212th General Assembly in Long Beach California

The 212th General Assembly is over and we are all returning to our homes.

Serving as a commissioner has been a great honor for me and I am very grateful to the Presbytery of Tropical Florida for sending me to this gathering.

I leave wondering if we can stay united as one church body, or if we will find ourselves splitting in years to come. We are deeply divided over issues of sexuality -- should we ordain active, self professing homosexuals to the offices of deacon, elder or minister? We have always said 'no,' but the issue keeps resurfacing and it is an issue of pain for both sides. This year we were divided over the issue of prohibiting ministers from performing same-sex marriages or unions. The vote was so close.

I feel so positive about our church in so many ways. I sincerely believe we are a great church and I admit to being sinfully proud of the things we do in the service of God. I pray that we can stay together -- it would be so tragic if we ever divide.

There is an ordination vow for deacons, elders and ministers in which we promise to work for the "peace, purity, and unity of the church."

It is my prayer that we can have all three of those -- peace from and over these issues, purity to God's Word, and unity in our denomination.

Somber.

Serious.

Respectful.

Prayerful.

These are words that come to my mind in thinking of tonight's meeting of the General Assembly. The issue before us was whether or not to prohibit ministers from performing same sex unions. The committee charged with studying the issue earlier in the week recommended that this overture be approved, but did so by only 25 to 22. A minority report was prepared by several members of the committee.

When the issue came before the General Assembly the commissioners took an almost worshipful atmosphere. Many observers sitting behind the commissioners' area were in obvious prayer. After several spoke on the issue, the commissioners quietly prepared to vote as the moderator stopped the proceedings and led the assembly in prayer, which was followed by a long period of silent prayer. Quietly, the moderator began singing the words of the hymn, "Spirit of the Living God." Slowly, others joined in until the entire assembly of commissioners and observers were in prayerful song.

The vote was then taken, resulting in 268 to 251 in favor of the prohibition. The Stated Clerk and Moderator led us in a prayer of healing and grace for the church and especially those who had been hurt by any of the actions or words of the General Assembly. When the prayer ended, the commissioners took a break, but unlike other breaks, there was no loud conversation of hundreds of commissioners, but a quiet, sober atmosphere. Commissioners were called back to their work as the moderator began quietly singing, "Blest Be The Tie That Binds." The commissioners slowly joined in as they returned to their seats to continue their work. It was almost midnight when the assembly adjourned.

This overture will now be sent to the Presbyteries for their consideration. During the next year, if a majority of Presbyteries approve the overture, the prohibition will be put in the Book of Order.

There are a number of Presbyterian publications here to cover the General Assembly. One is the Presbyterian Layman, and I noticed I was quoted in their online edition. In giving news about the overture from Beaver Butler Presbytery, as to whether or not we are at an "irreconcilable impasse," the article says, Commissioner W. Maynard Pittendreigh was also against the overture. "I don't think anyone is unaware that we have a lot of division in the church. What bothers me most about this overture is that it is not a call for action. It is a call for inaction -- a call for hopelessness. To approve this statement of irreconcilable impasse is going to announce to the church and the world that the God we worship is smaller than the problems we face."


Today we are back together in the large hall. No more committees -- we are together again as one Assembly. The day began at 10:15 with Speak Out -- opportunities for people to speak out on any subject at all for 90 seconds. People talked about their concerns about specific overtures, gave thanks to local people and volunteers, etc.

We then went to a report on the Bills and Overtures. There was a Memorial Minute, then Peacemaking gave a presentation.

The Stated Clerk, Cliff Kirkpatrick, gave another brief orientation to how we operate here at General Assembly. With almost all of us being here for the first time, it is wonderful to have all these moments of explanation.

We heard from the General Assembly Procedures Committee, and they told us about the financial implications of some of the motions before us. I like this. Everything we do has implications on the budget, and we have to deal with that. The speaker said, "If there is a motion to send two new missionaries to Brazil, everyone would vote 'yes' on that. But if the financial implications report says that in order to pay for that, we have to cut out two missionaries to China, then the motion becomes more difficult, but more realistic."

We then heard reports and voted on various matters from the Committee on Educational Institutions, Stewardship and Mission Support, Pensions and Benefits, Evangelism and Church Development, and Catholicity and Ecumenical Relations.

In the report on Catholicity and Ecumenical Relations, we debated whether or not to continue to support the National and World Councils of Churches at our present rate. We voted to continue at the present rate, although many would have liked to have seen us pass a minority report which continues to fund the relief programs, but cuts undesignated contributions to the NCC and WCC.

We had our final committee meetings today. For our committee, much of the day was focused on abortion. We finished around 4 PM.

One of the nicest things about General Assembly is the gathering of many small Presbyterian bodies and organizations. I'm a member of the Company of Pastors and attended their luncheon, where my old professor and friend Tom Long was the speaker.

He did not preach, but he talked about the art of preaching. He says we are coming to the end of a long period of narrative preaching, and that preaching must now go to the next stage of development, which is to take into consideration the fact that most church members are biblically illiterate.

For the evening meal, the commissioners from our Presbytery of Tropical Florida gathered on the Queen Mary -- the old cruise ship is permanently docked near the Convention Center and operates as a hotel. With all of us being assigned to different committees, this is the first chance we have had to be together.

This morning the committees gathered in various places in and around the Convention Center. Mine, the Theological Issues Committee, gathered in a meeting room at the Hyatt Hotel.

We began with a series of speakers addressing the issue of abortion, with each speaker being given 90 seconds to give a quick overview of their position. They were given a signal with 10 seconds left, and then they were stopped.

At the end of the abortion speakers, we had quiet time and prayer.

We will hear from the overture advocate and then debate this overture tomorrow.

Then after a stretch, we worked on overture 00-65, approving it as amended. This overture removes the requirement that the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper, when served to shut-ins, must be served on the same day as in the congregation. It will allow greater freedom for pastors ministering to the sick and shut-in members.

The overture is now polished by our committee and by approving it, we will present it with a positive recommendation to the General Assembly later this week. But it does not become church law until GA agrees.

The committee continued its work with the issue of inclusive language. An overture advocate spoke for 5 minutes. We then debated and voted. Did the same for a couple of overtures, with everything going smoothly.

Then we came to a hot topic.

Should we approve Overture 00-05, also titled: "On Declaring That There Exists in the Presbyterian Church (USA) an Irreconcilable Impasse Regarding Biblical Authority, Biblical Interpretation, Jesus Christ, Salvation, Ethics, Leadership, Sanctification, and the Church -- From the Presbytery of Beaver-Butler"

After hearing from the overture advocate in a 5 minute speech, we debated the issue, but everyone was against the overture.

Someone asked if we could hear from someone in favor of the overture, and no one spoke up. Someone else then spoke up and made a motion to call for the previous question, to end debate and to vote on the matter.

But the moderator refused to recognize that motion and insisted that we needed to work on this until we could come up with a substitute motion.

He was the only one in favor of the motion and he wasn't going to let us vote the motion down.
After working for a long, long time on this issue, we broke for dinner.

When we returned, so many of us had approached the moderator and the parliamentarian, that the moderator stepped down and the Vice Moderator took over the meeting. She did an outstanding job.

In the end, over 5 hours later, we voted down overture 00-05.

I have never been to a General Assembly as either an observer or a voting commissioner, but whenever others talk of attending GA they always speak of the worship service as being the highlight.

Today's worship was absolutely fantastic. Over 9,000 attended. I was brought near to tears several times through the music. If you are ever able to attend just a brief portion of a General Assembly, do your best to attend the worship service.

After worship, we continued the business session of the General Assembly. Clif Kirkpatrick was nominated for a second term as Stated Clerk.

Today the large Assembly began breaking up into committees, where the work will continue for a few days before the Assembly again gathers as a whole.

I am on the Theology Committee meeting. We had time to introduce ourselves and to begin to bond as a group. We were given some orientation to committee work. The only business we did was to adopt a docket.

With the opening of the 212th General Assembly in Long Beach, California, the first order of business was a commissioning service of the delegates. In a brief worship service, we were commissioned to serve God in this fashion.

Anyone may attend the General Assembly as an observer, but the commissioners are elected by their presbyteries and have the authority to vote. I am among a handful of commissioners from the Presbytery of Tropical Florida.

Cliff Kirkpatrick, the stated clerk of the General Assembly, welcomed us and gave us some instructions. After an orientation, we had some introductions of some people who are working hard to make this General Assembly run smoothly.

We then played with our electronic voting devises to ensure that we all knew how to use them. One of the test questions was to find out how many commissioners had attended GA prior to this meeting. 14% have attended one other, and 4% have attended more than 1 other meeting.
I was surprised that only 17% have read 80 to 100% of the materials that have been given to us. We have been given well over 1,000 pages and I've worked diligently trying to read as much as possible.

There are 558 commissioners (half ministers and half elders. There are a number of Youth Advisory Delegates, and other observers.

The actual voting started at 3:45. We voted on some minor, routine matters, then heard the retiring moderator's report.

Then we had the report from the Committee on Bills and Overtures. We approved the docket, then approved several little items, then dealt with referring several controversial items to the next meeting of the General Assembly. We were not being asked to refer them because they were controversial, but rather because the previous year's GA had set a 2 year moratorium on debating issues of sexual orientation and ordination. The vote was 53% in favor of referring.

We broke for supper at 5:10 and at 7:10 we reconvened for an important session.

We were there to elect the new moderator, which is always done at the end of the first night of GA.

There were four candidates. All of them were excellent, but I was deeply moved by Singman Rhee. He was born in North Korea, and when the war broke out, he had to escape with his younger brother. His father remained in Korea and was executed for his faith in Christ. I voted for Herndon, because I thought he was a better speaker. But Rhee won and I felt very satisfied.
The candidates were first nominated, with each nominating speech lasting 5 minutes. Then each candidate was given five minutes to give an acceptance speech. A question and answer session followed until the 9:00 hour, when we voted.

After the vote, the meeting was adjourned.