Per Capita: A Seat at the Table for Everyone

Outgoing General Assembly Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons has just written a helpful little piece explaining the importance of per capita. It's something I think every minister or ruling elder should become familiar with, because per capita is among the most-misunderstood features of our common life as Presbyterians.

Per capita has been likened to our denominational utility. It pays essential administrative expenses of higher councils (presbytery, synod and General Assembly). Most of what per capita funds is not very exciting to talk about. It's business-as-usual type of stuff, the day-to-day overhead connected with keeping church governance working for all Presbyterians.

But that doesn't mean it's unimportant. Without the vital work that goes on at presbytery, synod and General Assembly, we'd be a motley collection of individual congregations, with little in the way of resources or communication. There would be no structures to carry out global mission. There would be no help forthcoming for congregations who get into difficulty.

One of the striking things Gradye says in the article is that "Per capita makes the table more accessible so all have a seat." This is very true, because it's per capita that pays the expenses of commissioners to synod and General Assembly, as well as those who participate in governance by serving on various committees and working groups. Do we really want to live in a church where only those with the personal funds for travel and lodging are able to participate in governance?

Anyway, there's a lot to think about in Gradye's article. Have a look at it.

While you're doing that, check out this great music video by Carrie Newcomer, "Room At the Table":

The Top 10 Things that Happened at the 222nd General Assembly

Anyone who’s ever been to a General Assembly knows it’s a rich feast. The business agenda of the Assembly alone is massive, and there are a host of auxiliary meetings and social events as well.

Boiling the work of the Assembly down to just a few items is a challenge, but I’m going to try. Here’s my list of the Top 10 Things that Happened at the 222nd General Assembly:

10) The most talked-about business in advance of the Assembly was the "Foothills Overtures," a collection of constitutional amendments and rules changes that would have radically altered the way the Assembly does its business. I’ve written about these overtures — named for the Foothills Presbytery of South Carolina, from which they originated — in an earlier blog post. The effect of these overtures would have been — by restricting how often certain topics could come up and by adding supermajority voting requirements — to eviscerate the Assembly’s ability to do almost anything related to social justice. In the end, the Assembly carefully considered these overtures in a special committee, then resoundingly voted them all down.

9) In the early twentieth century, Presbyterians could be found at the forefront of the Fundamentalist movement, advancing a literalist interpretation of scripture. We are very far from that place a century later, interpreting scripture with the full range of literary and historical tools available. In two separate actions, the Assembly stated definitively that science and faith are not enemies, that evolution — rather than a literal reading of the Genesis creation stories — is a reasonable explanation of how God created the universe, and that Christian disciples should not shrink from using the full range of their God-given intellectual abilities to advance scientific inquiry.

8) Could the “sex wars” really be over? Generally, the atmosphere at this Assembly was far less contentious than some of recent memory. This is largely due to the changes that took place at the last two Assemblies, allowing freedom for GLBTQ believers to assume ordained office, and a similar freedom for pastors and sessions wishing to offer same-sex marriage ceremonies where permitted by civil law. There was an overture to return to the “one man and one woman” language once present in the Directory for Worship’s section on marriage. This was resoundingly defeated by a more than a 4-to-1 margin. Another overture, coming from the opposite end of the theological spectrum, called on the church to formally apologize to GLBTQ Christians who have been marginalized by past church teachings. The Assembly declined to use the emotionally-loaded “a”-word, speaking instead of “regret.” This was in order to provide gracious space for those who continue to be dissent from the church’s tolerant stance on same-sex marriage, honoring their freedom of conscience.

7) After contentious debate, the Assembly rejected a call for aggressive divestment of the church’s stock-market holdings in two hundred corporations that produce fossil fuels. Instead, the Assembly opted for a less-confrontational strategy of engaging these companies in dialogue through stockholder resolutions.

6) The Assembly approved an amended report, “Israel-Palestine: For Human Values in the Absence of a Just Peace.” This supports the two-state solution to that intractable conflict, taking particular note of the imbalance of suffering between the Israelis and the Palestinians. The Assembly refrained from moving beyond phased divestment from Hewlett-Packard (the position of the last Assembly) to an outright boycott, continuing to work with that corporation to encourage them to do less to support the Israeli occupation of Palestinian areas.

5) The last two Assemblies have pondered the future of synods, opting for consolidation of our existing synods into even larger regional bodies — but not specifying exactly how this was going to take place. By a large majority, the Assembly rescinded that mandate. Commissioners approved the appointment of a high-level “2020 Vision Team” that will explore our governance structures at every level and make recommendations for change.

4) In a surprise move, the Assembly resoundingly approved an overture calling for a return to “minister of the word and sacrament” as the prevailing title for the order of ministry that has been called, since the adoption of our present Form of Government, “teaching elder.” Both terms will still be used, but - if a majority of presbyteries approve the change - “minister” will now be primary, as it has been through every other era of the church’s history. I have written about this issue previously in an article in the Presbyterian Outlook. In a related development, the wordy title, “ruling elder commissioned to limited pastoral service” (commonly called “commissioned ruling elder”) will now be called simply “commissioned pastor.”

3) New faces in leadership: for the first time ever, there is no Anglo male face among the senior leadership of the church. The Assembly elected the Revs. T. Denise Anderson and Jan Edmiston (of National Capital and Chicago presbyteries, respectively) as its first-ever co-moderators. It also elected the Rev. J. Herbert Nelson (formerly director of the church’s Washington Office) as Stated Clerk. Tony De La Rosa continues as interim director of the Presbyterian Mission Agency. Look for great things, in particular, from J. Herbert Nelson. He’s a powerful orator in the tradition of Martin Luther King, Jr. and a change-agent. While he has never been a stated clerk before at any level, he promises to be a quick study.

2) The Assembly approved a draft of a new Directory for Worship that will now go out to the presbyteries for approval. The changes have to do mostly with making the Directory for Worship more concise and usable, although it does offer new flexibility to welcome unbaptized inquirers to the Lord’s Table, as long as the invitation to be baptized is made clear to them.

1) And now, the number-one thing this Assembly did was to complete the process of adding the Belhar Confession as the twelfth confessional document contained in the Book of Confessions. While this was pretty much a foregone conclusion — since more than three-fourths of the presbyteries have already given their required assent — still, it is of great historic significance. After the positive vote, theologian Allan Boesak of South Africa, one of the authors of the Belhar Confession during the apartheid era, addressed the Assembly. He ended his remarks by saying, “We may not know what tomorrow may bring, but I know this: tonight, we have overcome. I know this: because of Jesus, we shall overcome. I know this: whatever may come in our world, we shall overcome.” In a moving moment, the Assembly responded by spontaneously breaking into song, singing — what else? —“We Shall Overcome.”

The Presbytery Consolidation that Never Was

Here's something I ran across as we were cleaning out old files, as we were preparing for the move of the Presbytery Office from Tennent to New Egypt. I meant to post it earlier, but somehow never got around to it.

It's  a map of the old Synod of New Jersey, dating back to around 1959. There were 8 presbyteries in New Jersey at that time, and a special committee had been working to pare that number down to 4. The map indicates where the boundaries of these 4 new presbyteries were to go.

The special committee considered the question long and hard. They learned that the original boundary lines of many presbyteries had been drawn with railroad lines in mind. Towns along a given rail line were clustered together in the same presbytery, so commissioners could travel to presbytery meetings by train.

Even in 1959, many of those original rail lines no longer existed.  America's love affair with the automobile was in full swing. The presbytery boundaries that had once made perfect sense had come to seem random and arbitrary.

The special committee was also trying to create larger presbyteries, so resources could be concentrated and deployed more effectively.

The plan was never implemented. It came up for a vote in the Synod Assembly, but went down in flames. Never again would there to be a move to rethink presbytery boundaries in New Jersey.

There aren't so many people around today who can give first-hand accounts of the debate in the Synod Assembly. (I was only 3 or 4 years old at the time.) I do remember talking with some old-timers in more recent years, who did have firsthand recollections of the vote. They told a tale of an acrimonious debate that left many on both sides feeling bitter.

This was even more widely-known because the old Synod of New Jersey was a "non-delegated synod." When the Synod met, every minister in the state was in attendance, with a corresponding number of elder commissioners.

New Jersey now has seven presbyteries (not counting the non-geographic Eastern Korean Presbytery, which technically covers the whole Synod, but has the majority of its churches in New Jersey).

CLICK ON THIS LINK for a full-size version of the map and take a look at the shaded gray lines. They indicate the proposed new boundary lines of 1959. Today, the overall number of Presbyterians in the state is a good deal less than half of what it was when the special committee was developing its realignment plan. Increasingly, presbyteries today are strapped for funds. You'd think the idea of boundary realignment would come up again: especially since it could be a way of restoring presbyteries to roughly the same overall number of church members each one had before the membership declines of the last quarter of the twentieth century began.

It's interesting to observe the shape of what the committee was calling "Central Jersey Presbytery" (Roman numeral III on the map). Most of Monmouth Presbytery (with the exception of the Southernmost part of Ocean County and a sliver of Burlington County) would have fallen in this new presbytery. All of New Brunswick Presbytery would have, too. Today, Monmouth and New Brunswick Presbyteries are sharing a Regional Presbyter. There are no merger discussions under way, but we all know that topic could come up for discussion in the future.

Maybe the members of the Synod's special committee were ahead of their time. Would it be a good thing to dust this historic artifact off and give it a fresh look?

What do you think?

Big Changes Are Proposed for the Synod

The future of Synods has been a lively subject of discussion in the church in recent years.  Although the most recent General Assembly declined to adopt a special committee's recommendation to eliminate Synods from the Book of Order completely - they pushed that proposal down the road, for the 2014 Assembly to deal with - it certainly seems like the church is on the verge of some big changes at the mid-council (presbytery and synod) level.

Knowing that change is in the air, and aware that our region of the country is one where the inclination to eliminate synods is strongly felt, the leadership of the Synod of the Northeast has appointed a Transitions Working Group (TWG) to do some creative thinking on the subject of the Synod's future and report back with some recommendations.

I've been privileged to serve on the Transitions group. I'm one of only two presbytery staff members to do so (the other is Cass Shaw, General Presbyter of the Presbytery of Albany). In putting together the membership of this group - in consultation with the Synod Council, who called for its formation - Synod Transitional Leader Harold Delhagen intentionally sought out people who have not been deeply involved in the Synod's governance, but who have been active in the church in other ways. There is a larger-than-usual complement of people in their 20s and 30s (of which I am, obviously, not one). The result is what we hope is a fresh perspective.

Our group has just issued our report to the Synod. We're hoping a great many Presbyterians within the Synod will read it and comment on it.  The TWG's Transitions Blog has been, for some months now, the most prominent feature of the Synod's home page.

So, what's in the report?  If I had to boil it down into a single sentence, it would be something like this:

We are encouraging the replacement of rigid Synod governance structures

with both open-source and inter-presbytery networks,

and encouraging a Synod-wide dialogue among presbyteries about redrawing their boundaries.

That language does not come from our report.  It's my own shorthand summary of its principal recommendations.

A capsule summary like that inevitably comes out sounding like bureaucratic gobbledygook, so let me use the rest of this post to unpack that a little.

Foundational to our report is the recommendation that the Synod become what the Book of Order calls a "reduced-function synod" (G-3.0404). The Synod, after seeking approval of two-thirds of its presbyteries, would have to petition the General Assembly to make this change. Under the reduced-function guidelines, the Synod Assembly would be reduced in size to one ruling-elder commissioner and one teaching-elder commissioner from each presbytery, and would only meet once every two years. The principal function of the Synod Assembly would be to appoint members of the Permanent Judicial Commission, approve whatever limited budget the Synod would have, and to conduct whatever other financial or legal business is necessary.

Having recommended that move, however, we also think more needs to happen at the Synod level than the minimum required under the reduced-function model.  We're calling for some of the Synod's functions to be passed on: both to a variety of new "networks of passion, interest and need" that would function on a flexible, open-source model, and to the presbyteries.

We're making just two recommendations:

RECOMMENDATION #1

That the Synod reduce its governance functions and refocus its resources, creating two types of networks to support the role of presbyteries in strengthening the mission and ministry of its congregations:
a. networks of passion, interest, and need such that our connectional nature and our diversity can be used to enrich and grow the capacity of all;
b. networks of presbyteries (mission areas) collaborating to assure adequate leadership within their bounds

RECOMMENDATION #2
That a portion of those resources be used to foster presbyteries to engage together in a study of their own boundaries, particularly with regard to their capacity to sustain long‐term leadership commensurate with their needs. It is anticipated that this will require the appointment of a Boundaries and Leadership Commission, the provision of consultants, and the planning of a Synodical Convention. The purpose of the Convention would be to facilitate and coordinate presbyteries’ requests to the General Assembly for such boundary changes as may be necessary for the future strength of their witness and service.

One of the things we learned as we went about our work is that the Synod of the Northeast is blessed with substantial financial resources - well over 10 million dollars, much of that undesignated - much of which can (and ought to) be distributed to the presbyteries, should the Synod reduce its functions. In that event, we have a rare, one-time opportunity to strategically direct those funds in order to establish and strengthen the ministries of both types of networks, so the mission of the Synod may be strengthened as well.

Consequently, we're recommending that funds be made available to foster the growth of open-source networks of passion, interest and need. These networks would bring like-minded Presbyterians from throughout the Synod together to accomplish important work for the good of all. Here are some examples of the sorts of networks that could be formed (not an exhaustive list, by any means):

     ‐ Early Ministry Institute (EMI)
     ‐ Racial Ethnic (language-based or other emerging identity) Caucuses
     ‐ Northeast Collegium (executive presbyters group)
     ‐ Advocacy
     ‐ Stated Clerks group
     ‐ Interim Pastors group
     ‐ Mentoring and/or Coaching groups
     ‐ Support/mutual resourcing for leaders of presbyteries and congregations in distress or “survival mode”
     ‐ Prison Ministry support
     ‐ New Worshiping Communities
     ‐ Tentmakers (bi-vocational pastors) group
     ‐ Emergent Leaders group
     ‐ Young women pastors group
     ‐ Presbyterian Women of the Synod

The second type of network, by its very nature, may look a little more familiar, because it's actually a system of networked presbyteries. In the initial stages, the Synod would facilitate the establishment of networks of three or more presbyteries that the report dubs "mission areas." The Synod would accomplish this by making a major, up-front grant to each presbytery consenting to enter such an arrangement, followed by a five-year program of diminishing grants. Those grants would start at something like 90% of the cost of a full-time staff person serving three presbyteries, diminishing to around 10% in the final year. Presbyteries could use these grants in whatever way they wished, as long as they supported the goal of establishing inter-presbytery cooperative leadership.  Presbyteries could keep whatever paid leadership they presently have; or, they could move, over time, to save funds by migrating their paid leadership positions into the multi-presbytery arrangement. Networks of more than three presbyteries would receive proportionately higher grants in the aggregate, because each individual presbytery would bring essentially the same amount of money to the mission-area table.

If the proposal makes its way through both the Synod Council and the Synod Assembly, gaining approval in its present form, what difference would that make to us here in Monmouth Presbytery?

We're already in a partnership with New Brunswick Presbytery. If we found at least one neighboring presbytery to join our partnership (for example, West Jersey Presbytery), each of us would then, as part of a mission area of three, be eligible to receive the one-time initial grant (which the report suggests could be $50,000).  That would be followed, in subsequent years, by the five-year diminishing grants supporting shared leadership. In the first year of the five-year period, we'd collectively receive, as a three-presbytery cluster, a grant in the neighborhood of $108,000 ($36,000 each), then a steadily-diminishing amount in each of the four years thereafter. Over the five-year period of the grant, each of our three presbyteries would need to make whatever budgetary or program changes we felt we needed to make, in order to contribute our steadily-increasing share of the cost of mission-area leadership.

The end result would be that, after seven years (two years for initial organization, followed by five years of the leadership grants program), we would have consolidated many of our professional-leadership expenses  at the mission-area level, while retaining whatever individual professional staff we felt we needed and could afford.

At the very least, some presbyteries would likely decide to have no staff other than a part-time stated clerk and perhaps a part-time support-staff person. At most, others would retain their own executive presbyter, supporting professional leadership at the mission-area of a more specialized nature (stewardship consultants, Christian education consultants, etc.).

The Synod would not prescribe in any detailed way what sort of staffing patterns or structures the mission areas would ultimately adopt; there would continue to be a high degree of autonomy at the presbytery level. The mission-area boundaries themselves could shift over time, as well. As creatures of the presbyteries rather than the Synod, the mission areas would serve the needs of their member presbyteries, as well as offering them ways of joining together in common mission.

It's possible that the New Jersey presbyteries could decide to come together in a larger, statewide mission area. Some have suggested that recreating something similar to the old Synod of New Jersey would be a good thing. According to that scenario, this New Jersey Mission Area would then consist of seven presbyteries (West Jersey, Monmouth, New Brunswick, Elizabeth, Newark, Newton and Palisades), which would be able to pool their leadership-grant money  to recruit a somewhat larger number of resource specialists than any three-presbytery cluster could support on its own. It's possible that some New Jersey presbyteries would prefer to retain their own executive presbyter or other professional staff; others could decide to throw their lot in with the mission area for everything, even committing additional funds to make that happen.

The plan is gently directive that way, but not prescriptive.  It uses the grants program as a positive incentive to invite the presbyteries, in this era of diminishing resources and heightened missional needs, to consider covenanting together in some new and mutually-beneficial ways. It does that without requiring presbyteries to fully merge, which could result in presbyteries so large that present traditions of intimacy and community could be lost.

(By the way, the Korean-speaking congregations in our area belonging to the non-geographic Eastern Korean Presbytery could continue to associate with one another, as they presently do, in a single Korean-language presbytery. They would be eligible for grant funding comparable to that of an individual presbytery, although they would not be required to join a mission area in order to receive the grant.)

That's Recommendation #1: a significant deployment of Synod funds to establish two types of networks. Recommendation #2 stands on its own, regardless of what happens to #1, but could very well complement it. It is a one-time, major study of presbytery boundaries.  As the report explains:

"Our system of presbytery boundaries belongs to a much earlier era, when there were more than twice as many Presbyterians and when communication and transportation resources were less efficient than they are today. The original standard used for drawing some presbytery boundary lines, in the era before automobiles, was the placement of certain communities along railway lines; many of these trains stopped running and the tracks were torn up half a century ago. Communities belonging to the same county are often split among two or more presbyteries, negating the collective influence the churches could have in advocacy and in community mission coalitions. Massive population shifts have taken place as well. Yet — largely out of institutional inertia — the old boundaries persist, unexamined, in many cases to the detriment of effective ministry. The lack of capacity within some of these historic boundaries to find and support the leadership necessary to maintain the church has lifted this issue to a critical level.

A comprehensive redrawing of presbytery boundaries is long overdue, but can only be accomplished by bringing presbytery leaders together at the same time, to share their perceptions of local needs and to discern the Spirit’s leading, as they jointly prepare proposals to bring back to their presbyteries for vote."

This post has already gone on long enough, so I'll simply suggest that you read the report for full details on how this consultation would be accomplished. It involves a process of preparation and study guided by some expert organizational consultants, followed by a one-time Synodical Convention, at which specially-appointed representatives of the presbyteries would come together to discuss possible changes. They would bring their recommendations back to their presbyteries, which would then vote on whether they wanted to request the General Assembly to make those boundary changes.

As with Recommendation #1, in this second recommendation the initiative and final decision remains with the presbyteries.  The Synod's role would be as a consultant and a broker, providing the presbyteries with the information and resources to undertake these discussions thoroughly and faithfully.

That's what's in the report.  It's now in the hands of the Synod Council, which meets from September 21-22, and after that the full Synod Assembly, which meets from October 19-20. As with any report presented by a working group, once it gets to the deliberative body, anything can happen.

Whatever happens, though, you heard it here first!

Synod Transitions

I've been serving on a group known as the Synod Transitions Working Group, that is drafting a proposal for the Synod Council (and ultimately the Synod Assembly) to envision what a synod ought to look like in these changing times. We're nearing the conclusion of our work, which will likely include a range of possibilities, from pretty much shutting down the Synod (making it a Minimum Function Synod, as described in the Form of Government) to business as usual.

I can't say much more than that publicly until our report is finalized and approved, but it's fair to say that our recommendation will fall somewhere in between those two extremes.

Updates on our progress are posted from time to time on the Synod of the Northeast web page.

We've just made a YouTube video, to introduce the presbyteries of the Synod to our group and what we're doing:

So, What Happened with Synods?

The ultimate “insider” issue at this Assembly – of interest to Presbyterians, and almost no one else – was the proposal by the Commission on Mid-Councils that synods as we know them be eliminated from our Form of Government.  In their place, we would have had regional administrative commissions of the General Assembly, as well as regional judicial bodies to handle appeals of Rules of Disicipline cases.

That didn’t fly.  The Assembly instead called for yet another committee. This one would be composed of a few leftover representatives from the Mid-Council Commission, plus some folks from the Committee on the Office of the General Assembly, rounded out by a few commissioners to this Assembly.

It’s a solution roughly parallel to what happened with the New Form of Government, the first time it came before a General Assembly. The plea, back then, was that the final nFOG text had been published so recently that the church hadn’t had time to digest it.  No similar reason was given this time – nor could it, because the elimination of legislative synods has been talked about for nearly a generation.

The charge to this new committee will be “to further discuss, refine, and bring to the 221st General Assembly (2014) recommendations that consider the composition and organization of the mid councils in ways that reinvigorate their capacity to support missional congregations, and advance the ecclesial nature and character of those presbyteries, within the unity of the church.”

In case you need a translation of that gobbledygook into plain language, it’s called “kicking the can further down the road.”

Some of the language in the Assembly’s referral seems to suggest that reducing the number of synods would be a good thing.  Many of us think that’s exactly opposite of the way we need to go – that the move to huge regional synods in the early 1970s was, in historical hindsight, a disastrous mistake.  With so many presbyteries having to downsize their staff for financial reasons, it may be that our future lies not with even larger regional synods, but with smaller clusters of 3 or 4 presbyteries, each one having minimal staff other than a stated clerk, with an executive coordinating the cluster activities – and no legislative body other than, perhaps, a small coordinating council.  This structure, as I understand it, is similar to the one in the Reformed Church in America.

I sat in on most of the sessions of the Assembly’s Mid-Councils Review Committee.  I was struck by how most members of the committee just didn’t seem to have the will to engage the question. Nor did the Assembly, as it turned out. It’s hard to imagine what sort of report this new working group will bring back that will in any way improve on the exhaustive report prepared by the Mid-Council Commission.  As with the nFOG, it may be just a matter of resubmitting essentially the same proposal, with the possible addition of some study materials.

This is one of those times when the old British schoolchild’s fractured lines from “Onward Christian Soldiers” apply:

“Like a mighty tortoise moves the church of God,

We are slowly treading where the saints have trod.”

Non-Geographic Presbyteries?

It's getting to be that time of year - well, every two years.  General Assembly will soon be upon us. One of the most riveting issues coming before the Assembly, for those who work with Presbyterian polity, is the report of the Mid-Councils Commission.

Now, I realize any non-Presbyterian reading these words - and, if truth be told, all but a small segment of Presbyterians - will gaze upon them and respond: "Say what?"

Yet, to those who regularly imbibe the rarified air of church governance discussions, the Mid-Councils Report is one of the most paradigm-shifting changes to come down the Presbyterian pike in decades - rivaled only by the 2010 Assembly's passage of the new Form of Government (nFOG) and, before that, nothing (not, at least, since the reunion of northern and southern Presbyterians in 1983).

That's because the Mid-Councils Report recommends that synods be abolished.

Yea, gentle presbyter, abolished. That entire section of the Form of Government will simply be cut from the good book - no, not that Good Book, the other one - as brazenly as ol' Tom Jefferson took scissors in hand and excised Jesus' miracles from the New Testament.

OK, I'll admit I'm waxing hyperbolic here.  But seriously, the reduction in the number of councils (née governing bodies, née judicatories, née courts) is a rather big change.  If this proposal survives the Assembly intact, and if its constitutional amendments are subsequently approved by a majority of the presbyteries, the only remaining councils above the level of the congregation will be sessions, presbyteries and the General Assembly.

Doing without synods is not a new idea. Our mother kirk, the Church of Scotland, has never had 'em.  Here on our side of the Pond, the idea's been kicked around for the past couple decades at least - but this is the first time it's coming to the General Assembly with the unanimous endorsement of one of the Assembly's own special working groups, complete with all the enabling amendments to - in the resolute words of galaxy-striding space Captain Jean-Luc Picard - "make it so."

Most seem to think the Assembly will indeed do its part to make it so (although, in typical parliamentary fashion, probably not without tacking on enough minor amendments to allow the commissioners to see their fingerprints upon it).

The Abolish Synods movement is all about the so-called shrinking planet, as "leaving on a jet plane" has become commonplace and burgeoning communications technology offers unprecedented opportunities for keeping in touch across the miles (et tu, Twitter).  The Scots never thought they needed synods because their entire country is no bigger than South Carolina.  Now that our trademark wide-open spaces are neither so wide nor so open, we're coming to realize synods are a luxury we can no longer afford.

While the abolition of synods has been commanding most of the denomination's attention of late, another of the proposed changes has barely shown up on the radar screen.  If the Mid-Councils Report passes the Assembly and the presbyteries, it creates an unprecedented opportunity to tinker with the structure and membership of presbyteries. The report proposes that, for a trial period extending until 2021, congregations be given the opportunity (with presbytery approval) to pull themselves out of their present presbytery and join another 10 or more congregations in forming a "provisional non-geographic presbytery for specific missional purposes" that's more to their liking.

A huge question - one that may or may not be asked explicitly at the Assembly, although it will be on the minds of nearly everyone - is whether the desire to flee theological diversity for a community of the like-minded constitutes a specific missional purpose.  Congregations inclined to follow the lead of the newly-formed Covenant Order of Evangelical Presbyterians (née Evangelical Covenant Order) will likely welcome this move, because it provides a mechanism for doing what they've long dreamed of doing: stepping away from those pesky liberals who are comfortable with the idea of gays and lesbians holding church office, and associating only with biblical literalists like themselves who believe the only place in the church for such reprobates is on their knees in tearful repentance.

There's a superficial appeal to this flexibility, to be sure.  Who doesn't want to be missional, after all?  (It's the denominational buzz-word du jour, even though there's little consensus on what it means.)  Yet, as Wilson Gunn points out, in a recent Presbyterian Outlook article, the "provisional non-geographic presbytery for missional purposes idea" has some hidden pitfalls:

"While 'Geography isn’t what it used to be,' geographic proximity is a value. When times are tough we need to sit beside each other in the flesh. Presence is incarnational. Geographic boundaries are not 'arbitrary.' Most were created to provide an intentional variety of congregations in each presbytery such that the small, resource-strapped congregations and the relatively robust, larger congregations share common resources within a presbytery. This self-selected non-geographic approach can quickly concentrate the larger congregations across several presbyteries, leaving the remaining smaller congregations, who rely significantly upon the encouragement and guidance of presbytery committees and staff, in a presbytery completely lacking the resources to be able to serve them. The rich are likely to get richer and the poor poorer in this design."

Pastors of larger congregations are disproportionately represented among the leadership of the ECO.  Whether intentional or unintentional, the "missional" similarities they claim as justification for their separation will in many cases have the consequence of robbing neighboring smaller congregations of the sort of support, encouragement and leadership-training resources they could otherwise obtain from their larger neighbor - not to mention the lost per capita and mission funding they would otherwise have contributed to their former presbytery, to the mutual benefit of all.

Furthermore, Gunn sees such significant progress being made already by traditional presbyteries in the direction of becoming more missional that he questions the need for such presbyterial vivisection:

"The proposed purpose of these non-geographic presbyteries is being accomplished without reconfiguring presbyteries. Presbyteries, as noted in the commission report, are already experimenting. Presbyteries are already on the way to flat, flexible and faithful. Connectionalism has already taken a different shape than the former regulatory, centralized control. Mission dollars go directly from congregations to the local and international mission field. Once upon a time, 90 percent of a congregation’s undesignated external mission giving routed up through the denomination. Now we see about 10 percent of that mission dollar, yet National Capital Presbytery has over 100 different international mission projects that are sponsored by our congregations. I see just as much missionary energy, it’s just decentralized now."

Does "non-geographic" truly translate into "missional"?  It's for the General Assembly to decide.

Clint McCoy's Take on the General Assembly

Clerks of Session really ought to subscribe to the free e-mailings of the Synod of the Northeast's "Nor'E-News", to stay up on the latest news and events. You can download the July issue on the Synod's website.

To subscribe to the Nor'E-News, contact Nancy Lomberk in the Synod Office.

In the July issue, Synod Executive for Partnerships, Clint McCoy, comments on his observations at the General Assembly. Here are a few highlights:

219TH GENERAL ASSEMBLY: A NORTHEAST VIEW

The work of the 219th General Assembly was so extensive, requiring presbyteries to take action on so many items, that Associate Stated Clerk and Director of Constitutional Services, Rev. Mark Tammen, wrote a memo to presbytery leaders, suggesting that consideration of General Assembly issues be scheduled over three separate presbytery meetings in order to avoid commissioner overload. Presbyteries will consider
1) a new Form of Government,
2) adding a confession of faith (The Belhar Confession) to its Book of Confessions, plus
3) other "normal amendments" to the church constitution, including a change in the language regarding ordination.

PEACEMAKING AND INTERNATIONAL ISSUES

Issues of the Peacemaking and International Issues Committee included...
...a call for the United States to end direct combat operations in Afghanistan, the denomination's first such statement since the war began in 2001, also requesting the U.S. government to increase humanitarian and economic development assistance to Afghanistan
...the Assembly's authorizing a denominational study, building on 1980's "Peacemaking: The Believers' Calling," to consider new thinking and approaches to peacemaking and nonviolence as a fundamental response to the challenges of violence, terror and war.
...additional action based on committee recommendations included statements urging the United States to end its use of seven military bases in Colombia; prayers and advocacy for peace in Sudan; restoration of sustainable agriculture in Haiti; reconciliation on the Korean peninsula and the reunification of North and South Korea; protection of religious minorities around the world.

ASSEMBLY CREATES COMMISSION ON MIDDLE GOVERNING BODIES

A 21-member Middle Governing Body Commission, with authority to act on the Assembly's behalf in responding to realignment requests from synods and presbyteries, was created by the Assembly. The commission can change presbytery and synod structures "upon a majority affirmative vote of the affected presbytery or presbyteries or a majority affirmative vote of the presbyteries in the affected synod or synods." Decisions of the commission itself are subject to a required 2/3 majority of its voting members.

The commission will have the authority granted to the General Assembly in G-13.0103m and n "to organize new synods and to divide, unite or otherwise combine synods or portions of synods previously existing" and "to approve the organization, division, uniting or combining of presbyteries or portions of presbyteries by synods."

In other middle governing body-related actions, the Assembly rejected overtures...
...to eliminate synods
...to create a new synod based on theological affinity alone; and refusing an overture to give congregations flexibility to join presbyteries outside of their geographical area based on theological affinity
...to create a Korean-language presbytery within the Synod of South Atlantic.

MIDDLE EAST PEACEMAKING

Addressing a report prepared by the Middle East Study Committee (MESC), "Breaking Down the Walls," dealing with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the General Assembly committee dealing with Middle East issues, came to unanimity with regards to its recommendations. Committee Moderator, the Rev. Karen Dimon, Cayuga-Syracuse Presbytery, said that she witnessed the Holy Spirit at work in the committee, whose members held diverse views.

Actions of the committee included...
...reception Part One of the MESC report, including eight letters to the ecumenical and interfaith community, Israelis, Palestinians and Americans, as rationale for recommendations only, not as policy.
...a reaffirmination of Israel's right to exist as a sovereign nation within secure and internationally recognized borders.
...authorizing the creation of a seven-person monitoring group on the Middle East for the next two years.
...lifting up the often neglected voice of Palestinian Christians, and commending for study the Kairos Palestine document, "A Moment of Truth," endorsing its emphases on nonviolence, love of enemy, reconciliation and liberation hope.
...calling on Israeli and Egyptian governments to limit their Gaza blockades to military equipment, guaranteeing adequate food, medicine, building supplies and free commercial exchange in and out of Gaza.
...deleting much of Part Three of the MESC report, requesting the monitoring group to replace it with eight comparable narratives arising from Palestinian (Christian and Muslim) and Israeli perspectives that are pro-justice and pro-peace.

SUMMARY OF ISSUES AVAILABLE

Assembly in Brief - a 16-page bulletin insert-sized summary of the Assembly in words and pictures produced by the Office of the General Assembly and the Presbyterian News Service is available to download. Click here to download the bulletin.