The 29th General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (in the U.S.A.) will convene in Brighton, Michigan this Wednesday June 24 and run through Saturday June 27.  For those following the GA these resources might be useful:

• Schedule
• Documents page including overtures and reports
• Book of Order
• If there are to be official daily updates keep an eye on this page
• A couple of EPC elders’ blogs you might want to keep an eye on: Around the Scuttlebutt (RE and Presbytery Stated Clerk) and Reformed Pastor (TE)

TE Nate Atwood (bio as Word doc) will be installed as the Moderator of the General Assembly when the meeting convenes and RE Rob Liddon (bio as Word doc) will be installed as the Moderator-elect at the conclusion of the Assembly, presuming neither committee nominee is successfully challenged..

Some of the important reports to watch for include a recommended definition of a “missional church” and a proposed Preliminary Position Paper on the Doctrine of Scripture in the Permanent Theology Committee report.  In addition, a referred overture from the last GA concerning creating the position of Co-pastors is being returned with a recommendation to approve from the Theology Committee but the recommendation to not approve from Ministerial Vocation Committee.  The Theology Committee gives no rational for approval but in their recommendation against the Ministerial Vocation Committee gives five arguments against which includes “The need for clearly identified leadership.”  For some of the other business and activities you can check out the GA Preview.

I have not seen anyone mention official Twitter messages or a hashtag.  Following this year’s trend a hashtag would be something like #epcga or #epcga09.  I will update here if either of these happen.
UPDATE:  In checking Twitter it appears that the hashtag people are using is #pcaga29.  Just when you think you have it figured out…

Overtures
There are four overtures for the Assembly to consider:

Overture 09-A from the Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic requests that the EPC develop a position paper “setting forth the denomination’s beliefs and position regarding stem cells, the human embryo, and related questions of bioethics and human life.”  This was prompted by the recent Presidential Executive Order changing federal policy on funding stem cell research.

Overture 09-B also from the Presbytery of the Mid-Atlantic cites five examples from the Book of Order where they believe that the document is not clear and asks “the Moderator to appoint a committee to review the Book of Order with the input of the Stated Clerks of all presbyteries for the purpose of identifying terms, sentences, paragraphs, and/or sections which are not clear and/or may cause confusion when applied.”  It also asks that the review committee recommend appropriate revisions.

Overture 09-C from the Presbytery of the Midwest requests a change to the Book of Discipline which strikes me as possibly resulting from a recent experience.  Briefly, it would change the rules in a disciplinary case so that if the officer renounces jurisdiction before judgment is rendered the court would no longer need the individual’s permission to conclude the case and render judgment if “it is necessary for the purity of the church or the benefit of the offender.”  The condition of the offender’s approval was previously added in response to a state court decision in a case in another denomination and they point out that each governing body should determine the appropriate course of action based on their own state laws.

Overture 09-D from the Presbytery of Mid-America requests that it be allowed to form two affinity presbyteries, one permitting the ordination of women as teaching elders and the other not.  However, the Permanent Judicial Commission has ruled that this is not a request that the General Assembly can act upon but their interpretation of the Book of Order is that it would require amending the Book of Order.  Polity wonks would enjoy reading the basis for this ruling in the PJC Report.  Their first point about a presbytery having jurisdiction in a geographic area and whether two affinity presbyteries represent 1) Two presbyteries, 2) One presbytery with split jurisdiction or 3) Three presbyteries – the two affinity presbyteries plus the “mother” presbytery – is a well presented polity dilemma.

The Assembly will first have an opportunity to uphold this decision and if it wishes to not concur it may then move on to the overture as presented.  My read of the PJC decision is that they are on firm polity ground and the EPC will need to reason through how the diversity of opinions on the ordination of women as teaching elders should be handled.

This is a great segue to my next topic…

The EPC and the PC(USA)
When I discussed the PC(USA) 2008 membership numbers a couple of days ago I noted that for the PC(USA) the loss of ten churches and about 8000 members to the EPC in 2008 was a minor fraction of the total net loss of 69 churches and a bit more than 69.000 members.  The losses alone, not net, from the PC(USA) not counting deaths were close to 139,000 members.  The PC(USA) has other larger avenues of loss than churches realigning with the EPC.

But the EPC Statistical Report is fascinating reading and the same is not true for the EPC.  The EPC grew from 207 to 247 churches between 2007 and 2008, an increase of 19% and it grew from 77,482 to 92,864 members, an increase of  20%.  Most of this growth was in the transitional presbyteries, including the New Wineskins Transitional Presbytery.  The total churches in transitional presbyteries grew from 17 to 36 and membership from 8014 to 19,178.  In all, the 36 churches in the New Wines
kins Presbytery represent 15% of all the EPC churches.  And looking through the list several churches were accepted directly into other geographic presbyteries.  Clearly the substantial growth in the EPC can be tied to churches realigning from the PC(USA).

Now, in case you are asking – if the PC(USA) only had 10 churches realign in 2008 according to the Layman’s list what about the other 30?  Two reasons:  The first is that the Layman’s list is not always clear when the church gets dismissed or unilaterally departs.  So there is some uncertainty in the numbers regarding which year to count.  But the explanation in many cases is the fact that 27 churches with about 16,000 members departed the PU(USA) for the EPC in 2007 but many were received by the EPC in 2008.  At some point I’ll find time to reconcile the two lists but a summary comparison makes clear that those listed on the departing list eventually appear on the EPC list.

Anyway, the bottom line is that while the departure of churches for the EPC is a disturbing but small part of the membership drop for the PC(USA), it is a major issue for the EPC.  Like it or not, the EPC is being PC(USA)-ized.  The clear implication for the EPC is the influx of churches with ordained women.  (Although, as I looked at it several months ago I found that very few of the churches had women as teaching elders so it is not as pressing for the denomination as it may at first seem.) I’ll take up the question of other transfers of PC(USA) culture another time.

From the PC(USA) side there has been extensive discussion, administrative commissions, civil law suits over the property, and judicial commission reviews of what has been happening.  I won’t cover that ground again here, but I do want to mention one other issue and that is the charge that the EPC is actively recruiting PC(USA) churches.

It needs to be pointed out that the EPC has on the front page of their web site a link to information for churches thinking of joining the EPC.  That combined with a perception in some presbyteries that the EPC was making inappropriate contact with churches thinking of leaving the PC(USA) led Peace River Presbytery to send an overture to the last General Assembly.  The overture asked for an investigation and action regarding the EPC actions by the Executive Office of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.  Instead, the GA committee recommended and the General Assembly approved a referral to the PC(USA) Committee on Ecumenical Relations.  Their investigation is in progress now but not without controversy.  Viola Larson talks about missing a meeting with the representatives of the investigating team because the meeting was not widely announced and posted on the presbytery’s web calendar with very short notice (and if you read the comments to her post others checked cached copies of the calender that suggest it was actually posted after the meeting).  On the PC(USA) end we will have to see how this investigation develops.

On the EPC end the influx of PC(USA) churches puts stress on geographic presbyteries that do not ordain women.  The EPC does not consider whether or not to ordination of women as an essential of the Reformed faith so it is left up to the appropriate governing body.  (For more on that check out their position paper.)  To accommodate ordained women is one of the reasons for the transitional presbyteries.  But the transitional presbyteries are intended to be transitional and disappear in a few years and then have the churches move into the geographic presbyteries.  What then?

As mentioned above, Overture 09-D is one approach that the Presbytery of Mid-America would like to try.  The EPC will be struggling with that at this meeting.  And remember that back in February the Presbytery of the East approved new guidelines for the ordination of women.  The EPC is showing a movement in that direction.  We will have to see what else the former-PC(USA) churches bring into this branch of American Presbyterianism.

I will update as I find more sources of information on the EPC GA.