The 44th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America will convene their plenary sessions tomorrow evening, 21 June, in Mobile, Alabama. Committees of Commissioners begin orientations and meetings today. The Assembly will continue through noon on Friday. The theme of the Assembly is “REFRESHED: In and For the Cross.” 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. [Tech note to the GA organizers – it is again the case this year that you might want to change the title in the GA docket PDF properties so it no longer says “40th General Assembly.”] There is a nice page with links to all the forms and schedules for the meeting. And this may be the first GA for which a Zika Virus Advisory has been issued.

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, you will probably want to keep an eye on the byFaith Magazine Facebook page. 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 however it looks like that has gone dormant. The hashtag for the Assembly (and as I have been told the only one that is decent and in order) is #pcaga.

Other related Twitter accounts include Reformed University Fellowship (@RUFnational) and the Mission to North America (@pcamna). I would also include in this group the denomination’s schools, Covenant College (@CovenantCollege). and Covenant Seminary (@covseminary).

As for individuals to watch – round-up the usual suspects. Some who will be at the meeting and are, or will probably be tweeting include Fred Greco (@fredgreco), Ligon Duncan (@LigonDuncan), Sean Michael Lucas (@SeanMLucas), Melton L. Duncan (@MeltonDuncan), and Jemar Tisby (@JemarTisby) and his Reformed African American Network (@RAANetwork). Having included one organization there I will also mention Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing (@prpbooks) and Reformed Theological Seminary (@ReformTheoSem). (And as a note, there are other Twitter accounts for the different RTS campuses.) Let me also include Allan Edwards (@edwardsae1) who in past years has given us the Bingo Card and the Selfie Scavenger Hunt. This year we are back to the Bingo card, but there are suggestions of a new activity next year. And finally, I have previously been advised by @PCAPresbyter himself that all you really need to do is follow him. He will be sure to keep you decent and in order. 🙂

Regarding business to the Assembly, I will refer you to three articles from byFaith that review some of the important business that caught my eye.

• Probably the most anticipated topic is the race-related overtures. This is a continuation from last year where a personal resolution got caught in polity jail and did not have a chance at a clear up or down vote. It was referred to this Assembly and 42 of the 63 overtures sent to this assembly deal with some aspect of this. By all means, check out the byFaith article to see the rundown of the proposed actions.
• The second is a recommendation from the Administrative Committee to form a Study Committee on the issue of women serving in the ministry. As the review article says, ‘Writing in byFaith magazine’s summer issue, [former moderator Michael] Ross quoted a former GA moderator as saying, “Women in Ministry is the atomic bomb for the PCA,’ meaning that if we do not review and recommend changes in the way we treat women, we will probably lose a large segment of millennials.”
• And in a set of overtures that could be in the shadow of these previous two issues, Pacific Northwest Presbytery has sent six overtures related to how the GA accepts, handles and disposes of business, including review of presbytery records which has often been an issue with Pacific Northwest.

A lot going on there and in the midst of three other GA happening I will try to follow along there.

Our best wishes to the commissioners and leaders of the PCA General Assembly and prayers for your discernment the next few days. May the Spirit guide you in your work.