How often should a Presbyterian General Assembly or General Synod meet?  For a couple of centuries now the answer has generally been annually, but in recent times that pattern has been up for discussion.  It is interesting to note that in the list of Moderators of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland on Wikipedia in the early years there are multiple Moderators listed in a given year indicating not just multiple meetings, but multiple Assemblies per year.

The importance of the “how often” question is raised again today as the highlights of the meeting of the Assembly Council of the Presbyterian Church in Canada are released.  The Assembly action on an overture to the 133rd General Assembly (2007) asked the Council to consider biennial Assemblies and the Assembly created a task group to study the issue and consult with the other governing bodies.  The Council considered the report which included the responses to a model for biennial Assemblies that was sent to the church for comment.  In general, the church was narrowly in favor of biennial Assemblies with sessions favoring it 54 to 37, presbyteries opposed 11 to 13, and synods and committees were each 2 to 1 in favor.  But it is most interesting to see the commentary on this voting:

It was noted, for example, that there appeared to be a regional divide where courts in Quebec and the Maritimes were overwhelmingly opposed while support strengthened to west. It was also noted that those courts supporting the notion tended to not include reasons for their support while those opposed offered lengthy explanations for their decision.

The report recommended moving to biennial Assemblies but a motion to move that direction in principle failed in the Council vote.  The report tells us  “A new motion recommending that General Assembly ‘affirm the practice of annual assemblies’ was proposed and approved.”

So while the recommendation in response to this overture has been made, as the comment in the Minutes of the 133rd GA (p. 214) tells us, this matter has been before the church “many times in the past.”  As would be expected, the overture itself (p. 519-520) appeals to the time, effort and finances expended on annual Assemblies and the best use of those resources.

(A side note on a topic that I will be considering further in the future:  It is interesting to see that this matter was sent to the lower governing bodies for an advisory vote.  From what I have seen this is a practice that the PCC seems to do on a fairly regular basis but is much rarer in other Presbyterian branches.  One other place in the PCC history that this formal advisory vote is seen is in the early 20th century as the Presbyterians were considering their place in the Union movement and the presbyteries and sessions were consulted on multiple occasions about uniting with other Christian bodies.  In light of this, I find an overture to this year’s  General Assembly of the PC(USA) to require the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy to send proposed statements out to the presbyteries for “study, discussion, and comment” prior to the report to the General Assembly to be in a very similar spirit.)

There is another overture to a General Assembly to consider biennial Assemblies.  This one is to the 38th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America.  Overture 6, from Evangel Presbytery, asks the Assembly “to direct the Administrative Committee to conduct a study for the feasibility of conducting General Assemblies on a bi-annual basis.”

The Whereases do include the usual argument about the amount of time and financial resources it takes to make the Assemblies happen, but that is not the primary argument in this overture.  The principle argument is that with modern communications the Assembly no longer serves the purpose of getting reports out to the Assembly commissioners to take back to the lower governing bodies.  In that task the Assembly is now irrelevant.  But the overture goes on to say that efficient electronic communications has another impact:

Whereas, denominational issues that once were debated on the floor of GA are now resolved and presented in a refined and reasoned manner causing the floor process to lose much energy and interest with commissioners spending considerable time away from the meeting to visit the exhibitions during the presentations of Committees and Agencies; and

Whereas, in addition to declining interest in the conduct of business, travel and lodging expenses have affected GA and attendance during the last five years has declined annually while the ratio of Teaching Elders in attendance has increased and the number of Ruling Elders has declined;

Interesting rational — On the one hand very true but on the other hand this cuts right to the very essence of Presbyterianism.

Functionally, Presbyterian and Reformed polity is distinctive in two regards — joint rule of teaching elders and ruling elders and connectionalism of governing bodies.  This overture essentially says that modern electronic communication is at least changing, if not eroding, the way that both of these principles operate.  It has moved the governing of the church from face-to-face interaction to virtual interaction, reducing the importance of the meetings for the joint deliberations of elders in decision making and eliminating the need for meetings to facilitate the connectional flow of information.

The overture does request regional meetings in years that the Assembly does not meet that would involve…

…contiguous presbyteries to cooperate on an alternate years to join two or three day meetings that can be conducted in churches and smaller venues where travel and lodging are less expensive. During such regional meetings Committees and Agencies can participate with reports and ministries can present displays if so requested and approved by the Administrative Committee.

It will be interesting to see where this goes and the discussion it begins.

Finally, there are a couple of items related to biennial Assemblies coming to the 219th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).  The first is the fact that when biennial Assemblies were instituted it was specified that after this year’s Assembly meeting there would be a review of this practice.  The Presbytery of Giddings-Lovejoy has sent an overture (Overture 49) that would expand the review of the GA from not just the timing but to include…

…considering the form and function of our General Assembly meetings by expanding the action of the 214th General Assembly (2002)… instructing this study committee to consider the whole of the General Assembly meeting in its form and function.

This review is to include, but is not limited to, matters of financial stewardship, the use of alternative forms of discernment, the number of commissioners and advisory delegates as well as the role of advisory delegates, the schedule for moderatorial elections, the environmental impact of assemblies, the frequency of meetings, and models for governance for future generations.

Got all that?  The request is for a complete review, to put anything and everything about how General Assemblies operate on the table.

Another approach is taken by Overture 9 from Presbytery of Foothills.  I discussed this in more detail a while back, but this overture essentially states that the way the PC(USA) does business in the GA hinders our connectionalism and to promote our connectional nature the church should hold a General Convocation “for the purposes of worship, mission celebration, and building up relationships within the Body of Christ” for five years.  In the sixth year the General Assembly would meet to do business.

And in a final related overture, the Presbytery of San Diego notes that one reason for going to biennial Assemblies was to save money, but in changing the meeting pattern the number of commissioners to the Assembly was roughly doubled, not really saving that much money.  They have sent Overture 54 to the 219th General Assembly asking for a change to the Book of Order to restore the number of commissioners to their previous levels.

We are all well aware that in this age of Web 2.0 the technology and pressure is present to make face-to-face meetings unnecessary.  As we balance the use of technology and the stewardship of resources with the questions of how often and in what ways to meet, we also need to be mindful of the implications for our understanding of call, connectionalism, and discerning together in the Covenant Community brought together with Jesus Christ as its Head.