Should the General Assembly provide child care for commissioners and others who attend the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s national policy-making meeting, held every other year?
Greg Bolt, a minister from Homestead Presbytery and the father of two young children, submitted a commissioners’ resolution directing the Office of the General Assembly to make sure that “childcare and child-friendly spaces are provided at all General Assembly meetings, following models used for other Presbyterian meetings, such as Presbyterian Women’s Gatherings and Big Tent.”
The assembly voted June 18 to follow the lead of its General Assembly Procedures Committee and send the matter to the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) – with COGA to report back to the assembly in 2016. Vincent Thomas, COGA’s moderator, said the referral would give COGA time to consider issues involved in trying to provide child care well, including the legal, financial and insurance implications.
But Bolt and some other commissioners did not want the matter referred for study. They argued that child care should be in place when the assembly next meets in Portland in 2016, as it already is at other PC(USA) events, including Big Tent (held in the years when the assembly doesn’t meet). By providing child care and a place where mothers can nurse their babies, “we are sending a clear message to those with children that we want them here,” Bolt said.
For many young adults, child care is vital in order for them to participate fully at General Assembly, said Darcy Metcalfe Mudd, representing the Advocacy Committee for Women’s Concerns. “To pay for an entire week of child care is extremely expensive,” Mudd said.
Despite those pleas, the assembly voted 330-290 to refer the issue to COGA.
During its first plenary session following the close of committee meetings, the assembly also acted on the following issues from the General Assembly Procedures Committee.
Young adult advisory delegates. By leaving the matter on the consent agenda, the assembly disapproved an overture from the Synod of the Covenant to rename Young Adult Advisory Delegates as Young Adult Commissioners and to give them vote and voice at the assembly. That issue drew considerable discussion in the committee’s deliberation – but some raised concerns that it would not require those young adult commissioners to be either ruling or teaching elders, as other commissioners must be.
Presbytery executives. The assembly voted down an attempt to give the executives who lead the PC(USA)’s 172 presbyteries standing as corresponding members of the assembly. That initiative, brought to the assembly as a commissioners’ resolution, would have amended the assembly’s standing rules, starting at the 2016 assembly, to designate the presbytery executives as corresponding members, which would have given them voice at the assembly.
Some argued that because mid councils live day-to-day with the consequences of the decisions the assembly makes, presbytery executives need to be able to inform the assembly of how things look at the grassroots of the church.
The assembly, however, rejected the resolution in a 452-163 vote.
Committee to Review Biennial Assemblies. The assembly used the consent calendar to respond to most recommendations from the Committee to Review Biennial Assemblies – a committee the assembly has authorized to suggest ways the assembly can do its work better. One change the assembly discussed at more length (and approved): allowing up to one-third of committee moderators and vice moderators at an assembly to be chosen from those who served as assembly commissioners in the previous six years.
The idea is “to offer some flexibility” and to select experienced commissioners to serve as committee leadership, said Carol MacDonald, who led the Committee to Review Biennial Assemblies.
The assembly also approved a recommendation from the committee to allow the election of assembly co-moderators.
