Next Wednesday, June 23, the 30th General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church will convene in Englewood, Colorado. Plenary business will commence with worship at 8:30 AM on Thursday morning. For those following along at home here is what you need to know:
- General Overview Schedule
- The commissioner handbook page is the central point to look for information including Commission, Interim Committee and Permanent Committee reports. In particular there are also
- Communications and Overtures
- Recommendations (a nice compendium of the recommendations coming from all the various sources)
- Book of Order
- EPNews General Assembly Preview
- The Twitter hashtag will be #30ga and it appears that Dana Cadman (@danacadman), the EPC Communications Director, will be tweeting and possibly posting updates somewhere. I’ll update here as needed
- I have a suspicion certain bloggers will be providing unofficial commentary and will add them here as they post.
Update: As I expected TE David Fischler will be there and blogging over at The Reformed Pastor
Business
One more thing I did not include in the above list is the notice of a commissioner resolution. It appears that this was submitted today by the commissioner(s) from the Presbytery of Mid-America asking to divide the presbytery into two different presbyteries with specified “exchange” of certain churches to align congregations with the ordination standards of each new presbytery. This resolution was submitted because the Stated Clerk ruled that a nearly identical overture, Overture 10-B (p. 8-10), was ruled out of order. The resolution is a parliamentary move to put the question on the floor provided that 2/3 of the commissioners agree with allowing the resolution. (I have my doubts it will get the necessary super-majority.)
While the rational behind the ruling that the Overture is “not properly before the Assembly” is not listed on the web page and I have not found it in a report yet, it is almost certainly because this overture puts the cart before the horse and a presbytery with the ability to bring neighboring congregations into membership is not yet possible. That accommodation is included in the report of the Interim Committee on the Ordination of Women Teaching Elders and until the Assembly acts on their recommendations and it is sent to the presbyteries for concurrence the exchange of congregations can not happen. Yes, sometimes being decently and in order can be slow. But we will see whether the Assembly agrees to consider the commissioner resolution. The recommendations from the Interim Committee include one to have the Moderator appoint a Study Group to make recommendations on presbytery boundaries across the whole denomination.
I have discussed the work of the Interim Committee previously and this will likely be a major point of discussion for the EPC since these provisions will help guide the church into the future as they live into their motto of “In essentials, unity; in non-essentials, liberty; in all things charity.” The commissioners will have an opportunity to discuss the report with the Committee at an information/discussion session on Thursday afternoon.
The two commissions and one other interim committee have submitted reports but there are no action items contained in them. It was interesting to note the report of the Interim Committee on Constitutional Revision which will report at a future Assembly. However, as they set to work they began by establishing the following seven points to guide them:
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 and terms uniformly and avoid synonymous descriptions.
4. Keep in mind, Jesus’ commands is not burdensome: maintain a clear delineation between the authority delegated to each level of our governance and the responsibilities incumbent upon officers and 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.
It will be interesting to see what ultimately comes of their work and how it is received.
The second overture (pg. 7) before the Assembly will be a boundary change to the Presbytery of Florida to now include the Bahamas. This change will allow two churches in the Bahamas that were dismissed by the Church of Scotland last month to join the EPC as a step towards the goal of creating the Presbyterian Church of the Bahamas in the future.
Finally, I would anticipate some discussion by the EPC of the PC(USA) task force report going to their GA which examined the accusation that the EPC was recruiting from the PC(USA) and found that the denomination had not done that. This will only come up in the report of the Fraternal Relations Committee and not as an action item because the Committee has chosen to not respond until the PC(USA) GA has acted upon the task force’s report and recommendations. I’m still digesting the EPC account of the EPC/PC(USA) meeting, details which were absent from the PC(USA) task force report, as well as the Transitional Presbytery Commission report and the membership statistics in the Stated Clerk’s report . I’ll post more on all that next week after I’ve crunched some numbers.
So lots going on at the EPC meeting next week that will have an impact in several different areas of their mission. I am looking forward to the discussion.