) program. The hashtag for the Assembly is #pcaga.

Individuals who will be at the meeting and are, or will probably be tweeting include Fred Greco (@fredgreco), Ligon Duncan (@LigonDuncan), Sean Michael Lucas (@SeanMLucas) and Allan Edwards (@edwardsae1). Or, I have been advised by @PCAPresbyter himself that all you really need to do is follow him. He will certainly enlighten your tracking of PCA GA in his own inimitable way.

A number of important topics are before the Assembly this year probably led by Overture 6, “Child Protection in the PCA.” There are an additional 23 overtures with concurrences, commendations and affirmations of it bringing the total number of overtures this year to an unusually high 52. Earlier today this overture in slightly amended form, was recommended to the full Assembly by a unanimous vote of the Overtures Committee with all related overtures to be answered by action on Overture 6. In addition, the Assembly will be hearing a special presentation on child sexual abuse from Theresa Lynn Sidebotham, attorney and founder of Telios Law PLLC.

Other overtures this year include eight overtures related to process of Standing Judicial Commission decisions and one to “Issue a warning regarding erroneous views of Creation.” There are several overtures related to shifting presbytery boundaries that includes one to expand Korean Southeastern, one to divide Korean Southwest in two and one to establish a provisional presbytery for Paraguay.

One of the most interesting overtures proposes a logo for the PCA. As @PCAPresbyter pointed out in a tweet today Moses and the children of Israel wandered in the desert a shorter period of time than the PCA has been in existence without adopting a logo. I don’t know if they need one or not, but Southeast Alabama Presbytery thinks they do and is proposing the one to the left here.

So that is the line up for the next few days. At the point it convenes there will be four American Presbyterian branches with their Assemblies meeting. Add the EPC on Wednesday and we have five branches meeting.

So our best wishes to the commissioners and leaders of the PCA General Assembly and prayers for your discernment around some difficult issues the next few days. I will be interested to see how these business items are decided.