Friday, the last day of policy business

Friday morning started with an attempt toeconsider the decision of Thursday night to postpone any discussion about LGBT marriage to 2012.  The proposal to reconsider garnered about 1/3 the total votes cast and was defeated.

After much discussion the assembly approved a report that the church does not approve of Caterpillar selling construction equipment to the government of Israel for use in building barriers and destroying houses in the Palestine area of Jerusalem.  The committee on responsibility use of the church investments will try to talk with Caterpillar about its actions.

Earlier this year a study committee published a draft report on peace in the Middle East.  Many found the report unbalanced in favor of the Palestinian people.   The assembly committee modified part of the report.  The assembly adopted the modified report with an 82% "yes" vote.

The Presbyterian Board of Pensions covers retirement and health insurance for ministers. It makes it programs available to non-minister employees who work more than half time if the churches and other church agencies that elect to provide coverage. This proposal to cover same sex domestic partners and same sex spouses of non-ministers. [Ministers are not permitted to have same-sex partners]. After discussion about the additional cost to the employing church or agency (estimated to be 1% of payroll cost) and whether to postpone [that P word again] until 2012, the assembly approved the proposal.  For more information go to  www.pc-biz.org and look up item 18-06.

The assembly spent a lot of time, both in the committee I watched and on Friday, talking about the arcane topic of  Authortative Interpretative of the church's constitution.   The result was no change in current policy.   If you think you may care about this obscure topic, let me know and I will talk about it.  Also there was discussion about repealing some amendments to the constitution about appeals in the church discipline process that we adopted a couple of years ago.  The assembly sent a repeal proposal to the 173 presbyteries for ratification.

This year the Presbyterian peacemaking program is 30 years old. In addition to celebrating the history of the program, the assembly adopted several resolutions in support of those subject to war and oppression, particularly those in Afghanistan, Sudan, Columbia, Korea, Haiti, Madagascar, Honduras.

Throughout the week the assembly heard of the work of Presbyterian mission around the world and in the US.  On Friday the emphasis was on the opportunities of churches and presbyteries to support the work of specific mission workers.   Also, the work that Young Adult Volunteers  in Mission do.  Mission opportunities of many kinds are described at  www.pcusa.org/mission.

The assembly was in an unexpected recess for a few minutes late in the afternoon when a group, not affiliated with the church or with groups affiliated with the church, interrupted with a protest against the delay in considering matters related to LGPT marriage.  After some time those who refused to leave after repeated requests were escorted out and cited for trespass.  The work of the assembly continued.

On Saturday the assembly will review the budget consequences of the week's work, celebrate the time together, worship, and go home.  

General Assemly, Thursday, July 8

Thursday was very full day of decision-making for the General Assembly on a wide variety of subjects including: 

• 30^th anniversary of the Presbyterian Peacemaking program; 
• Create a commission to facilitate restructuring the regional bodies (synods); 
• Propose for ratification by half the 173 presbyteries a change in the standards of ordination of elders, deacons, and ministers; 
• Adopt resolutions dealing with firearms violence and the immigration law recently enacted by Arizona; and
  
• Distribute to presbyteries two studies on marriage and civil unions, the committee report and committee minority reports of a prior special committee.
  

I will post a little more detail about some of these in comments below.  For more detail see the PC(USA) General Assembly site at http://ga219.pcusa.org/

Photos

You can see a few photos of my experience at General Assembly at my facebook album page

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.

Please give me feedback

I can't tell how many read this post.   Please let me know that I have readers.  Please post a comment or send me a note.  I know that I have two readers. Do I have more?

Committess finish their work, time for a break

On Wednesday the committees finished their work.  There are many proposals being presented to the General Assembly which starts meeting at 1:30 today, Central Time (11:30 at home).   All commissioners with whom I talked are happy to be done with committee work and are ready to move to the next phase of the Assembly.


There are many proposals to be considered by the General Assembly, all of which will change the current policy or structure of the church.   Not all will be adopted.  Some will be adopted after having been amended.  Those that are policies, as opposed to changes in the form of government, go into effect when approved by the General Assembly. Those that require a change in the Constitution of the church go into effect July 10, 2011 only if approved by majority of the 170+ presbyteries (area-wide groups of churches and ministers) vote to approve them.  If you want a change that has been approved by committee don't rejoice yet.  If you don't want the change, don't panic yet.   Committee approval is only the first of two or three steps in the process.

Some of the high-profile issues coming before the plenary session will be a revised study on Middle East peace, changing the definition of marriage from that between a man and woman to be between two people, change the definition of those eligible to serve as an officer of the church to remove the specific reference to sexual standards, and the minutia of the relationship between the highest courts of the church and the General Assembly.  

For the geeks, the order in which the committee reports will be considered in the following order: Church Growth, Theology Issues, Form of Government, Review of Permanent Committees, the role of middle government bodies (synods and presbyteries), ecumenical issues, qualifications for ministry, etc.  I will list the rest later.  We would do well to get this through this list on Wednesday afternoon or evening.  Updated detailed information is at www.pc-biz.org

On another note, we are continually reminded that the theory of 6 degrees of separation changes to about 2 degrees of separation for those who participate in the wider church.   I met a friend of my pastor's today whose wife  was a seminary roommate of a colleague in work in Eastern Oregon.

Pray today for the General Assembly, its commissioners, and the church.

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.