Next meeting of Eastern Oregon Presbytery Council - Sept. 11, by phone

The September  meeting of the Eastern Oregon Presbytery Council will be by conference phone call on Saturday, Saturday, September 11, 200, 2:00 PM PDT.  All participants will be participating by phone.

To participate in the conference call, dial 866-941-8436 and enter pass code: 1047005 #.   

When the stated clerk enters the conference those on the call will be connected together.  The conference will start promptly at the stated time.

The call to the meeting and links to reference information is available at  http://bit.ly/bgPbAt

All are invited to listen in on the call.

Upcoming meetings of Presbytery

The next four stated meetings of the Presbytery of Eastern Oregon will be

October 22-23, Burns

February 19, 2011, Umatilla

April 8-9, 2011, LaGrande

October 21-22, 2011, Baker City

 At its September 11 meeting, the presbytery council will consider the schedule to consider the business referred to presbyteries from the General Assembly.  That business includes proposals to adopt the Belhar Confession (requires ratification from 2/3 the presbyteries), changes in the ordination standards (G-6.0106b), adoption of the proposed new Form of Government, and other changes in the Book of Order and Rules of Discipline.  
  If the presbytery council proposes to consider parts of the GA referrals at different meetings, it may be helpful if churches appoint commissioners who can participate in all or most of the meetings between now and April.

The full list of meetings through 2020 is here.

More information about the items before upcoming presbytery meetings is here.

Links to presbytery reference information is here

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?