183rd General Assembly Of The Cumberland Presbyterian Church

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  The second of the three General Assemblies this week is the 183rd General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church convening tomorrow in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Not one of the higher profile Assemblies it will have no streaming and probably very little social media traffic, but definitely some interesting issues that will be considered that have parallels in other branches.

UPDATE: There is some notable Twitter traffic under the hashtag #cpga13. I see no official tweets but @mcBROwn91, Matthew Gore (@cumberlandpres – maybe official?) and Jeff Biggs (@jeff_biggs) are providing helpful, frequent and some entertaining tweets.

Pretty much all of the information for this meeting can be found in the somewhat non-obviously named 2013 Preliminary Minutes of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. For the polity documents, the By-laws of the General Assembly Corporation can be found starting on page 12 of that document while much of the rest of the governance can be found in the Constitution.

The Preliminary Minutes also contain the reports for the meeting (beginning on page 32) and I wanted to walk through those and highlight a couple of business items.

The very first report (pg. 32), the Report of the Moderator, contains a couple of interesting items about synods. The first is this paragraph about the church’s structure:

When the Church realigned presbyteries and synods in 1988, the goal was to have stronger presbyteries with professional staff. For the first few years the synods were to be courts of review, however, I feel strongly that it is time to re-evaluate the role of the synod in our Denomination. Presbyteries are weak and have difficulty developing new congregations due to limited resources. Working co-operatively with presbyteries, the synods were the primary source of developing new congregations.

The second is a note and formal recommendation about unity with the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America (CPCA). The outgoing Moderator urges several of the synods to hold general synod meetings this year that are union meetings with their corresponding CPCA synod.

This theme of potential union between the CPC and the CPCA is seen throughout the reports with it being mentioned under ecumenical relationships in the Stated Clerk’s report as well as a request by the Ministry Council (pg. 125) to delay their assigned task of setting Priority Goals until there is a unified body to set goals for. Along the same theme the Report of the Unified Committee on Theology and Social Concerns (pg. 266) encourages congregations to read the study paper Reflections on a Divided Church.

Towards the goal of unification of the CPC and CPCA a joint Unification Task Force (pg. 268) has been set up. Among other things, they present a three-phase program for working towards a union vote at each of the respective GA’s a year from now. They are asking that they can get the word out by visiting presbytery meetings throughout the coming year.

In an interesting recommendation regarding polity the Permanent Judiciary Committee (pg. 258), jointly with the Theology and Social Concerns Committee, had referred to it a memorial concerning ministers of other denominations serving communion in CPC congregations. The joint committees are recommending that the 1987 action permitting this be rescinded as a matter of “strengthening our Cumberland Presbyterian identity and connectionalism.”

In other business, the Ministry Council brings a handbook (begins on pg. 92) with the recommended process for training and certifying Elders as Lay Leaders for Small Congregations. And the Board of Trustees of Memphis Theological Seminary (pg. 224) asks the Assembly to encourage all probationers to consider being trained for ordained ministry at their seminary as well as a request for permission to undertake a capital campaign.

It should be an interesting meeting and I look forward to whatever updates or reviews of the discernment are made available. Prayers for the Holy Spirit’s guidance in your deliberations.

41st General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In America

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  For American Presbyterians coming up this week we have a triple-header of General Assemblies with two beginning on Monday and one on Tuesday. Let me start with the 41st General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America which will begin on Monday 17 June in Greenville, South Carolina. Committee meetings and pre-Assembly workshops and seminars happen on Monday and most of the day Tuesday with the Assembly formally convening Tuesday evening.

There is plenty of info related to this meeting. Here is some of the most useful and important material.

There should be no lack of activity on Twitter for this Assembly and the task is really to narrow the recommendation down to a reasonable number. As already mentioned the official news feed is @PCAByFaith and the hashtag will be #pcaga. As for individuals at GA… where to start? A few that have jumped out so far include Fred Greco (@fredgreco) who is promising coverage as well as Burk Parsons (@BurkParsons) and Ligon Duncan (@LigonDuncan) who are fairly high-profile in the PCA and active on Twitter. Probably should include Tim Keller (@TimKellerNYC) and Harry L. Reeder III (@HarryLReeder3) to the list but we will see how actively they are tweeting the meeting. The other early active and informative folks include William F. Hill Jr. (@WmHillJr). And for organizations you can include Ligonier Ministries (@Ligonier) although I suspect they will be tweeting more about their activities around the meeting than the meeting itself. There are a couple more I people expect to be active but have not seen them check in yet so I will update here if they do start tweeting.

Finally, I would be remiss not to bring to your attention @PCAPresbyter and his own unique view of the Assembly. And there is mention that there might be a microphone bingo card for the meeting (who gets up to speak) as opposed to my parliamentary bingo card.

There are several interesting seminars at the Assembly. On Thursday night Ligon Duncan and Tim Keller will be dialoging in a session titled Working Together in the PCA to Address our Cultural Moment. Thursday morning will be another seminar, Commending and Defending the Total Truthfulness of Scripture, with Ligon Duncan and Albert Mohler. In addition, the Gospel Reformation Network will be hosting a pre-Assembly conference on What Grace Does with keynote speakers Harry Reeder, Ligon Duncan, Richard Phillips and Al Baker. There are full lists of all the pre-Assembly activities and the seminars. And the seminars page does say that they will be recorded and available for purchase.

As far as business for the meeting, there are a number of very interesting overtures that I look forward to the discussion and discernment around. There are a significant number that involve judicial process, including requests for the Standing Judicial Commission to rehear or take original jurisdiction of certain cases. At this time I would note their inclusion in the business and will strive to produce a separate post regarding that business and the associated history.

But there are plenty of other interesting overtures and the ones dealing directly with confessional standards, and how the church relates to them, got my attention. One overture (No. 17) requests beginning the process to add to the list of required elements of worship in the Westminster Confession of Faith 21:5 “collections for the work of the church.” In other words, require the taking of a collection at a worship service. Another overture (No. 7) asks to “Establish a Study Committee on Sabbath Issue in Westminster Standards.” That overture notes that “a large number of officers ordained in the PCA take stated differences to the requirements for keeping the Sabbath or Lord’s Day…” and seeks to get a better understanding of the requirements. And finally, an overture (No. 8) asks to change the BCO section on officers receiving and adopting the Standards so that if an officer finds his views have changed he would have to notify his presbytery that his views differ from the Standards rather than differing from “the fundamentals of this system of doctrine” as is the requirement now.

Another interesting overture is the first one (No. 1) which asks for a special order for each Assembly that would put all the important stuff together starting on the second morning of the Assembly. The idea is to place the business together at a point that some commissioners could come for just one day and be able to have input on the items most important to the church. The overture points out that at the last GA only 25% of the commissioners were ruling elders and less than half of the churches even sent a commissioner – ruling or teaching elder. The hope is that this would consolidate the most important stuff at a given time so attendance can be improved among those who can not attend for the full week.

There is also an overture to form a new presbytery (No. 9) since James River Presbytery has now grown above the recommended upper limit of 30 congregations so it would be divided creating Virginia Tidewater Presbytery. There is also an overture to consider a largely paperless GA (No. 11). And another overture (No. 18) asks to correct a parliamentary problem by adding a line to BCO section 12-6 to restrict called meetings of the session to only those items of business in the call. Presently the GA, presbyteries and congregations — as well as Roberts Rules of Order — have this restriction but not called meetings of the session.

There are lots of interesting topics up for discussion this week and I am looking forward to hearing the various viewpoints expressed on these matters as well as several other. We pray for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in the deliberations and discernment of the commissioners in the coming week.

209th General Synod Of The Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church

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With some of my own presbytery stuff as well as a weekend in the wilderness to refresh the soul I have gotten a bit behind on these summaries. So, with apologies for not getting it out before hand, we join this meeting already in progress…
 


 The 209th Stated Meeting of the General Synod of the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church convened with worship yesterday afternoon, 11 June, at Bonclarken in Flat Rock, North Carolina.

The schedule for the meeting, which runs through tomorrow evening, is posted on the Meeting web page. UPDATE: Business was completed a day early on Wednesday afternoon and the Synod adjourned.

The best way to follow is through the official updates on the ARP News blog with good comments and links to new stories on the official @ARPMagazine Twitter account. There are additional unofficial regular tweets by others including Clint Davis (@cleetus74) and Marty Taylor (@rev_marty). The hashtag is #synod2013.

Documents related to confessions and polity can be found on the Documents page, including the Form of Government, the FOG 2012 Draft, the Book of Discipline and the Directory for Public Worship.

Regarding the business there are two high-profile items that I am aware of. The first is the continuing discussions between the ARPC and it’s school, Erskine College and Seminary. The report of the Special Committee on the Synod-Erskine Relationship was presented this morning and according to the ARP News the Synod adopted revised procedures for removing members of the Board of Trustees and expressed their desire that the College would adopt a matching policy. In addition, it encouraged the team searching for a new president of the College to select  someone who’s views are the same as the Synod’s on the definition of an Evangelical [capitalization as in news report] and subscribing to the ARPC Standards. The Synod also encouraged the cooperation to continue and that the two bodies would have a close working relationship.

The second item is the continuing revision of the Form of Government, with a draft on the web site, as well as the Book of Discipline with special committees reporting on each of these. It will be interesting to hear the reports on the discussions and actions on those documents.

Finally, the ARP News reminds us of a continuing issue at the Synod — that of commissioners leaving early so that few are left to the last items of business and that a quorum is probably not present. A bit of concern and despair has been expressed about this and while this year they are depending on appeals to commissioners’ sense of responsibility there are mentions of possible structural changes to address this next year.

And so, our prayers continue for the General Synod and best wishes to all the commissioners in their deliberations. May they and the new Moderator, the Rev. Jeff Kingswood, be guided by the Holy Spirit as they are about the business of the Body of Christ.

General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church Of Ireland — Youth and Children: A Tale Of The Tweets

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I have been having fun the last couple of days following the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland. There is no live streaming so the vast majority of what I can find out in real time is through Twitter.

A few transcripts and audio selections have found their way onto the internet. The church has posted the text of the addresses by the outgoing Moderator and the incoming Moderator. To hear parts of the Assembly you can check out a number of audio clips that Alan in Belfast has posted on his blog as part of his coverage of the Assembly meeting.  In addition, he has posted the report of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland Youth and Children Council (PCIYAC) from earlier today. (part 1, part 2)

And getting down to the subject of the Board of Youth and Children’s Ministries, they were fairly vocal in the debate yesterday concerning the proposal by the Structures Committee to reorganize and consolidate Boards. In particular, they were concerned about their loss of Board status as they would be included with the Council For Congregational Life and Witness. In the end the Structures proposal was not adopted this year by the vote of 190 to 119 so they continue as they are for another year.

This afternoon was the report of the Board of Youth and Children’s Ministries itself. The report went well, as you can hear for yourself on the audio clips above, lasting just over 40 minutes. One of the highlights was a video promoting Messy Church. Another was the celebration of the 125th anniversary of the Boys Brigade program and the impact that it has had, including a couple of testimonials from the floor. As for the seven resolutions in the report, nothing controversial that raised any real objections.

What did catch a number of people’s attention was the turnout of Assembly members for the report, at least at the beginning.

When the report began it was preceded by a prayer that included these lines transcribed from the audio clip:

“We thank you for those who serve within this Board, for the work of this past year. And now as they report help them to communicate to us what’s on their hearts and what’s of importance to them and to us.”

Thanks to Twitter we have some comments and pictures of the meeting space at about the time the prayer was being said. Among those tweets are these two:

 
James Currie @JCBelfast

Hall unfortunately nearly empty for the Youth and Children’s Board Report #pciga13 pic.twitter.com/pBrBMJTtD3
 

James McCormick @jamesmcc77

Not much interest in Youth & Children from PCI members. Poor show folks. #pciga13 pic.twitter.com/yUdxIRPj9o
 



As the prayer said “…what’s of importance to them and to us.” Not many of the “us.”

Now to be fair, these pictures were taken at the beginning of the report right after a short 15 minute break and the lines for coffee this week are reported to be very long. And the hall did fill up a bit more after this. Furthermore, this was not the only report with very low attendance at the beginning. But the reports on Twitter still seem to indicate that it never did fill up the way it had for some of the more high-profile reports. And comparisons continued later in the day.

So I am sitting here wondering do I really need to spell this out? Do I really need to point out that when we talk about the younger generation and their importance to the church and then we don’t show up for the report about their ministries it sends a pretty mixed message? Do I need to rant on about the theme of the Assembly being about transformation and then the report about working with the generation we are trying to transform the church for has so few people listening to it?

No I don’t think I need to do any of that. But what struck me about the events of today is that when there is so much concern and discussion about whether the church has a future I must admit that I was very surprised at the apparent lack of attention that was paid to an important Board that has responsibility for the youngest members of the Body of Christ, the ones that have the most riding on the future.

OK, rant over. Commentary mode off.

We now return to our regularly scheduled stream of tweets.

80th General Assembly Of The Orthodox Presbyterian Church

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Tomorrow evening in Moraga, California, the 80th General Assembly of the Orthodox Presbyterian Church will convene.

On the one hand, this is always a very easy General Assembly to follow since a great running daily narrative is traditionally posted by the church.

On the other hand, if you are trying to follow along “live” this is usually not a meeting that provides a lot to follow. There is no live streaming, I have not detected any Twitter chatter (please let me know if I am missing it and I will update) and the reports and business the Assembly will be considering is not posted to the web, at least not that I have found. UPDATE: From the comments the hashtag should be #opcga.

This is a rare occasion with the OPC Assembly on the west coast, in this case at St. Mary’s College of California across the hills from Berkeley in the Bay Area. It was tempting for me to take some time to go observe but this is not the year for me to be doing that.

The one item on the docket that has been discussed is the development of a psalter-hymnal. This is a project that will take almost a decade and at this point the choice of the contents has been made. The news article says that the list will be presented to the Assembly but not for final approval.

If you want the background info you can find their Confessional Standards, Book of Church Order, General Assembly Papers (white papers on various topics) and the Standing Rules on the General Assembly page. There is also a guidelines and policy piece referred to as the Instruments of the General Assembly.

I look forward to following along on the Daily Updates and we extend our prayers for the meeting and for the guidance of the Holy Spirit in your deliberations and discernment.

2013 General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church In Ireland

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Beginning in a few hours we turn our attention to the western side of the North Channel for the penultimate General Assembly in the British Isles. At 7:00 PM this evening, Monday 3 May, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Ireland will convene. This year will be a bit different as the Assembly takes one of their very occasional trips away from the Assembly Hall in Belfast (the last time was 22 years ago), this year to meet at the Millennium Forum in Londonderry.

If you are interested, here is some helpful information:

  • The Church has produced an excellent outline of their meeting on the Assembly page. There is also a news item with a narrative of the meeting and highlights for each day
  • The reports that were published in advance are available on the Reports Page
  • There are usually news reports from The Press Office. There is the news page or I will update if a separate page is used.
  • If you need a polity refresher you should check out their unified document, The Code as well as their Guide to Assembly Procedure
  • In the past the PCI has done a wonderful and prolific job of tweeting the Assembly at @pciassembly. For the meeting the hashtag is #pciga13
  • Other Twitter accounts related to the church that could be interesting are @PCIYAC from the Youth and Children department and @pciSPUD from the Youth Assembly
  • The best observer of the GA to keep an eye on is Alan in Belfast on both Twitter @AlanInBelfast,  and his blog Alan in Belfast
  • The local news site Slugger O’Toole with their Twitter @sluggerotoole is also a good source that might have some coverage
  • Finally, there will probably be PCI commissioners tweeting. Let me start with the moderator of a past General Assembly @staffordcarson. (And on a side note, Dr. Carson is up for approval by the Assembly to a new position. UPDATE: He was approved as the new Principal of Union College. ) Update: I would add to the list James Currie (@jcbelfast) who is active with PCIYAC and pciSPUD.

Regarding live streaming we have this unfortunate statement from the Arrangements Committee (pg. 7):

Web Streaming and ‘Twitter’
9. The Arrangements Committee regrets that due to technical restrictions, the General Assembly will not be streamed this year.  However, proceedings may be followed on ‘Twitter’

The raises a couple of questions in my mind, one being the quotes around Twitter. (Are those scare quotes?)
But further, in an advanced facility such as the Millennium Forum why are there technical issues with streaming? It seems the key word is… restrictions. It leads me to conclude that the requirements of the venue are that they handle the streaming at a cost which is prohibitive to the church. Another thing I see is that portions will be broadcast by the BBC so there may be restrictions to competition there. It may be something else but those are my guesses at the moment. For those of us who enjoy the stream and are interested in the business and decisions reached we still have Twitter but the lack of streaming is a disappointment when it seems easy enough to do.

There are two evening events of some interest. The first is a series of seminars on Tuesday evening at Magee College. It was founded by Presbyterians but is now a branch of the University of Ulster. The series of presentations will reflect on Presbyterian history and tradition. The second is “Christ Transforming Culture” on Wednesday night in the meeting space. As the description says of the event “Through drama and music the Moderator and others will lead an
exploration of how the Assembly theme, ‘A Place of Transformation’
impacts on the Church and individual Christians and on the culture of
where they work and witness.”

A number of interesting items of business on the docket. There is a report on Baptism from the Doctrine Committee (pg. 13 of the report) The report concludes that baptism by immersion is not necessary and is not the most appropriate method but does not recommend forbidding it.

There is an interesting report from an Advisory Committee to the General Board that includes a section (beginning on page 32) about helping resolve conflict in congregations. The many recommendations include better training of Elders and this:

(iii) The Church should seriously consider the Church of Scotland and PC USA [sic] model of having an interim Minister for up to a year, where there has been a long ministry of say 15 years or more. This would allow a Congregation to adjust, grieve if necessary, think of themselves without the previous Minister, deal with any outstanding issues and prepare themselves for a call.

In my experience, both are good moves and I might suggest shortening that 15 years down a bit to ten or even seven.

There is also some tension related to the trajectory the Church of Scotland is following on same-sex partnerships and the ministry. There are a few points that this may present itself during the Assembly including the Church and Society report as well as Ecumenical Relations. In particular, the Moderator’s Advisory Committee of the General Board is looking to open conversations about human sexuality within the church.

Finally, the Priorities Committee of the General Board (report beginning on page 39) is conducting a Structures Review that is looking at the form and function of the church. Among the issues it sees that resonate with the findings of a similar panel I have been on is about communication between bodies within the church with the report saying ” The current engagement that takes place between Presbyteries and Boards is at times very sparse.” Like that understated wording.

Almost all of there are General Board committees and will be part of the General Board report on Tuesday.

So there is lots going on this week and we look to the social media outlets for updates. Our prayers are with the Assembly and the incoming Moderator, the Rev Rob Craig. May the Holy Spirit indeed be moving among you in your discussions and discernment.

139th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada

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  We can now turn our attention to the first of the North American meetings for this year.

Beginning tomorrow, Friday 31 May, the 139th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in Canada will convene at the Newnham Campus of Seneca College in Toronto. The meeting will conclude on Monday 3 June. It has the theme “That all may be one” and is being jointly hosted by the Eastern Han-Ca and Oak Ridge Presbyteries. The former is a Korean language presbytery.

If you are interested in following along with this meeting here is information you might find useful. (And be aware that most of the official links are programmed to automatically download to your computer.)

  • First, if you want all the official info I mention below together, along with a whole lot more, there are the consolidated Reports (331 pages in length) and General Information documents (92 pages in length)
  • There is both an agenda for the meeting and a daily schedule available
  • The reports can be accessed from the reports section of the Assembly web page. There is also a nice 16 page document, the 2013 Report Summaries
  • UPDATE: YES! There is live streaming.  At one time the Assembly meeting was live streamed but that did not happen last year and not yet finding mention of it I fear it will not be streamed this year. I will update here if I find out otherwise.
  • News about the Assembly will probably appear one the News and Events page
  • For the polity documents go to the Acts and Proceedings archive and the Book of Forms. There are some addition Resources available from the GAO web page. There is also the Practice and Procedure document for the General Assembly meeting.
  • If you are interested in the Assembly’s carbon footprint there is a special report on that
  • The PCC traditionally a great job of tweeting the Assembly at @PCConnect. For the meeting the hashtag is #ga139
  • I am not sure which of the Canadian Presbyterians I follow on Twitter will be at GA so I will update here when I find attendees that are helpful to follow.
  • Finally, the PCC also runs a Flickr photostream during GA

Looking at the business I found an overture (No. 1) that any polity wonk would love. There is a request to change the terminology “minister and session” to “minister and ruling elders on the session.” I don’t have to tell you that this is a great suggestion that fixes a two-fold problem: 1) the minister is a person and the session is a governing body (or whatever terminology you prefer for your courts of the church). 2) The minister is a member of the session with the ruling elders. Good catch.

For those who follow the form and function of the governing bodies, there is also an overture (No. 3) that asks that a special task force be established to restructure the duties of a synod so that those who chose to may go out of business.

And so, our best wishes and prayers to the whole Presbyterian Church in Canada and prayers for your 139th General Assembly this week.

Presbyterian News Headlines For The Week Ending May 25, 2013

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One primary intersection of major breaking news and the Presbyterian world this past week, with all due respect to the Scottish General Assemblies, was the tornado in Oklahoma. A few of the items related to that:

Oklahoma Tornado — May 2013, Index of Response – from Presbyterian Disaster Assistance
Massive Tornado Hits Moore OK – from PCA Mission to North America
In the Aftermath of the Oklahoma Tornadoes, the Support of Volunteers is Key – from FEMA including PDA in the list of resources

Regarding last week’s General Assemblies, I am going to let the dust settle another day or two and deal with each of them in their own articles.

From Ireland we have two deadly car crashes that involved Presbyterian clergy and their families

Free Presbyterian minister dies in car accident – from the Belfast Newsletter
Wife of Presbyterian minister dies in road crash – from the Belfast Newsletter, includes comments from the Presbyterian Church in Ireland GA Moderator

Last week I mentioned a developing situation in Ghana with sexual misconduct charges brought against a minister. Among the continuing coverage this week is

Church Members Deny Sodomi Allegation Against Pastor – from SpyGhana

And finally, an interesting headline related to church dismissals in the PC(USA)

Opposing Groups Emerge In Presbyterian Church Discernment Process – from KUHF news

2013 General Assembly Of The Presbyterian Church Of South Australia

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Coming up on Monday 27 May 2013 the Presbyterian Church of South Australia will convene their Assembly. More on that in a minute, but first a few notes on the history and polity of that church.

I have not covered the Assemblies in Australia before, especially the state Assemblies. But after some gentle prodding I have added them to my list. Part of it was my own lack of knowledge of the structure of the church there and not realizing the significance of the state meetings. Yes, there is a national Presbyterian Church of Australia which has General Assemblies every three years, the next one coming up this September. But one of the things that allows the Assembly to meet that infrequently is the high degree of autonomy accorded to the six state churches. Each state church is separately incorporated in its state and many have long histories there. The state churches came first and federated nationally in 1901. In 1977 two-thirds of the Presbyterian Church of Australia congregations joined in the formation of the Uniting Church and the congregations that remained formed the foundation for the current continuing church. (This was one of the 70:30 partition examples I talked about in another post a while back.)

So on the national level decisions are made about doctrine, practice regarding worship, minister transfers from other denominations, world missions and some unified ministries. The state Assemblies handle the local specifics, create and manage presbyteries and ministerial preparation and calls.

The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church of Tasmania met last week and I have not yet seen any reports or highlights from that meeting.

This meeting is a different matter…

It gives me great pleasure to congratulate The Rev. Gary Ware on his selection as Moderator of the Presbyterian Church of South Australia for the upcoming year. Rev. Ware is the pastor at Mount Gambier Presbyterian Church and one of the more prominent, prolific and entertaining Presbyterian bloggers in Australia. For reflections on the Assembly keep an eye on his blog – mgpcpastor’s blog – as well as his Twitter handle @gjware. (With the caveat that as Moderator your time for other things during the meeting is limited.)

The Assembly convenes on Monday 27 May 2013 and will adjourn when they have concluded the business. This was a much more common practice in the Presbyterian world but with the modern need for reservations and taking time off from work most assemblies now have tighter dockets and planed adjournment dates and times. This Assembly will probably adjourn the next day if I understand correctly.

After the Assembly check the PCSA News for a report on the Assembly.

For the Presby Geeks and Polity Wonks you can check the PCSA Rules and Regulations as well as the Presbyterian Church of Australia Code Book.

I will update if further sources of information appear.

So our best wishes and prayers to Gary and the whole Presbyterian Church of South Australia for their Assembly this week.

UPDATE: It finished up earlier today, Tuesday, as anticipated. During the meeting Gary posted both a lunch shot as well as word the meeting had concluded.

UPDATE 2 (30-May): Gary posted his review and reflection on the Assembly.

Presbyterian News Headlines For The Week Ending May 18, 2013

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No, I did not get this out on Monday. Between two GA’s live streaming and a nice session with some folks from Los Ranchos Presbytery yesterday I have been a bit preoccupied. But now with a lull in the action let me get caught up on what happened a week ago.

News leading up to the Church of Scotland General Assembly:

Next Church of Scotland moderator mistaken for thief – from The Scotsman (the Moderator’s ring was in a stolen suitcase a little earlier this spring and when the Rev. Lorna Hood walked into a jewelers to get the backup ring resized the local police were called)

Church of Scotland revises controversial Israel report – from the BBC (the revised report was released ahead of the GA)

In Ghana news of child abuse allegations against a pastor in the Presbyterian Church

Gay scandal rocks Presby Church; Pastor to be investigated – from Vibe Ghana

Gay case has marred our reputation – Presby Church – from GhanaWeb

And in other news…

French Reformed and Lutheran Christians unite in one church – from Ecumenical News