This morning we finished a process that I expected to begin three months ago and take two weeks.  Instead, it began two months ago and finished today.  That is the appointment and announcement of all the committees and task forces created by the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to be named, at least in part, by the Moderator of the Assembly, the Rev. Bruce Reyes-Chow.

Below I provide a bit of an annotated summary of the appointments.  More official versions of the complete list can be found on Bruce’s web site or from the PC(USA) Special Committees page.

So here are the links to the info on the groups.  I will not provide commentary on the specific membership but will link to a few places where comments are made.  At the end, I’ll make some general, and personal, comments on the composition.

While I expected the announcements to begin shortly after the first of the year, Bruce began this process on February 3, 2009 with an intro video about the process.

Special Committee to Study Issues of Civil Union and Christian Marriage (Feb. 4 announcement)

Moderator Announcement
OGA Press Release
PNS Article
Committee Members’ Biographical Sketches
Committee member resignation and replacement
Assembly Action Item 04-13

This committee has met (March 16-19) and there is an OGA Article and an Outlook Article on the meeting.

Being the first committee named and one of the more controversial there was significant and spirited discussion of the composition.  Check out the comments section of Bruce’s announcement.  It has also ricocheted around the religious and GLBT news world. (e.g. BaptistPlanet and 365Gay)

Special Committee on Correcting Translation Problems of the Heidelberg Catechism (Feb. 6 announcement)

Moderator Announcement
OGA Press Release
Committee Members’ Biographical Sketches
Assembly Action Item 13-06

According to an OGA Press Release this committee met last week.

Committee to Prepare a Comprehensive Study Focused on Israel/Palestine (Feb. 6 announcement)

Moderator Announcement
OGA Press Release
Committee Members’ Biographical Sketches

Assembly Action Item 11-28

According to an OGA Press Release this committee met this week.

At the time of appointment The Reformed Pastor, David Fischler, shared his anaylsis of the committee composition.

Climate for Change Task Force (Feb. 25 announcement)

Moderator Announcement
OGA Press Release
PNS Article
Task Force Members’ Biographical Sketches
Assembly Action Item 09-16

There was a bit of a discussion in the comments about the balance of this task force.

Special Committee to Consider Amending the Confessional Documents of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) to Include the Belhar Confession in The Book of Confessions (Mar. 10 announcement)

Moderator Announcement
OGA Press Release
Committee Members’ Biographical Sketches
Assembly Action Item 13-07

Following the naming of the committee Viola Larson, in her blog Naming His Grace, had some comments about the composition.

Youth Ministries Task Force (Announced today, April 3)

Moderator Announcement
OGA Press Release
Task Force Members’ Biographical Sketches (I will link when it becomes available)
Assembly Action Item 17-3NB and referral of business in Item 17-4NB

Finally, Bruce included a wrap up of the appointment process on his March 10 ModCast.  I was in a Presbytery meeting during the ModCast and unfortunately it appears that the archived version is corrupt (I can’t get past 3:07) so I don’t know what he said.

A Few Comments:

I think a lot has been said publicly and privately about the membership of these committees.  While I won’t comment on any of the particular individuals named to the committees, I do have a few comments about the balance of the groups.

On the one hand, it is tempting to be a “bean counter” and look to see that all the labels are covered.  Civil Unions had good clergy/elder mix and nice male/female balance, but lacked some geographical representation from the northeast (as originally announced) and mid-continent.  Heidelberg is 10 clergy versus 5 elders and no southwesterners.  Israel/Palestine has two from SoCal, and most of the rest from the Atlantic seaboard, with six clergy and three elders.  Climate for Change is mostly easterners with two elders and six clergy.  Belhar is eleven clergy and four elders and again dominated by the eastern regions with no one from the northwest.  And similar things can be said of the Youth Task force, lacking the inter-mountain west and the northwest.

But at this point I would like to defend Bruce and his work:
1)  Having done appointments myself for Presbytery and Synod bodies it is not easy balancing all the different factors.  I can’t imagine the task for GA appointments.  When I did it I went to work with a preference for certain factors, I’m sure Bruce placed an emphasis on certain things as well so other factors, maybe like geography, suffer.

2)  It is tough to get the elder/clergy to balance on these committees because of the time involved.  For example, the Civil Unions Committee will require four meetings for a total of 16 days away from home for its members in the next 12 months.  In general, clergy are usually in a better position to be away to “do the work of the church” than us elders in secular employment.  You have to admire the fact that the Civil Unions committee is balanced clergy versus non-clergy.  (7 vs. 6 at the moment)

3)  While I know only two or three tales, take my word for it that there must be a lot of “back stories” to these appointments.  What Bruce has presented us in the announcements has a lot of twists and turns behind it.  Alert readers may realize that I had a good reason for expecting the announcements to begin in early January.  I suspect that the one month delay from what I expected has something to do with these twists and turns.

4)  Trust the Holy Spirit.
You may have spotted my name on the Special Committee on Civil Unions.  I am honored to be asked and fortunately I am in a position in my life that I have the vacation to use and the understanding family to accept the diversion of my time.  At the committee’s first meeting I had the wonderful experience of getting to know the twelve other amazing people who are on the committee, as well as the great staff we have.  I can assure you that we do not all think alike, but we all are taking this assignment seriously and devoted to working on it together.  We all agree that this is a journey where none of us really knows the end point.  But we are trusting the Holy Spirit to lead us.  Bruce, thanks for the opportunity to be on this journey.

Along these lines, let me conclude with a version of a paragraph that I wrote recently about my journey in Presbyterian leadership and serving on the Civil Unions committee:

I am continually struck that in my journey in the Presbyterian church the service that I have rendered to the church, including serving on this committee, has almost always found me rather than being something that I have gone looking for myself. On the one hand, when I look back and see where God has called me my usual reaction has been “what a long, strange trip it’s been.” On the other hand, I marvel at how God has worked through other people to identify my God-given gifts and where they may be used for the building of the Kingdom. This was brought home to me after I had served two years as the chair of the Committee on Ministry. I had been asked to serve a third year but was resisting because, being Presbyterian, I have an aversion to people becoming too entrenched in a leadership position. Two other members of Presbytery sat down with me for a long talk and laid out who was on the committee and the gifts that God had given them. It was not that my serving as chair was a position of prestige or power, it was just that when you fit all the different people together each had a task on the committee based on how God had gifted each one of them, and with the set of jigsaw puzzle pieces that the committee had that year the best use of my talents was to continue as chair. It is my prayer, and expectation, that God, through Bruce and others in the denominational community, has done the same to bring the range of gifts and talents together for this committee.

Thank you for your work Bruce and may God indeed work through the covenant community of our church in each of these appointed bodies.