How can a GA Junkie not love a General Assembly with its own soundtrack…

For the 135th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada held this past week in Hamilton, Ontario, they introduced the CD Some Assembly Required – Songs about General Assembly by the Rev. Angus Sutherland.  They have been kind enough to post two tracks on-line.  The first, “The Clerk’s Rant” will bring a smile to any GA Junkie’s face as the singer raps on parliamentary procedure in a very appropriate tone, and the back-up singers provide a chorus with the delicious double entendre “wrap/rap it up Mr. Clerk, wrap/rap it up.”  The second is an Elvis-ish number titled “First Time Commissioner at the General Assembly Blues.”  I suspect that the name is self-explanatory.  For more info check out the Presbyterian Record page, and it is listed as available through the denomination’s book store, The Book Room.  (I don’t see a listing yet.)  Cost is CA$15 and proceeds go to Presbyterian World Service and Development.

On the General Assembly page you can find a nice photo gallery of the Assembly, and at the bottom of the page the GA 2009 News articles including the Daily Digest.  Minutes of each sederunt as well as the reports are available on the Documents Page.  There was a nice set of official Twitter messages (around 175 total), mostly posted by Matt Donnelly and some others chimed in on the hashtag #pccga09.  The Communications Office also had the Twitter messages with #pccga09 fed to a webpage using an application from Cover It Live.  The live feed was useful, especially for us who would just keep it in the corner of our screen and not want to keep reloading it.  While the coverage did not include webcasting audio or video the Twitter conversation went a long way in helping us feel like we knew what was going on.

There were 129 clergy commissioners and 121 elder commissioners at the Assembly, a number that was comfortably seated around round tables in the Assembly hall.  However, the opening worship and business were held at near-by Regent University College.  Following worship the Rev. A. Harvey Self, pastor of Tweedsmuir Memorial Presbyterian Church in Orangeville, Ontario, the selection committee’s nominee, was elected Moderator of the Assembly.  In his comments the Rev. Self described his upbringing as the son of a military chaplain and his intent to highlight the work of the chaplains in his moderatorial year.

The first full day of the Assembly was a Briefing Day where the commissioners have the opportunity to hear information about the reports they would be discussing later in the week.  That evening there was the traditional banquet that provided a time of fellowship and socializing before the full business sessions started.

Tuesday’s business sessions had a heavy emphasis on military chaplains with the presentation by the Rev. Dr. Brig. Gen. David Kettle who talked about chaplains as “agents of grace, offering a human face in inhuman situations.”  There was also a presentation on the Emmaus Project: Open Eyes, Burning Hearts that is planning an event for presbyteries next spring to help “refresh, renew and transform” presbyteries.  At the luncheon the E. H. Johnson Award was presented to His Excellency Archbishop Elias Chacour.  He spoke on the plight of Palestinians in the Middle East.  From the Twitter messages about his 30 minute speech I recognized several of the lines from the sermon he preached at the last PC(USA) GA.

Thursday marked the first anniversary of the Government of Canada’s Apology to
Aboriginal people for residential school legacy as well as the fifteenth
anniversary of the PCC’s Confession to residential school survivors. The day included a
“special program of reflection” to commemorate these anniversaries and continue the healing and reconciliation necessary.

In terms of polity business it is interesting to compare the personal reflection of a Young Adult Representative via the Presbyterian Record and a brief post from a church about the meeting.  Both highlight the discussion over Lay Missionaries and whether they should be authorized to celebrate the Lord’s Supper.  As Allyssa de Bruijn, the YAR, describes it the session had a spirited debate with motions, counter motions, and amendments with the result being that motion was referred back to committee for further study.  (For the record, this sounds like the PC(USA) Commissioned Lay Pastor position who may celebrate the Lord’s Supper if they are already an elder, trained to do so, and authorized by the presbytery.)

The other issue mentioned by Central Presbyterian Church, Vancouver, was the salary/stipend structure for National Employees on which a compromised was reached.

I found it interesting looking through the minutes and seeing the dispositions of the various overtures from presbyteries.  They are broken into two groups, overtures 1-9 which are referred immediately and overtures 10-18 which where sent to the full assembly and then most of them were referred.  While there are many interesting issues raised in the overtures I will highlight just two.  The first is overture 12 from the Presbytery of Prince Edward Island which asked to have the days of assembly changed to include a weekend to make it easier for elders to attend.  I personally am always interested in how we structure our business to best encourage elders to be a part of the process, especially younger elders who already have many demands on their time.  The Assembly adopted the recommendation of the Bills and Overtures Committee to refer it to the Assembly Council in consultation with the Clerks of Assembly.

As far as I can tell from the minutes the one overture to be directly decided by the Assembly was overture 16 concerning the definition of marriage.  It is also the only piece of business I saw with the possibility of being sent to the presbyteries for concurrence.  Specifically, the Session of St. Andrew’s, Ottawa, overtured the General Assembly:

[The Session] humbly overtures the Venerable, the 135th General Assembly, praying that the General Assembly make and ordain the following Declaratory Act, after remitting the same to the presbyteries:

1. Our understanding of the rite of marriage is the solemnization before Almighty God of the vows of commitment and loyalty of two persons, the one for the other, for the duration of their lives and to the exclusion of all others;
2. The subordinate standards of this church are to be interpreted in the light of this principle;
3. Ministers of Word and Sacrament may for reasons of religious understanding decline to solemnize a marriage;

And that on the website of The Presbyterian Church in Canada, those passages of the Westminster Confession and Living Faith that are contrary to the wording herein, in particular Chapter 24, Parts I and III of the Westminster Confession, each contain a footnote referring to the adoption of this Act, or to do otherwise as the General Assembly, in its wisdom, may deem best.

The overture was transmitted by the Presbytery of Ottawa without comment.  The Committee on Bills and Overtures recommended referral to the Committee on Church Doctrine in consultation with the Clerks of Assembly.  There was an amendment from the floor to also refer to Justice Ministries which was defeated.  The recommendation was amended from the floor to not receive the overture.  The Twitter posting is brief and I have found no other source about this action, but the Assembly agreed and the overture was not received.  There was clearly some strong feelings on this overture since 39 commissioners asked to have their dissents recorded in the minutes, including that by M.W. Gedcke who asked that his dissent be recorded with the following reason given:

Overture No. 16 raises important issues in regards to marriage that our church needs to discuss and seek God’s guidance in our discernment and decision making.

While similar issues have been discussed at other Presbyterian GA’s what I found interesting about this overture is the added wording to footnote the subordinate standards regarding this decision.  I am not aware of other branches considering the annotation of their confessional standards in accord with such a change in polity.

Finally, the Assembly considered switching to biennial meetings.  At the present time the Assembly Council has been undertaking a study and has produced several  benefits and recommendations if biennial meetings are adopted.   It appears that with the adoption of the Assembly Council report the issue will be sent out to the presbyteries for discussion.

Finally, a comment on following an Assembly as a GA Junkie.  This GA had no webcast but daily updates and a nice Twitter feed.  In addition there were a few more tweets from people both present at the GA and following at a distance, who commented using the hashtag.  What I have decided is that the webcast gives you the details, the twitter feed give you the play-by-play and maybe some colour commentary, but being present for the GA gives you the nuance and the “flavor” of the event.  The contrast in the Twitter feeds has been interesting this year for the three GA’s with a major twitter presence.  Now on the #pcaga starting to ramp up today.