And we are back from dinner at the PC(USA) General Assembly. The band is warming up, and warming us up.
Just a reminder, we have an arrested report and a tribute to Gradye Parsons coming up.
So here we go…
That is it for the Assembly session. Hang on because I have to more items to post tonight.
So here we are again! Back in the Assembly hall for the start of the Plenary half of the meeting.
To watch the live stream check out the GA 222 Web Page.
As a reminder I will be putting my emphasis on Live Blogging the session. I will be doing some broad tweeting at @ga_junkie and more focused tweets at @gajunkie (no underscore).
For good Twitter streams check out @L3_UMD for the play-by-play and @jodicraiglow for color commentary with a bit of wit.
So here is the live blog app
The Assembly is in recess until 7 PM this evening.
It was an interesting day at the 222nd General Assembly on a number of levels. Like one of my previous wrap-ups I am going to take this in reverse chronological order.
I write this from the convention center as the hour grows later and Committee 4 – The Way Forward continues their work. In my wrap up from Sunday I was partly right and partly wrong in my assessment. What I got right is that they are working late on Tuesday night – to my knowledge the only committee still working. What I got wrong is that I suggested they might be working through it in a cursory way to get it done. Watching the committee working this evening it is clear that they are taking their job very seriously. They are using parliamentary procedure fairly well, the members of the committee are listening and respecting each other, and they are being very thoughtful and deliberate in what they write. It is a pleasure to watch them work on this, with the exception that the hour grows late. (For the record, they did get to the point where they got the heavy lifting done and could have done some more detailed work but instead did lump a few overtures together to be answered by an earlier action.)
And if you asked about my using the word “writing,” yes they are writing a lot. Part of their deliberative process was to be generative and come up with new ideas to move the church forward. They have discussed some interesting ideas, wrestled with the polity constraints, and will be bringing something interesting to the plenary. I am not going to expand on that at this time since it is not finished yet, but it will be interesting to see what the whole Assembly does with it.
I spent most of the rest of the day observing the Committee on Mid Councils. Today they were dealing with the question of synods. They were instructed early on that the actions of previous Assemblies were not binding on this Assembly. Therefore, if the 221st had asked synods to find a way to restructure themselves, this Assembly did not have to follow through with that. In brief, they did not. After hearing from a lot of people for and against, after discussion in the committee about options, after advice from the ACC they chose to recommend rescinding the actions of the 221st and leave synods alone. There were whispers of “minority report” and we will see what comes to the floor. Both this and their decision on non-geographic presbyteries rub some people the wrong way so it will be interesting to see how the different dynamics of the plenary play out.
On the one hand, a lot of time, effort and money have gone into two Mid Council Commissions over the last five years. I have heard some reaction that after all that work it is being undone. On the other hand, the process of the last two years with the synod consultations has happened, they came back with a recommendation and this committee basically took that recommendation.
The Mid Councils Committee closed their work considering a request for an Authoritative Interpretation (AI) about the inclusive nature of the church and its leadership and whether non-ordained leadership from church plants could be given a seat at the table in presbytery with voice and vote. The original motion from a member of the committee was to do that but when it was explained that if they wanted to have an AI they would have to provide it. No one felt like they had the necessary words, or maybe the time, and without much additional discussion the request for the AI was denied. I bet if that had not been the very last item on the docket a writing team would have put something together for consideration at the end. But so goes business at the GA.
Finally, please allow me to tell my best story of the day – maybe of the whole GA.
Before the Mid Councils Committee began today Jana Blazek from the Outlook and I were setting up at the press table. Todd Freeman, the Moderator of the committee came over and was chatting with us. When I introduced myself he recognized my name but not from this blog. It took him a moment but remembered that I was the author of the Outlook article looking at the overtures related to synods. He explained that he wanted to read from it but left that copy of the Outlook in his hotel room. “We can fix that” we told him and helped him call it up on his tablet. Thanks to Jana for the picture of me and Todd with his table showing the Outlook article.
He then proceeded to open today’s meeting by reading to the committee the first paragraph of my Outlook article on synods. I am humbled to say the least. My thanks to the Outlook for the opportunity to write it and for them publishing it.
And with that, I am going to crash. No writing time tomorrow morning as I will be meeting with people but will be back to live blogging as the afternoon plenary begins at 2 PM PDT.
See you then.
And today we complete our “four diamond week” with the opening of the 36th General Assembly of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church. What we have are the three largest and, what was until recently, the fourth largest American Presbyterian denominations meeting all at the same time. And it is worth noting that they all are part of that great dividing of the mainstream branch, while acknowledging that a few pieces of the Reformed Presbyterian branch have been absorbed in.
The next four days the EPC will be meeting at Ward Church in Northville, Michigan. According to the schedule, today there will be workshops as part of the Leadership Institute seminars, and some additional related keynotes on Wednesday and Thursday mornings. Business begins with opening worship tomorrow afternoon followed by the beginning of business sessions. The meeting is docketed to adjourn by noon on Saturday morning.
The Assembly meeting will be live streamed through the host church and the view is embedded on the Documents page.
There is a lot of information on line, most linked through the Documents page. Here are some of the links for information about Assembly business and operation:
As for social media, there is a bit of that out there. There is a Facebook page for the EPC that is currently being updated regularly with Leadership Institute items. The official EPC Twitter feed is @EPChurch and the declared official hashtag (#epc2016ga) has sprung to life. There is also a feed for EPC Student Ministries (@EPCStudentMin) and the Stated Clerk Jeff Jeremiah (@Jeff_Jeremiah -but not active for a while). I would add to this the host church, @wardchurch.
As for individuals, so far Ivan Strong Moore (@ivansmoore) is going strong live tweeting it, so there is a good point to start. For some tweets with a slight edge and sense of humor, check out Chreeha (@chreeha) and their hashtag #rowdyGA.
The list of the business items shows that much of the business is important but generally routine. Maybe the most out-of-the ordinary set of recommendations deal with a revised Position Paper on Human Sexuality that can be found in the report of the Committee on Position Paper Revision. There is also a request to appoint a committee to draft a pastoral statement on Ministering to the Church and the World on Issues Pertaining to Human Sexuality.
With that, I will wish the EPC commissioners well and we will be lifting them up in our prayers as they meet.
It was a very interesting day on a number of levels. As I wind down my day let me reflect on three of them.
First breakfast was great. Thanks to the night clerk at my hotel when I asked for a local suggestion for breakfast and he recommended Pine State Biscuits. The nearest location a few blocks from the convention center is a storefront in a commercial area. Pretty unassuming.
Now the important thing to know is if you are not into biscuits, this is not the place for you. Go back later in the day when it becomes a pizza place. Now, the biscuits with mushroom gravy were great and the coffee was just fine as well. But I was most energized by being able to sit at the counter next to the open roll-up window looking out on the street and the old church across the street and decompress (yes, even first thing in the morning). Great food, great coffee and great quite time to center for the day.
In fact, while I pushed myself hard today I tried to exhibit a bit of self-care and not push constantly. The opportunity to finish a piece, hit save or publish, and then walk away made all the difference in how today went. Yes, I missed a bit of GA and I did make an embarrassing online mistake this morning, but all in all it was a good day.
As for the GA itself, as the day wore on into the evening Twitter comments began to show significant frustration by commissioners on some committees. There is a group dynamics model that has the group go through the stages of forming, norming, storming and preforming. It was clear that some of the committees had reached storming and may have gotten a bit stuck there. This was not storming as in the committee lost its sense of decorum, although there was enough frustration that a tweet said someone was ready to walk out. This was a sense of frustration, lack of communication, and confusion that lead to a sense of helplessness and questioning “why am I here?”
There were signs late in the day that at least one committee has successfully moved on to preforming and business was moving along nicely. We can hope that a good night’s sleep will help the others move on. And it was good to see committees finishing up on time this evening as it could certainly be a late night for some tomorrow to finish their work.
Having said that, it is important to remember that plenary is a second chance for some items of business. The dynamics are different and there can be more time for an in-depth discussion of a business item. We will see how many get minority reports and how many have opposition organized between now and then. There are a couple of pieces of business that some outside the committee expressed strong surprise that they passed. We will see if any of that plays out differently in plenary.
And sometimes as you are sitting in committees you wonder to yourself, or the person sitting next to you, “tell me again why we do it this way?”
This moves me into the third thought for the night…
It has been a pleasure to have the Rev. Derek Browning with us at this GA. He is the Business Convener for the Church of Scotland General Assembly and I have studied their GA and systems well enough to know that while our two branches share a basic Presbyterian philosophy and framework, there are a lot of differences between our systems. If you had to identify one core point to that difference it is that the Church of Scotland developed as a national church and the source of authority is at the top. American Presbyterianism developed from presbyteries and we still recognize that they are the ultimate unit of authority in our system. This leads to a bunch of differences and approaches to doing the work. One consequence of that is the Church of Scotland does not have committees of commissioners but is in plenary the whole week it meets. Committee reports come from national standing committees that prepare their work during the year and have it ready for presentation. This in contrast to the American system where the committees that present are made up of commissioners who meet for a couple days and are expected to do careful, discerning work on a ton of business items in that time.
All that to say, It has been a wonderful opportunity to discuss the fine points in each of our systems and critique the 222nd with a knowledgeable outside observer of our organized, or maybe not so organized, chaos.
And with that I wish you a wonderful evening and I will try to catch up on my sleep. Tomorrow’s business could go late.
The deadline for new business passed about 24 hours ago and the Bills and Overtures Committee has looked them over and referred those that are in order.
Thanks to the Office of the General Assembly for letting me know that in total 12 Commissioner Resolutions were submitted. I hope that later in the meeting that the full list will appear on PC-Biz.
UPDATE: The full list is now in the Bills and Overtures report. One of the declined items was related to a two state solution in the Middle East and was declined without explanation. The other declined report asked for the release of the investigation report into using New Worshiping Communities money to set up a California non-profit corporation. Declined because civil action is ongoing and because a predecessor denomination said the GA would not be an ecclesial court.
Ten of these Resolutions were found to be in order and were assigned to committees in whole or in part. Here is a quick rundown of those ten:
There you go. We will see how these fare.
The 44th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America will convene their plenary sessions tomorrow evening, 21 June, in Mobile, Alabama. Committees of Commissioners begin orientations and meetings today. The Assembly will continue through noon on Friday. The theme of the Assembly is “REFRESHED: In and For the Cross.” The meeting will be live streamed and they have their GA app available for several platforms to follow along. There is also a ShareFile! app there for registered commissioners to download reports and other documents.
While the full volume of reports is available only to commissioners, the docket and overtures are available on-line. [Tech note to the GA organizers – it is again the case this year that you might want to change the title in the GA docket PDF properties so it no longer says “40th General Assembly.”] There is a nice page with links to all the forms and schedules for the meeting. And this may be the first GA for which a Zika Virus Advisory has been issued.
To track the polity of the PCA you can access the Book of Church Order online.
News updates will be posted through the official news website and online publication byFaith.
Turning to social media, you will probably want to keep an eye on the byFaith Magazine Facebook page. There are numerous opportunities to follow the meeting on Twitter including the official feed from byFaith (@PCAbyFaith). There is also a feed for the Reasoning_Together (@PCA_Elders) program however it looks like that has gone dormant. The hashtag for the Assembly (and as I have been told the only one that is decent and in order) is #pcaga.
Other related Twitter accounts include Reformed University Fellowship (@RUFnational) and the Mission to North America (@pcamna). I would also include in this group the denomination’s schools, Covenant College (@CovenantCollege). and Covenant Seminary (@covseminary).
As for individuals to watch – round-up the usual suspects. Some who will be at the meeting and are, or will probably be tweeting include Fred Greco (@fredgreco), Ligon Duncan (@LigonDuncan), Sean Michael Lucas (@SeanMLucas), Melton L. Duncan (@MeltonDuncan), and Jemar Tisby (@JemarTisby) and his Reformed African American Network (@RAANetwork). Having included one organization there I will also mention Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing (@prpbooks) and Reformed Theological Seminary (@ReformTheoSem). (And as a note, there are other Twitter accounts for the different RTS campuses.) Let me also include Allan Edwards (@edwardsae1) who in past years has given us the Bingo Card and the Selfie Scavenger Hunt. This year we are back to the Bingo card, but there are suggestions of a new activity next year. And finally, I have previously been advised by @PCAPresbyter himself that all you really need to do is follow him. He will be sure to keep you decent and in order. 🙂
Regarding business to the Assembly, I will refer you to three articles from byFaith that review some of the important business that caught my eye.
A lot going on there and in the midst of three other GA happening I will try to follow along there.
Our best wishes to the commissioners and leaders of the PCA General Assembly and prayers for your discernment the next few days. May the Spirit guide you in your work.
As I consider a review of the day I decided to take the three items that jumped out to me in reverse chronological order.
Let me begin with the committee meeting in the evening. I sat in on The Way Forward, Committee 04, this evening. Besides the fact that I expect to spend a lot of time tracking that committee over the next couple of days it was also a good committee to sit in on because they actually began work before GA convened and all the preliminaries were out of the way and they were deep in work.
This evening were the reports of the review committees of the Presbyterian Mission Agency (PMA) and the Office of the General Assembly (OGA). There were also questions from the commissioners on the committee and responses from the entities being reviewed.
The review of the PMA is strongly critical, some might even say scathing. In brief, and certainly not doing it justice, they found an agency that was not transparent, siloed and territorial and with trust and moral problems. They also found the board structure to be unwieldy. In the response from the board they emphasized that they know about the board being unwieldy and are already preparing proposals. They also felt many of the other criticisms might be too strong if you considered the agency over a broader period of time. They felt that the review was conducted at a particularly confusing and stressful point for the agency and is not reflective of the overall workings of the agency. The reviewers emphasized that the PMA does wonderful work but the processes by which is does the work is flawed and these are not one-off issues but system to the agency.
The review of the OGA was much different. They found the agency was doing satisfactory work and there were few issues. One of the few issues they did find is that as the structure in the mid-councils of the PC(USA) shrinks a significant amount of work they did is being picked up by the OGA without additional resources for the added workload.
The two review committees are jointly recommending that a committee be created to study whether merging the two entities would be an appropriate way to go. They emphasized that this is not a recommendation to merge but a recommendation to study it. Each of the agency respondents argued against it, in one case saying that if form follows function much more work needs to be done on function before we are ready to talk about form. And one of those reporting summed up that these entities, and the PC(USA) by extension, is not in crisis but at a cross roads.
One of the things that struck me watching the committee working this evening was that even though they have already been meeting, there is a lot of work and discernment ahead of them and they will be hard pressed to formulate well considered decisions in the time they have. They may be working late on Tuesday night just to get through the business in a cursory way.
Stepping back to the afternoon plenary, the big item of business there was the nomination of candidates for Stated Clerk. The Nominating Committee presented their work and put forth the name of J. Herbert Nelson as their clear consensus nominee for the position. In addition a second nomination for David Baker was made. Watching the presentations and talking with delegates afterwards the two nominations present an interesting choice. While Rev. Nelson is widely respected and known in the church, and has worked in a significant leadership capacity in the Washington office, more than one delegate I spoke with specifically considered that he had a lack of clerk experience. On the other hand, while Rev. Baker has the clerk experience his level of service has been more limited with primary experience on the presbytery level. It will be interesting to see how they each do in presentations and questions in the election process Friday morning. Based on past experience – which is admittedly limited – the Nominating Committee’s selected candidate will ultimately prevail.
Finally, I want to thank the saints at Tualatin Plains Presbyterian Church, known locally as Old Scotch Church, for a wonderful morning of worship and fellowship. Our group was warmly welcomed into worship this morning and we got a great introduction to the history and facilities. First, they all acknowledge that the Old Scotch Church is linguistically awkward as it should be Old Scots or Old Scotland Church, but time has a way of making things permanent and so by now it is what it is. The church is one of the oldest Presbyterian Churches west of the Cascades, it was founded by Scottish immigrants and they brought their first pastor and their stained glass windows over from Scotland. Lots of fascinating stories that might find their way into the blog some time. In addition, wonderful stories from my fellow sojourners who make the trek together out to the church. It was a morning of connectionalism at its finest!
So good night. Tomorrow brings committee meetings and so running comments will be on Twitter. Will post on the blog as appropriate.
Good night from Portland
There is a lot going on this week across American Presbyterianism and up for today is the start of one of the more unique General Assemblies this year. Today in Nashville the first meetings begin for the 141st General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church in America and the 186th General Assembly of the Cumberland Presbyterian Church. This is a concurrent general assembly which has among its business the report of the Unification Task Force and the reception and referral to the presbyteries for study a Plan of Union to reunite the denominations.
At the present time I am not finding documents specific to the CPCA meeting but much is reflected in the CPC documents. In preparation for the meeting, a few things you might be interested in:
UPDATE: There is no live stream for this event but there is a live blog.
Twitter traffic is low. Probably the primary Twitter feed to follow is the Ministry Council (@ministrycouncil) and the hashtag #cpga16. A couple other official Twitter feeds to keep an eye on include CPC Youth (@cpyouthministry) and CPC Young Adults (@cpyamc). One extra reason is because there is a CPC/CPCA young adult gathering happening along with the Assembly meeting. UPDATE: As the Assembly gets underway I see that M. Derek Jacks (@mderekjacks) is tweeting from the meeting and would be a good source to follow. And another addition: Joy Warren (@joyseyes) also has a nice Twitter commentary going.
As a concurrent General Assembly a significant emphasis will be placed on the Report of the Unification Task Force. Their report begins on page 110 of the Preliminary Minutes. The report is fairly straight forward if not short. The longest part is a proposed Plan of Union presented for study by the churches. There is also a recommendation that for the foreseeable future the two churches hold concurrent General Assemblies. Finally, they ask the GA to declare the third Sunday in February as Unification Sunday to promote and pray for the reunion of the churches.
I will also note, as this is an issues at many assembly and synod meetings this year, that right before the Unification Task Force report in the Preliminary Minutes (page 107) is a study paper titled “A Confessional Response to Discrimination.” The recommendation is for the denominations accept them as study papers and they be made available to the churches through the presbyteries.
So our best wishes for the meeting and we look forward to the stories and pictures that will come out of this important meeting.
Following the adjournment of the Assembly for the evening the new Co-Moderators got to meet the press…
A couple of the burning questions were about “how do you do this co-moderator thing?” The short answer, we don’t know and we will have to figure it out. But Jan Edmiston added that the co-moderator position allows them to “model a new way to be church.” When asked to unpack that she talked about how when visiting presbyteries everyone wants the moderator as opposed to the vice-moderator. Now they will get a moderator, they will just have to figure out which one. It also models shared leadership within the denomination between very different people.
One of the prominent issues this week will be issues of race. They talked about hearing each other’s stories, a systematic program of understanding privilege, and how listening is not just waiting for your turn to talk. It is not just about the stories you remember or hear but those you don’t.
In a similar topic, Jan was talking about how the COGA survey reflected older, white and experienced Presbyterians. The denomination needs to have conversations about who was not responding and therefore not being heard in that survey.
And now to bed. Plenty of excitement tomorrow as I travel out to hear a pastor who was under care of our church preach in their church. Limited PC(USA) action tomorrow but I will be starting to look at some of the other GA’s that are going on.
Good night