The session for the Moderator Election was delayed a day due to the length of time dealing with business Friday night, but the election evening went smoothly and finished a bit ahead of what some of us expected.

It helped that we had the Co-Moderators on the first ballot with Elona Street-Stewart and Gregory Bentley receiving 304 of the 459 commissioner votes. And yes, the YAAD’s called it with 41 of the 71 Young Adult Advisory Delegates recommending that team.

For more on Elona and Gregory, you can look back at my Moderator Team Introduction of them.

The election process began with short statements by each of the teams, and the teams generally echoing their pre-Assembly materials. Marie Mainard O’Connell and Arthur Fullerton talked about the denomination continuing to moving forward and their skill-sets to help make that happen. Elona Street-Stewart and Gregory Bentley emphasized their backgrounds and heritage and place in the Presbyterian heritage and how they want to move forward in the context of the Matthew 25 initiative. And the third to present, Sandra Hedrick and Moon Lee, emphasized addressing inequality and inclusion in the context of sharing the Gospel and being empowered by the Holy Spirit.

There was time for five questions from the commissioners to the candidates.

• How do you envision yourself being an agent for change? What three things would you do immediately?
• How can we as a church come together and unite as a people and make everyone feel included and feel the love of God?
• How can we expand the work within congregations and communities?
•  In light of the current unrest, what is the role of the Presbyterian Church regarding racism? And how do the local churches address the issue of racism in light of being mostly white?
• So far we have been discussing domestic issues. The center of Christianity has been shifted to the Global South. How can we learn from them?

The first four questions were submitted in advance by video and of these four only the fourth question was asked by a person of color. The fifth question was asked live by a Mission Advisory Delegate. The responses to the question included that the world is becoming a globalized place, that we have a lot to learn from them, and important to visit to get to know them. Answers to this question did avoid some of the rough patches that the PC(USA) has had in the last decade in its relationships with other churches regarding ordination standards, for example with the Mexican Presbyterian church.

Following this, it was time to vote and as noted above 41 (57.7%) of the 71 Young Adult Advisory Delegates voted for the team of Elona and Gregory. With the commissioners, the support was even stronger with 304 (66.2%) of the 459 commissioners voting for them.

Veteran GA observers might note that the first ballot election is the less frequent occurrence and 66.2% is a fairly high level of support. Since reunion 11 of the 29 moderator elections have been decided on the first ballot. Of those, only one was a two person or team choice (the 222nd in 2016). The only Moderator since reunion to receive a higher percentage of votes was Robert Wayne Bohl in 1994 with 73.9%. It is important to point out that for three years, 1985 to 1987, the posted minutes do not include vote totals. Therefore, the support for first-ballot moderators William H. Wilson (1985) and Benjamin Weir (1986) are not readily available.

And in terms of firsts, it is important to celebrate that Elona Street-Stewart is the first Native American to serve as a Moderator of the PC(USA) General Assembly.

At the post-election press conference, one of the early questions was about the team’s symbol of the Sankofa bird. The bird itself is a mythical animal and symbol from the Akan tribe of Ghana with the feet facing forward but retrieving, or carrying, an egg while looking back. The Elona and Gregory chose to place the bird in water, representing the Mississippi River, a river that flows across the nation with importance to both the indigenous peoples and the African American culture. The symbolism of the bird is the bringing of the best of the past to what lies in the future. As their statement in the Moderatorial Book says “Like the Sankofa bird of our logo, we look back beyond this time of uncertainty and fear to learn from those who have gone before, even as we look forward to a faithful and fruitful future.” At the press conference, it was discussed that the symbol ties the best of cultures together merging Native American and African American cultures.

Since a major emphasis of their materials and comments has been the Matthew 25 initiative that was also a major topic of the press conference. They emphasized the number of resources that have already been developed and that one of the three parts of the initiative is congregational vitality. Gregory Bentley emphasized that the church in general, and individual congregations, need to align priorities with the initiative. This is another add-on – it’s purpose is not to supplant but to supplement. In terms of getting the initiative into churches, Elona Street-Stewart emphasized that we “need a beachhead.” The initiative gives clarity and focus to our mission and what the defining features of Christian ministry are.

In talking about the business of the Assembly, especially the business that will be referred to the next Assembly, Elona discussed how the church needs to understand that there is the formation of work going on all the time. There is a fear that if we don’t deal with it at the GA it won’t get done.

Asked about whether GA has too much business to deal with and whether the volume is a problem for people in the churches to understand or participate with GA actions, Elona discussed the nature of GA. She said that many in our churches view GA like they view the civil government, particularly a legislative body. If you have a problem you send a request to GA to fix it. Rather, GA should be viewed as a fellow participant in ministry and should reflect on-going work. If there is a ministry a church is involved in and participation or resources from the national level would be useful – that is the role of GA.

And it was no surprise that when asked about how the church can support them the response was “Pray for stamina, perseverance and patience.” But they added that they are aware of and will need to address and overcome stereotypes. They are not what some people imagine a moderator would be. Elona Steet-Stewart said that they will be “Going to go to places where we are unimagined yet.” They are aware that they won’t fit the profile and will need the whole church to be able to talk about the stereotypes.

And so, as the General Assembly prepares to return to business sessions tomorrow, we do pray for them and many hours ahead. They have now travelled from their respective homes to Louisville so they can moderate in close proximity to their polity and technical support. May they indeed have the stamina, perseverance, and patience for the task ahead.

For more on the Election of the Co-Moderators and Elona Street-Stewart and Gregory Bentley, there is the PC(USA) News article, as well as an election article and a press conference article from the Presbyterian Outlook.

Well that was an interesting evening.

The 224th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has begun and the opening session certainly is one for the history books.

Under normal circumstances, the opening session of the General Assembly on Saturday afternoon is mostly training and business done as a formality. This includes the adoption of the Standing Rules, report of the outgoing Co-Moderators, the first report of the Nominating Committee and information on challenging a nomination, and a formal vote on distributing the business to the Assembly commissioner committees. It is mostly routine business to get the meeting going and do the decent and in order stuff to be sure the business and polity is set for the rest of the week. Then everyone comes back Saturday evening to elect the Co-Moderators.

For this Assembly it was already known that things would not be that routine. A special set of standing rules had to be adopted to facilitate a virtual GA with less time to do business. There were none of the regular committees so the business had to be tailored to fit a meeting that was always in plenary. And with the limited time some items had to be removed from the docket so the load was manageable.

The docket originally had scheduled one hour for this work. At a meeting yesterday afternoon the Business Referrals Committee – the only committee at this assembly which will handle the schedule and polity matters – added an extra hour to the opening business. So into tonight we went…

Four and a half hours later the GA finished the opening business. Since it was 11:30 pm on the east coast the Business Referrals Committee recommended adding another session by moving the election of the Co-Moderators to tomorrow night and the commissioners agreed by a vote of 349 to 120. So, another meeting and a change to my dinner plans.

The good news for the week was that only two closely-related items were removed from the list of business that was not considered critical or necessary enough to squeeze into this year’s abbreviated meeting. That is good news in the sense of the business load for this meeting has only increased by a little. It is bad news for the eight commissioners who were waiting in the queue to make motions removing other items from the list to refer. In particular, multiple individuals expressed disappointment that the Family Leave provisions would have to wait a couple more years. (And since it was a Book of Order change, two years beyond that.)

In the midst of all this there we a few interesting polity issues that arose.

The first are the necessary steps to allow this General Assembly to happen online. With an in-person GA not practical for a number of reasons, and with the Book of Order requiring a GA, pretty much the only option was to go online. The problem is that the PC(USA) does not have the bylaws or standing rules in place to make this happen so it was mentioned by a couple of individuals that this meeting is sort of happening outside Robert’s Rules of Order but everyone was trying to be clean and transparent about the whole thing. As the polity wonks know, this can be cleaned up by having the next regular, in-person meeting of the body – which would be the 225th GA in two years – ratify all of the actions taken by this assembly. (And I think it is a good bet that some language will be proposed to provide the option for virtual GA’s again if the need should arise.)

Another polity issue that was of concern and on the floor a couple of times was one of the special standing rules for this meeting that prohibited commissioner resolutions and new business to be brought to the assembly. The first instance was when the rules were being adopted and multiple commissioners had concerns about that prohibition. A motion was made to amend that standing rule to add an exception to allow motions to create “an Assembly-wide committee to discuss how PC(USA) will address social injustice prior to the 225th General Assembly.” The motion was defeated by 132 yes to 335 no. From the debate, the opposition to the amendment included both those who did not think adding such a significant item to a short meeting was wise and those that felt that carving such a narrow loophole was the way to go.

The second instance was when the Business Referrals Committee made a motion to suspend the standing rules to add two items of new business to the list of business for the meeting. That passed with the necessary 2/3 super-majority for suspending the rules. And one of these new business items helps address the issues for which the loophole noted above was concerned with.

And it was pointed out a couple of times that this latter approach is a permissible way for new business to be introduced. If the standing rules don’t allow it then move to suspend the rules and see if you can get the 2/3 vote.

The hot topic of the evening was the relationship of the San Francisco Theological Seminary (SFTS) to the PC(USA) through the Committee on Theological Education (COTE). The first instance was when a commissioner moved that the Dean of SFTS, the Rev Dr Jana Childers, be seated as a corresponding member as the other seminary leaders are. Turning to the Stated Clerk for advice, J. Herbert Nelson explained that when SFTS was “bought” (yes that is the term he used) by the University of Redlands they ceased to have status as a Presbyterian Seminary. As he said, “At this time there is no standing that would allow them to be seated.” The moderator ruled that the motion was out of order and moved on.

A couple minutes later the motion was made to challenge the ruling of the Moderator and after some discussion and explanation of this parliamentary procedure the ruling of the Moderator was sustained 334 to 133 and the challenge failed.

A bit later in the meeting when the business sorting was before the Assembly, the motion was made to not refer the Assembly Organization for Mission section related to COTE to the 225th GA but to deal with it in this Assembly to help sort out the status of SFTS. This move was defeated by a vote of 102 yes to 363 no.

So, the first plenary of the 224th General Assembly is suspended and will resume at 7 PM tomorrow, Saturday June 20th, with the only item of business being the election of the Co-Moderators.

But in a general sense, this was a slow start to the meeting and it raised some concerns in some peoples minds about whether the pace would pick up later in the week. A couple of the SMADs (Social Media Advisory Delegates) on Twitter wondered if the 224th GA would finish by the time the 225th begins. As I pointed out, at least with a virtual GA there is no convention hall that has a hard limit for the meeting to clear out on Saturday.

So that’s the opening night. Big credit to the Co-Moderators of the 223rd GA who handled the online meeting with grace, humor and a steady hand. Best wishes to them as they finish their term tomorrow – and I hope they enjoy this extra day. And prayers continue for all of those standing for Co-Moderators of the 224th GA. Being ready for the pressure of the election and suddenly having it moved back 24 hours can not be easy. Blessings on you as you regroup and get ready to do it again tomorrow.

Sleep well everyone.