Eastern Oregon Presbytery Meeting, Oct. 22-23, Pioneer Pres. Chruch, Burns

The Eastern Oregon Presbytery met at the Pioneer Presbyterian Church in Burns on October 22-23.  Some of the highlights:

• Nominated and elected the nominees to all vacant positions for which terms expire on December 31. 
• Including Rev. Jean Hurst to be moderator and Rev. Steve Kliewer to be Vice Moderator
• Heard reports from commissioners and staff from the 219th General Assembly of the PC(USA) held in Minneapolis in July.  
• Agreed that the 2010 and 2011 moderators will appoint task forces to review the referrals from General Assembly
• Belhar Confession - report and action in April
• New Form of Government - preliminary report in February and report and action in April
• Proposed amendment to Book of Order paragraph G-0106(b) "Sandards for Ordination) (Amendment 10-A) - preliminary report in February and report and action in April
• Proposed other amendments to the Book of Order (Amendments 10-B to 10-O) - report and action in February
• Task forces to deal with the following study and action items will be appointed in February
• Middle East Study Report
• Study reports on civil unions and Christian Marriage
• presbytery and model congregation sexual misconduct policie
• There was no report from the commissioners to the Synod of the Pacific as  their meeting was going on in Burlingame, CA, on Friday
• Renewed the commissions of Commissioned Lay Pastors Todd Bensel, Skip Iscore, and Richard I, Patt.
• Renewed the Stated Supply assignment of Steve Kliewer to the church in Lostine.
• Heard the Elder James Kauth, of Baker City, is beginning Commissioned Lay Pastor training.
• Adopted administrative and ecclesiastical budget that provides for total 2011 per capita for presbytery, synod , and General Assembly of $25 per 12/31/09 member.
• Adopted mission program and its budget for 2011.

These are some of the highlights,   For more information contact your pastor or church's commissioner to presbytery or me. 

Presbytery meeting is Friday in Burns

The presbytery meeting is coming together well.   The nominating committee met filled the positions be be elected, save one that we've not been able to fill for a couple of years and one yet to be confirmed.

The Mission Yearbooks came today so I can distribute them a the meeting.   That will replace a lot of mailing.

I created a mleage chart to help folks estimate driving distances and times.

For more information about the meeting see the web index to material http://bit.ly/9Vbpfe

Pew Center - How Much Do You Know about Religion

And how do you compare with the average American? Here's your chance to find out.

Take our short, 15-question quiz, and see how you do in comparison with 3,412 randomly sampled adults who were asked these and other questions in the U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey. This national poll was conducted by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life from May 19 through June 6, 2010, on landlines and cell phones, in English and Spanish.

When you finish the quiz, you will be able to compare your knowledge of religion with participants in the national telephone poll. You can see how you compare with the overall population as well as with people of various religious traditions, people who attend worship services frequently or less often, men and women, and college graduates as well as those who did not attend college.

The link to the full report is on the questionnaire site.

More

Eastern Oregon Presbytery to Meet October 22-23, Burns

The Eastern Oregon Presbytery will meet Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, October 22 and 23, at the Pioneer Presbyterian Church in Burns.

More information at http://bit.ly/9Vbpfe

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.