Change is in the air, breath deeply

The title is from something my friend Bob taught me when he first started in his current position with the City.   It applies, too, to the Presbyterian Church.

On Wednesday the General Assembly held the first three of the nine business (plenary) sessions that will consider the work of the committees. 

As a result of today's action, alone, the presbyteries will have two issues to consider at presbytery meetings before June.   One has to do with adding the Belhar Confession of 1986 to the book of confessions (statements of faith) of the church.  The action won't be final unless it is adopted by two-thirds of the presbyteries and ratified by the 220th General Assembly in Pittsburgh in 2012.  Adding a confession is a big deal.  Adding a confession requires a proposal at one GA, approval at a second, approval by 2/3 the presbyteries, and ratification at a third GA.   This confession arose out of South Africa in response to Apartheid.  It would be the first confession of the Presbyterian Church (USA) that originated south of the equator.  There's a study guide here.

The GA also directed a task force to continue work at working with other denominations to create a new translation of the Heidelberg Confession that we adopted several years ago.

The second item that the presbyteries will have to consider is whether to ratify a New Form of Government.  Some say that the new form will allow presbyteries and synods to become more innovative and creative about the way they help churches do the work that Christ leads us to do.  Others say that the New Form of Government will allow the church to be adrift without direction and that the synods and presbyteries, in particular, will have to spend time and resources to write down how they are going to do business.  To be effective this must be approved by a majority of the presbyteries by July 11 a year from now.

The other exciting event of the day was a very inspirational video about the way a church in Oklahoma worked with the local teen population to demonstrate the love of God and the church.   If I can find the link to the video I will post it as a comment to this post.

On an almost social note, part of the program for the San Francisco Theological Seminary luncheon on Wednesday was Talithia Phillips talking about her experience as a young woman raised in New York City working for a year in Lostine, Oregon, a very much smaller community.   We love you, Talitha and are glad that God brought you to our presbytery for a year.  Talitha's blog is here.

On Thursday we take up a revised version of a very controversial report on the relations between Israel and the Palestinian people.  Pray for us.