The 37th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America began yesterday with their committee work and will continue with seminars and committee meetings most of today with the opening plenary session this evening.  They will be meeting all this week (June 15-19) in Orlando, Florida.

If you are following the GA you probably already know about these resources, but I will list them just in case:

• The Docket
• Overtures
• Official news updates from byFaith Online on their web page or by Twitter messages
• Book of Church Order and Rules of Assembly Operation

Unfortunately there is no webcasting this year but there is a very active community on Twitter using the hashtag #pcaga. (Editorial note – I like the use of a hashtag that is not specific to a particular year so it can be continuing and reusable.  This does presume that Twitter will still be useful a year from now.)

Leading up to the Assembly there have been some good blog posts.  In particular I would point out Kevin Carroll’s post on “A Newbie’s Survival Guide To General Assembly” on Reformed and Loving It.  There is also an interesting “preview” article by Ed Eubanks, Jr., on General Assembly 2009 — Hopes and Expectations.

Overtures
The Overtures Page shows that there are now 22 overtures to the Assembly.  In my last post reviewing the overtures I left off at No. 15.  Of the remaining seven, six deal with new presbyteries or revising presbytery boundaries; and several of those are concurring with overtures already discussed.  The one additional overture, Overture 18, is titled “A Declaration Concerning Homosexuals In The Military.”  (byFaith news article) In this overture Eastern Pennsylvania Presbytery asks to have the Declaration endorsed and delivered to the President by the Moderator.  The Declaration lays out the Biblical prohibitions on homosexual behavior and asks that the Government observe scriptural morality and not normalize homosexual behavior in the military.

For many of the overtures the Assembly will be considering I would commend two blogs to you.  In each case these writers have taken the individual overtures and discussed them in greater detail than I have had the opportunity to do.  The first is Jordan Mark Siverd who writes necdum videmus.  He has written on Overtures 3, 6, and 7.  And Kevin Carroll also did a great job discussing most of the overtures with articles about Overtures 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 17, 19, 21, and 22. (I hope I caught them all.  Apologies if I missed any.)

From the PCAbyFaith Twitter feed, and one news article, we do have information from yesterday’s meeting of the Bills and Overtures Committee about the committee’s recommended action on some of these overtures:

• Overture 1 on Removal of Censure to answer in the affirmative as amended
• Overture 2 on RAO debate of minority reports to answer in the affirmative
• Overture 3 on Assumption of Original Jurisdiction to answer in the negative
• Overture 4 on Adding “Interim Pastor” to answer in the negative
• Overture 5 on Study Committee on the Role of Women to answer by Overture 10
• Overture 6 on Marriage to answer in the negative
• Overture 8 on Examination of Men from other Denominations be answered in the negative (reported vote 37-33 with 3 abstain)
• Overture 9 on Judged differences from Confessional Standards for Men From other Denomination answer in the affirmative
• Overture 10 (and 5) on Role of Women answer in the negative.  News Story.  May be minority report
• Overture 13 on Adopt Danvers Statement answer in the negative
• Overture 14 on Giving Notice on Intention to Withdraw answer in the negative
• Overture 15 on Directing Philadelphia Presbyter to Adopt Specified Policy on Role of Women ruled out of order by Clerk and Overtures Committee
• Overture 18 on Declaration on Homosexuals in the Milty answer in the negative.

And now we see what is the will of the full Assembly.

So I will be following by Twitter, blogs and news as best as I can.  I don’t anticipate any regular updates since I have some ecclesiastical functions that will be keeping me highly occupied the next few days.  But I will comment briefly if news warrants.