The 84th General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church will convene today, Wednesday, 31 May, in just a couple hours at Trinity Christian College, Palos Heights, Illinois. The meeting will conclude no later than noon next Tuesday, 6 June.

This GA does not have live streaming but we usually have the next best thing: There is a tradition of very well done running daily reports for the OPC GA and expecting the tradition to continue watch this page when the assembly gets under way.

The agenda and reports are not posted on-line but you can access the Book of Church Order and the Standing Rules and Instruments of GA if you need background material. There is also a collection of reports from previous GA’s and it is possible that last year’s report on Republication might be the topic of some additional discussion this year.

The OPC has elected to keep a perpetual hashtag for their meeting (no sticking a year or GA number in there) so it should once again be #OPCGA. In terms of who to follow let me list the usual suspects and update once things get rolling.  The list would include Ryan Cook (@ryanlawdawg), “Toad” (@oldprinceton), and Rachel Stevenson (@whatshewrote). It is probably worth keeping an eye on D. G. Hart’s feed (@oldlife), maybe The Daily Genevan (@TheDailyGenevan) will have more, and @chortlesweakly has been commenting in the lead-up to the meeting. Will also include one of their denominational associations, NAPARC.

Since reports and detailed agendas are not available to anyone but the commissioners, it is difficult to highlight any particular business items that will be coming to the Assembly in advance of it being considered on the floor. I would simply pass along the blog post from Rev. Todd Smith at Faith Bible OPC, Brick, NJ, who mentions two items for his congregation to pray about. The first is a number of judicial cases and appeals that the Assembly will have to render judgement upon this week. As that is done in closed session we can expect to hear almost nothing further on that. The second is a concern for a denomination that they are in fraternal relations with which is considering changes to their ordination standards to include the ordination of women. I suspect we will hear more of that as the week progresses.

So prayers for the teaching and ruling elders of the OPC as they spend a week reflecting on what the Spirit is doing in their branch and their discernment of the future. May you indeed discern God’s will in your decision making.