Committees, Committees, Coimmittees

As with most large legislative-type bodies, most of the work of the General Assembly is done in committees.  For the General Assembly, the full assembly meets in plenary sessions on the first day of meeting and then takes three days off for committee meetings.  The Sunday meetings are for the committees to learn to work together (more on that later) and for all to have some social-type time.  The business meetings of the committees are on Monday and Tuesday. 

There are 18 committees to which business has been assigned.   No one person can know what all the committees are doing.   For Presbyterian nerds, there are two ways to get quick summaries of the highlights of the General Assembly work.  One is to follow on twitter or go the twitter site for presbyGA.  The other is to go to the news release summary web page.  One item that I'm following is the overture (proposal) of our neighbors in the Presbytery of Boise about violence against women.  For detailed updates on the work of the committees or the plenary as it happens go to the business site www.pc-biz.com

After each General Assembly the Association of Stated Clerks produces a summary of the proposals that are sent to the presbyteries for ratification. For this year's booklet I'm paying close attention committee 05, the committee considering matters that affect the structure of the government of the church (polity).

The committee struggled to find a way to work together for the first session.  They then found the ways to work together and proceed.   When the committee adjourned for dinner at 5:50 they were working on business that was scheduled to have been completed by 3:30.  After dinner they completed by 9:50 all the business that had been scheduled for Monday.   I hope the committee continues to work well on Tuesday.