PITTSBURGH, July 3, 2012 – One by one, a General Assembly committee shot down key proposals from the General Assembly Commission on Mid Councils – including one to allow provisional non-geographic presbyteries during a “designated season of experimentation” for the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
The assembly’s Mid Council Issues Committee voted 34-15 to disapprove that recommendation, adding a comment thanking the commission for its work and suggesting “that congregations be encouraged to engage in collaborative missional
The assembly also did not approve a recommendation that synods in the PC(USA) be discontinued as ecclesiastical bodies and replaced with five regional administrative commissions.
Collectively, the committee’s actions reflected a discomfort both with some of the specifics of the proposals – about which the Advisory Committee on the Constitution had raised a number of constitutional concerns – and with the idea of changing so much so quickly. Some commissioners also questioned whether systemic changes need to be made, or whether the new Form of Government implemented in 2011 provides enough flexibility for congregations and councils to do the kind of innovative work in mission the commission is encouraging.
In suggesting that synods be eliminated as ecclesiastical bodies, the commission’s idea had been to reduce a layer of the hierarchy in the PC(USA), although synods could have con
Instead, the assembly’s Mid Council Issues Committee initially voted 37-14 to ask the 220thGeneral Assembly to create a 32-member committee (two members from each of the existing 16 synods). That committee would be instructed to bring to the 2014 General Assembly a recommendation for reducing the number of synods – although it is not specified by how much.
Later in the day, learning of the $100,000 estimated cost of such a task force, the assembly voted to reconsider and changed the proposal. The revised wording instructs the moderator of the 220th General Assembly to appoint a committee on synod boundaries composed of an equal number of teaching and ruling elders, with one member from each existing synod – resulting in a committee of 16 members.
Some committee members argued in favor of an alternative: referring the commission’s entire report for two years of study to a task force that would have included representatives from the commission, from the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly, and from the 2012 General Assembly. Those who favored that approach – which did not prevail – argued that it would be a way of not losing “the energy and the creative possibilities” in the commission’s report, as Brad Gustafson, a teaching elder from the Presbytery of Plains and Peaks put it.
Many changes the commission recommended would require amendments of thePC(USA)’s constitution – which would put the questions before the denomination’s 173 presbyteries for a vote. Gustafson said a discussion about how best to structure the denomination to facilitate mission would be good for the church, whether or not the presbyteries approved the constitutional changes.
Some committee members described feeling conflicted. “We do need a period of experimentation. We do need to be exploring new models,” said Charlotte O’Neil, a teaching elder from Scioto Valley Presbytery. “We do need to be innovative. But there are too many questions for me.”
During hours of discussion, the commission’s moderator, Tod Bolsinger of California, and some other commission members sat watching, looking discouraged to see two years of their intensive work, work the 2010 General Assembly instructed them to do, be rejected.
“We want a creative collaboration,” Bolsinger told the committee in explaining the proposal to allow for non-geographic presbyteries. “It was presbyteries that told us they need more creativity, more authority. . . Please don’t confuse this with a political issue.”
Asked by a reporter for a response to the committee’s votes, Bolsinger wrote by e-mail that “while the calls for the church to think and act in differently in a changing world have echoed throughout the church and even in the assembly, the committee decided to keep the status quo.”
The committee’s recommendations will come to the full assembly for consideration later this week.
The committee did approve a few of the commission’s recommendations, with amendments.
It voted to direct the moderator of the 220th General Assembly to appoint a task force to review the nature and function of the General Assembly Mission Council and the Office of the General Assembly “specifically with respect to their relationship with and support of mid councils as they serve the vitality and mission of congregations in our changing context,” and to report to the assembly in 2014.
It also voted to create a National Racial Ethnic Ministries Task Force to report back to the assembly in 2014 and to assess the work the denomination is doing – and determine what needs to be done – in racial ethnic ministry.
