So what might a virtual General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) look like?
Facing intense deadline pressure, the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly (COGA) is continuing trying to figure that out – considering both the possibility of a shortened assembly (maybe two days) that would deal with essential business only, and the idea of a full virtual assembly stretched out for a month, from June 19 to July 18.
There are also other realities, just beginning to seep into the collective consciousness. No one knows for sure when the COVID-19 pandemic will peak, how long it will last or whether there will be a second wave. When things do return to “normal,” what will normal look like? And how will the pandemic change the church and its priorities?
Some COGA members voiced concerns about the idea of a virtual General Assembly that is spread out over a month – questioning whether all commissioners would have reliable access to technology, and acknowledging the challenges such a long assembly would present for people’s lives and families. Some people will have lost jobs, or be grieving other losses. Some commissioners may feel that the most urgent work of the church going forward doesn’t look at all like what it did just a few short months ago.
The General Assembly currently is scheduled to meet June 20-27 in Baltimore – but with the COVID-19 pandemic, that almost certainly won’t happen. The Baltimore Convention Center is being turned into a COVID-19 field hospital. COGA has said it wants to make a decision no later than April 17; there are contractual implications as well for making a formal announcement before the convention center and hotels involved make decisions about what to do with June contracts for events that are pending.
COGA held its April 2 Zoom discussion on General Assembly contingencies in open session – because “we want to try to be as transparent with the church as possible,” said the PC(USA)’s deputy stated clerk, Kerry Rice.
“We think it will increase the denomination’s confidence in the work we are doing and reduce their anxiety, and help people shift mentality to the concept of a virtual General Assembly,” said Julia Henderson, interim director of assembly operations.
Another reason for the open discussion: Presbyterians might come forward with ideas that would help COGA figure all this out.
The Office of the General Assembly (OGA) has identified values it is using to assess a range of options. Those values are:
- A focus on the health and well-being of commissioners, advisory delegates and all others who would attend.
- The guidance of the PC(USA) constitution.
- A desire for the broadest inclusion and representation that is possible.
- The intent of allowing for as full an experience for commissioners and advisory delegates as is possible.
- The recognition that “all business proposed to the assembly, regardless of the source, is important and deserves consideration.”
A shorter assembly would mean curating what business would be considered and what would not, at least not for now.
In a closed discussion held earlier, in March, COGA discussed a virtual General Assembly that would be “a brief one, dealing with just a core amount of business,” Henderson said. “You asked us to consider tiers of business.”
The first tier would consist of matters that are constitutionally required or are for other reasons considered essential or imperative. But determining out what would fit into the second tier proved more difficult, Henderson said. “It’s like a wedding, where you invite one cousin and the other 10 come along.”
So the OGA staff was asked to present a proposal for a longer, fuller virtual assembly as well. “In times of stress, when we lean into our traditions, that gives people comfort,” Henderson said. “People really do want us to replicate as much of the commissioner experience as possible.”
Herbert Nelson, stated clerk of the PC(USA), said that a longer virtual assembly has advantages: it would allow for a full General Assembly experience, with worship and all the committees meeting; all the business would be dealt with and not be deferred; and the church would practice a new, technologically-based way of holding an assembly that would set aside some “antiquated rules” and would change things not just now but for the future.
“This is an opportunity to really begin to look at a new trajectory of change and transformation” in the way that assemblies are held, Nelson said – to move into a 21st-century way of being church and to connect with younger Presbyterians for whom using technology is intuitive.
“I am convinced we are not going back after this” – that the move to meeting and working remotely will last, Nelson said. “Is it not time for the church to catch up with that?”
Nelson did not make light of the suffering the COVID-19 pandemic is inflicting. But “I do believe this is a God moment – not so much with death and all we are facing our communities, please don’t rub that in” or misunderstand, he said.
But the limitations that the pandemic has imposed on in-person gatherings are creating a climate for creativity and transformation – a time for “crossing boundaries,” Nelson said, and for the PC(USA) to change from a decades-old patterns of holding the assembly in the same ways in person to a new, 21st century approach based in technology, he said.
“I do believe this is a God moment for us, to be able to catch the wind and spirit of this transition and to move into it out of necessity, because some would not accept it any other way.”
That month long plan, in rough form, would look like this:
- Four plenary sessions on Fridays and Saturdays (June 19-20, June 26-27, July 10-11, and July 17-18 – skipping the holiday weekend of July 4). Each plenary session would begin at 11 AM Eastern time and conclude by late afternoon or early evening. Plenary sessions would include worship, Bible study and reports from General Assembly committees.
- Each of the assembly’s 11 committees would meet on one weekday during that month – each on a different day Monday through Thursday, so no more than one committee would meet at a time. Roughly four committees would meet from June 22-25; four from July 6-9; and four from July 13-15. The assembly would skip the week of June 29-July 5.
- There is discussion of holding online General Assembly events – such as “breakfasts” or “lunches,” with speakers or programs – as well as a virtual Exhibit Hall.
To some extent, the PC(USA) is prepared for a virtual assembly because it already uses electronic voting and posts meeting papers on PC-Biz, Henderson said. And “think of the great joy it will spread through the denomination because folks can sit in on every committee meeting.”
Some COGA members voiced concern about whether a month-long General Assembly would – well, be too much. “I think this is too long,” said Andy James. “I’m not sure that’s possible, feasible, doable. … I look at this and think, this is three weeks of my life, six days a week … I don’t know I can do that.”
Cindy Kohlmann, co-moderator of the 2018 General Assembly, said “I love the idea of the full experience,” but is concerned about commissioners who have set aside the week in June, “but have plans for the rest of the summer. Those plans may still be disrupted and interrupted. But for all the people who look at July for family vacations and gatherings and traveling, that space between school ending and school beginning, what do they do?”
Some elders may have trouble getting that much time off from work, she said. “I’m concerned about all the people who have been furloughed and laid off and might be able to get back to work” by then –but who would have difficulty serving as commissioners “when the days involved have changed so drastically.”
Expanding General Assembly to a month “really becomes a burden,” said Warren Lesane. “Right now, folks are feeling some sense of fatigue.” And when COVID-19 wanes, “when the fog is lifted, people will want to get their lives back.”
And COGA moderator Barbara Gaddis, who lives in Iowa, noted that she’d already dropped off of this Zoom meeting repeatedly because of an unreliable internet signal. “And I’m not in the worst place in the country for technology,” she said.
By attempting to hold a full virtual General Assembly, “that’s in some ways using 21st century tools to replicate the 20th century church,” said Eliana Maxim.
Presbyteries and synods also are struggling with these issues as they schedule virtual meetings, “this sense we have to try to duplicate what has been,” Maxim said.
“In a sense, it’s almost not a full acknowledgment that we are in surreal and abnormal times, and it’s OK to grieve not being able to participate in a traditional General Assembly, just like we’re grieving weddings that are being postponed and baptisms that are being postponed and funerals we can’t attend. We’re missing the opportunity in some ways to acknowledge something that our own faith informs us of – that we do go through wilderness times, but we do it together.”
All around us, “we’re having to acknowledge these griefs,” said Leanne Masters. “We’re having to acknowledge the loss.” A parishioner described it to her as “the death of the dream. Acknowledging the death of what we could have had.”
Working over the last month or so, a PC(USA) staff team has done a deep dive into a range of alternate assembly possibilities – including the idea of postponing an in-person General Assembly until some time in the fall. But there are complications there too – including the question of whether the PC(USA) will recoup any of the money it’s already committed when officials signed contracts to hold the assembly in Baltimore, and predictions that there may be another wave of COVID-19 when colder weather hits next fall.
Predictions that Maxim provided from the Centers for Disease Control “really helped inform our brainstorming,” Henderson said. “How long are we going to be sheltering in place? Will it come back again?” What if, by meeting in person later in the year, “we are contributing to a second wave?”
In the end, COGA decided to assemble a work team to try to refine ideas for the committee’s next meeting April 9.
Another thought: however the assembly convenes to do its work and curate what matters most, might there be some items of business that will no longer seem as important as they did when first submitted?
And are there new things, in the light of COVID-19, that seem vital for Presbyterians to take on?
