Coming up this Wednesday, June 22, the 31st General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church will convene in Cordova, Tennessee.  Here is the rundown of what I know about the meeting…

The GA will meet from June 22 to 25 at Hope Presbyterian Church in Cordova, on the eastern edge of the Memphis metropolitan area. The theme for the meeting is “Transformation,” taken from II Cor. 3:18.

The materials for the meeting can be found on the EPC GA web page, including the Overview of the Assembly Schedule (and an earlier version), the Workshop Schedule, and the Children and Youth Program Schedule.

Business reports for the Assembly can also be found on the GA web page, at the bottom. In the group of reports most are from permanent committees but there are two from Interim Committees, one on Constitutional Revisions and another on Presbytery Boundaries.  More on both of those in a moment.

And if you are looking for background material you can check out the Book of Order and the EPC Position Papers.

There is also a preview of GA in the latest edition of the EPC’s official online newsletter EPnews. That would also be the place to look for official updates, and maybe on the Press Release page. (And my thanks to the communication staff for the email copy of the press release they sent me.) In addition, Hope Presbyterian Church has their own GA web page with a welcome and links to information about the facility and the warning that it is easy to get turned around or get confused where you parked your car.

There is a preliminary Twitter presence with the EPC’s official Twitter feed @EPChurch and the hashtag is #31ga (and not #epcga). In addition, the Director of Communications and IS will let the Assembly know on Thursday which presbytery has the most tweeting churches.

As I mentioned above, the theme of the Assembly is Transformation and the highlight of the first day on Wednesday will be a workshop titled “Transformational Church… A Day With Ed Stetzer.” (He can be found on twitter at @edstetzer.) He is the Vice-president of Research and Ministry Development at LifeWay Christian Resources, an agency of the Southern Baptist Convention. The workshop appears to be based on his latest book, Transformational Church, and he is a noted author and speaker on missional thinking. This fits in with the EPC’s recent Missional Church Primer.

Moving on to business, let me highlight the two Interim Committee reports since they are a good reflection of where this Presbyterian branch finds itself at the present time.

The Interim Committee on Constitutional Revisions is in the process of doing what some other Presbyterian branches are doing right now — revising their constitutional documents.  The committee has been working hard since they were created by the 29th General Assembly and their report indicates that their goal is to complete a new Book of Government section by early September and distribute it for internal review.  They then plan to have the final revision completed for the 32nd GA next year. For the benefit of those of us who might not remember their guiding principles they have included them again in this year’s report:

1. “No bloating”: we will continually ask, “Does this belong in the Constitution or should it go elsewhere in a supporting document?”

2. Language and stylistic elements are to be governed by the “KISS” principle: seek straightforward language as much as possible for clarity, readability.

3. Standardize nomenclature: identify significant titles, terms uniformly and avoid synonymous descriptions.

4. Keep in mind, Jesus’ commands are not burdensome: maintain a clear delineation between the authority delegated to each level of our governance and the responsibilities incumbent upon officers, members as part of Christ’s Body.

5. Allow the Westminster Confession of Faith and its fundamental principles to guide our work.

6. Recognize and preserve those rights reserved in perpetuity by our standards.

7. Scripture is our law; the Westminster Confession is our interpretation of Scripture; the Book of Order is our application of both.

For this year they provide only a progress report with no items for action by the Assembly.

The second Interim Committee is on Presbytery Boundaries. This committee was created last year by the 30th Assembly and their report does a good job summarizing the dynamics of the EPC at the present time and the need for their work:

• Identifying immediate boundary issues, particularly those arising from progressive dynamics within existing presbyteries.

• Assessing the impact of a large number of churches having joined the EPC in the last 12-18 months and anticipating the impact of a large number of congregations joining in the coming 12-24 months. This assessment and anticipation also included the dynamics resulting from the expiration of the transitional presbyteries at the conclusion of the 32nd General Assembly in one year.

• Communicating proposed and potential boundary changes to those congregations
affected and incorporating responses into present and possible recommendations
to the General Assembly.

• Reviewing and revising the criteria for a viable presbytery.

This is a very nice succinct summary of the situation, but at the risk of being repetitive for some readers and using two words when one will do, let me unpack a couple of these statements and the “presby speak” in them.

In the first bullet point
about identifying boundary issues they are particularly concerned about issues around “progressive dynamics” within presbyteries — Remember that the ordination of women is decided by the ordaining body and with the substantial changes within some presbyteries due to forces listed in the next bullet point there are some developing differences over this issue.  The question is whether differences in scriptural understanding can be remedied by adjusting boundaries to aggregate like-minded presbyters and churches.  [Any application of this approach to one or more mainline branches and their new latitude in ordination standards is left as an exercise for the reader.]

Speaking of these changes, the second point about assessing the impact addresses this issue.  This is not about ordination standards but about sheer numbers of churches. There are many churches “in process” now.  If you look at the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery report you find their tabulation of these numbers:

• 29 congregations and their pastors who are in the NWEPC Transitional Presbytery. The Joint Commission is working with these congregations and pastors to assist them in being received into a EPC Geographic Presbytery prior to the 32nd GA.
• 8 congregations and their pastors who have “become one” with their geographical EPC Presbytery while still maintaining relationship with the Transitional Presbytery.
• 8 congregations and their pastors have “become one’ with their geographical EPC Presbytery and no longer have any relationship with the TP.

For perspective, the EPC About Us page describes the church as having “about 300 churches” so this transitioning group represents almost 15% of the congregations.  And note that this does not include any potential future influx resulting from recent changes in other Presbyterian branches.

Quite a task — I wish them well.  They are proposing two new presbyteries be authorized at this Assembly meeting:  Allegheny Presbytery would be formed from churches in western New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, eastern Ohio and a good chunk of West Virginia, the churches coming from three present presbyteries.  Pacific Presbytery would be created by dividing out the Pacific Coast states and part of Idaho from the Presbytery of the West.

It is worth noting that the report of the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery shows no sign of asking for a continuation of their group but lays out the steps they are taking to fold churches into the geographic presbyteries before, or upon, the presbytery’s dissolution next year.  In addition, they recommend changes to the Book of Order that would facilitate a transitional status for congregations and teaching elders into geographic presbyteries when extenuating circumstances would favor a transitional status of up to 12 months.

Let’s see — revising the Government section, questions about the form and size of presbyteries, implications of ordination standards, what does it mean to be missional?  Some of this sounds familiar and not just regarding one particular mainline branch in the Americas but for some non-mainline branches and for other branches around the globe as well. I venture to say that there is a great deal of theme and variation on these issues circulating at the moment.  So as the EPC approaches these topics I look forward to hearing how they work out their approach to them.  Prayers for their meeting and I will be watching to see how they discern God’s will together.