The 75th General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church was held at Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Washington, from Wednesday July 9 to Wednesday July 16, 2008.  There were around 150 OPC commissioners and fraternal delegates.  The OPC web site has a GA Report web page that was updated regularly throughout the week written by the Rev. James J. Cassidy with editing by Stephen Pribble, Linda Foh, and Barry Traver.  My report below is a summary and commentary on that report.

Business began with worship, including the Word preached by the Moderator of the 74th GA, the Rev. Robert Y. Eckardt.  After the roll call of commissioners and seating of fraternal delegates the floor was opened for nominations for Moderator.  The Rev. Alan Strange, Associate Professor of Church History at Mid-America Reformed Seminary was the only nominee and so was elected by acclimation and applause.  Following his installation of the Moderator the commissioners received their Advisory Committee assignments and the Assembly adjourned for the night.  [The Advisory Committees are the commissioner committees of the GA’s of other branches and as a PC(USA) based GA Junkie I have to keep straight their acronym “AC” which to me stands for “Administrative Commission.”]

On Thursday the commissioners worked throughout the day in committees and gathered in plenary in the evening to hear the reports of the Stated Clerk, Trustees, Statistician.  In addition all of these individuals were re-elected to serve again in those capacities for the coming year.  The Statistician reported a growth in the OPC of eight churches and 221 individuals.  Proportionately this is growth of about 3/4 of 1%, but it is growth even with the departure of one large congregation.

The evening session also included the report of the Committee on Coordination that works with three other standing committees for a unified Worldwide Outreach by the OPC.  One of these three committees then reported, the Committee on Christian Education.  One emphasis of the committee has been on recruiting young men for the ministry since at this time almost half of the active OPC ministers are over the age of 50.  It was also reported that a new Psalter-hymnal is in preparation for publication in 2011 and a report on the continued partnership with the PCA in their publishing arm, Great Commission Publications.

On Friday the Assembly heard the report from the Committee on Home Missions and Church Extension, including the information that there are currently 20 church planters working around the country with support from the denomination.  There was also a report on Foreign Missions and the outreach work of the church around the world.

There was a greeting from fraternal delegate the Rev. Kevin Backus from the Bible Presbyterian Church who was straight forward in his report of disagreements in the BPC over the relationship with the OPC.  In the end the BPC has chosen to remain in communication with the OPC despite the loss of some members over that decision.

On Saturday Dr. D. Clair Davis brought a word from the Presbyterian Church in America.  The report describes his comments:

[If you did not get the reference to Redeemer Church in New York City, that is the multi-site “mega-church” whose head of staff is the Rev. Tim Keller.]

On Monday the Assembly considered the two overtures (yes, two compared to the 100+ for the PC(USA) and 19 for the PCA) presbyteries had sent to the GA.  The first considered was a request that the Presbytery of New Jersey expand its boundaries to include Puerto Rico.  The Assembly Committee that considered it recommended approval and the Assembly agreed.  The second overture, from the Presbytery of the Northwest, proposed a change in the process for a congregation to withdraw from the denomination (Form of Government XVI:7:a) that would change the time for the presbytery to respond from three weeks to “as soon as possible.”  The requested change was disapproved.  (I have not found the texts of the overtures but I am curious if the rational wants to allow the presbyteries less or more time to respond, probably more.  It is also interesting that this change is in the spirit of PC(USA) Form of Government revision that proposes to remove specific time frames from the polity.)

Other regular business before the Assembly included the approval of the records review, ratification of new member denominations for both the North Americans Presbyterian and Reformed Council and the Presbyterian and Reformed Joint Committee on Chaplains and Military Personnel, invitation of churches into corresponding relations with the OPC, and hearing reports on Interchurch Relations, Chaplaincy, and from the Historian.  These routine matters also included the rejection of a change to the constitution of the International Conference of Reformed Churches that would have introduced a bit more flexibility in the confessional standards a denomination must hold to be a member.  In another difficult matter, the committee on pensions had to report that while the pension fund was doing all right, the medical fund was not.  The Assembly voted to disband the fund in early 2009 and assist churches in finding alternate medical coverage for ministers.  In this and other reports churches were encouraged to look after their ministers.  On a better note, there were no judicial appeals for the Assembly to hear and deliberate on this year.  (Much as the PJC or SJC would hear and decide a case on appeal from a presbytery or synod.)

The balance of the Assembly’s time was spent deliberating and discussing the Amended Proposed Revised Version of the Directory for the Public Worship of God (APRV).  This has been in the works for a number of years, and in fact the 74th General Assembly began work on the revision last year, knowing that they would not finish the task.  It was with great rejoicing that this year’s GA did finish, but not without a significant amount of time and parliamentary deliberation.  By my count, of the rough equivalent total time of five days of plenary meeting time, almost three full days were spent on the APRV, and as I said, they picked up with they left off last year.  If you want the blow-by-blow description you will have to check out the report, although Rev. Cassidy says in the report that even he is not capturing everything.  I have picked out three details of the discussion that struck me to highlight.

1)  As I read through the report, it seems that the most time was spent debating the third membership vow:

There was extended time, like a whole evening and then continuing on into the next assembly session, debating the precise wording of this vow.  Among other things, how the word “abhor” was used and its context in the vow.  In the end, after several (numerous?) proposed changes, the original language was retained.

2)  The second item was closely related to this:  Later in the debate a protest was filed that begins:

It then goes on to argue that  this has pastoral implications and that by requiring specific language a session can not have scruples over the specific language.  (Scruples are not just a concept or issue in the PC(USA))  A motion to reconsider was requested.  Seeing a time-sink ahead of them they did the logical think and took a break for dinner.   After dinner the motion was made and passed to reconsider the previous action.  Specifically, all this dealt with a revised footnote that now allowed modification of the vows only in the case where an individual could not understand them in their exact form.  After further consideration the Assembly returned the footnote to say that a session did have the power to modify the language of the vows for their church but  must note the change in the minutes.  With passage of that wording the protest was withdrawn.

3)  Monday morning the motion was made to recommit the APRV to the committee that drafted it with instructions for them to review it and break out the portions of it that are not specifically guided or directed by scripture and place those portions into a manual.  (Like one of the guiding principles in the PC(USA) for the revision to the Form of Government.)  This would have reduced the Directory in size and brought it back to the next GA for word smithing.  The vote on this motion to recommit was first postponed to Monday evening, then postponed again to Tuesday morning, and postponed again to Tuesday evening where the motion was finally voted upon and failed 46 to 88.

This is not the end of the saga for the APRV, but it is now one major step closer to being published in a few years.  The next assembly will have to finalize the changes, and propose the changes to the Book of Church Order where the new Directory affects it.  While the process was long, and from Rev. Cassidy’s fine description it appears to have been as loaded with parliamentary procedure as any major decision in a Presbyterian General Assembly is, the Assembly took the job seriously and got through it.  In the PC(USA) the Assembly did not have the time to work through the revised Form of Government.  For this and other reasons they handed it off to a task force for further review and comment by the presbyteries.  But in our Presbyterian system this is not just a parliamentary exercise but our way of discerning God’s will.  As Rev. Cassidy says in the report:

Thank you Rev. Cassidy for your report.

Finally, and if this was in the report in past years I don’t remember it, the OPC GA presented the “jack-in-the-box award.”  This award is for the commissioner who jumps up to the microphone to speak from the floor the greatest number of times and is a regular unofficial report from the Church of Scotland staff.  The award itself was a Machen bobble-head doll.  How appropriate.