To allow more youth to have exposure to the Assembly experience, the presbytery proposed having each synod send one more YAD in 2006.
The overture was recommended for approval by the committee (by a 41-7 vote), but after a fairly lengthy debate — including the defeat of a motion to add even more YADs — the Greater Atlanta overture received a positive vote total — 319 to 178 — but failed to earn “yes” votes from two-thirds of the registered commissioners.
A move to reconsider the issue — because commissioners had not been told about the need for a two-thirds majority, necessary for a change to the Assembly’s standing rules — failed by an even larger margin.
The Assembly then referred another overture regarding appropriate levels of youth, missionary, ecumenical and theological student delegates to the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly for review. A report and recommendations are due back to the 2006 Assembly.
YADs retained the privilege of having their votes count in committee when the Assembly rejected two overtures — one from Peaks Presbytery and another from Northeast George Presbytery — which sought to remove that privilege.
Opponents to counting YAD votes in committees pointed out that most YADs are not ordained officers and as such are not answerable to the same standards as regular commissioners. YADs and their supporters said their voice is important as it provides a perspective that otherwise is missing from a church whose membership averages 55 years of age. It was also stated that YADs who come to Assemblies often become church leaders or ministers as a result of their experience.
The Assembly easily defeated an overture from National Capital Presbytery seeking to return to annual Assemblies. Also voted down was an overture from San Diego Presbytery asking for appointment of a panel to study the apportionment of Assembly commissioners. In its rational, the presbytery claimed that the formula created last year for the new biennial Assembly schedule, “gives unfair voting powers to the small presbyteries in the PC(USA).”
A commissioners’ resolution emphasizing the importance of Scripture in the commissioning ceremony for Assembly commissioners was narrowly approved by a 265-225-8 vote. It asks the Office of the General Assembly “to be careful to include and emphazise fidelity to Scripture” in commissioning service at future Assemblies, and to amend “Life Together in the Community of Faith: Standards of Ethical Conduct for Members of the PC(USA)” to include in the introduction and body an emphasis on obedience and faithfulness to Scripture.
Handily rejected was a commissioners’ resolution that called for individual commissioner’s votes in plenary sessions to be recorded and published in the Minutes of the General Assembly, Part I.
The issue of what to do with the Presbyterian Historical Society office at Montreat, N.C., was diffused during the week, and the Assembly quickly approved referring to a COGA-appointed task force two overtures on the matter. A compromise solution will be sought by the 2006 Assembly.
Consideration of closing the Montreat office and consolidating the denomination’s historical archives at its main Philadelphia office raised an outcry from Presbyterians in the South during the spring.
The Assembly also rejected an overture from Lake Erie Presbytery which would have removed the presbyteries’ responsibility for collecting per capita payments from the churches.
