In this unique year of General Assembly and Synod meetings, there are a small handful of branches that will be meeting by video conference to consider a limited number of items of business that are considered essential, urgent, or time-critical.

One of those meetings is the 2020 General Assembly of the Free Church of Scotland which will meet tomorrow evening, Monday 18 May, at 6 pm Edinburgh time. The Assembly will consider a limited docket of business and intends to suspend the meeting with hopes to resume the meeting in October for a more traditional in-person meeting.

In light of the unique circumstances and limited business at this meeting, the Moderator-Designate Rev Neil MacMillan will not be installed. As the news article says “it is expected that a delay on the new appointment will be put in place until a formal service appointment can be conducted.” It is recommended to the Assembly that the 2019 Moderator, Rev. Donnie G. Macdonald, will continue as the 2020 Moderator to run the meetings this year and that Mr MacMillan’s appointment be deferred to the 2021 General Assembly.

The meeting will be live-streamed. The 2020 General Assembly Reports volume is available as well.

There are five reports which contain business considered “urgent and time-critical.”

• Assembly Business Committee – approving the arrangements, the programme (agenda), and the handling of documents related to the meeting.
• The Assembly Clerk’s Office – proposing nominations, alternate arrangements for required annual general meetings of certain groups within the church, and approving “Arrangements for Exceptional Circumstances” to help the various bodies within the church as a whole operate during these exceptional times.
• Edinburgh Theological Seminary – In addition to the usual thanks to all those involved with the operation of the Seminary there are items to act upon to resolve inconsistencies within the ETS governing documents.
• Mission Board – two actions, one to change the pastoral staffing arrangement at a church and an action to change the status of a church plant to “a fully sanctioned charge.”
• Board of Ministry – Seven varied actions including thanks to the Board, noting with sadness the death of a former Clerk to the Board, an appointment to the Board, and asking the church to continue to pray for God to raise up more Gospel workers. There is also an item to note the ongoing review of the Board and action to make changes to the composition of the Board.
• There will be a private session related to the Board of Ministry as a minister wishing to transfer to the Free Church is introduced and examined. As there is confidential information involved those documents are not distributed in the reports and will be read by the chair of the Board in the private session.

It will be interesting to see how this meeting goes, both in terms of limited business and technology. If there is Twitter activity we can expect to see tweets from the official church account @freechurchscot. The customary hashtag would be #fcga20 although the hashtag #fcos is typically in use as well.

We keep this Assembly in our prayers and look forward to joining you tomorrow evening. May your deliberations be guided by the Holy Spirit and the time productive for the advancement of The Kingdom. Best wishes to all.