Things have been busy the last couple of days for me, and there is no way I’m getting away with writing a long entry at home this evening, so here are a couple of highlights from the Presbyterian News Service, with quick comments done on my lunch hour.
General Assembly Highlights: The Presbyterian News Service has an article today about the preliminary list of issues facing the 218th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). The list includes some of the widely anticipated items: Form of Government Task Force, a wide array of actions related to the PUP report, justice and peacemaking issues, and the moderator and stated clerk elections. (I found it interesting that on a top 10 list these were listed together.) Other items that may not be on observers’ radars yet: Action on “a wide variety of ecumenical concerns,” starting the process to add the Belhar Confession to the Book of Confessions, an evaluation and possible modifications to the ordination exams, and two committees of commissioners working on “A church for future generations.” Interestingly, no mention of the Heidelberg Catechism overture and a lot is getting lumped in the justice and peacemaking issues. If you want another perspective on this list by James Berkley you can read his discussion of Stated Clerk Clifton Kirkpatrick’s comments to ACSWP on the Institute on Religion and Democracy web site. While the News Service article is about Rev. Kirkpatrick’s comments to the joint meeting of the General Assembly Council Executive Committee and the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly, much of the same territory was covered.
New General Assembly Council Officers: Congratulations to Elder Carol J. Adcock and Elder Michael W. Kruse who, according to the announcement, were unanimously elected the new Chair and Vice-chair of General Assembly Council. This appears to be the same Michael Kruse who writes the blog the Kruse Kronicle. He even admitted to being at GAC. (This Blogger Lounge at GA may have the problem that more bloggers are on the floor than in the lounge.) I am heartened to see the election of elders since I was a little bummed to see that the outgoing chair of ACSWP and both the new co-chairs were clergy. It is admittedly the statistics of small numbers and we trust that across the board and over time the leadership evens out to an equitable balance of elder and clergy.
Well that is it for today. May you all have a good Feast of Saint Valentine.