Dear Caldwell,
For those of you who are following the PC(USA) General Assembly’s work in Detroit this week, I wanted to share several updates. The work of reviewing dozens of overtures (proposed policies) at the committee level has concluded and the business has moved to the floor, where the entire assembly will take up the recommendations from the various committees. This is a time when nerves can be frayed, souls can grow weary but the Spirit can move in remarkable ways. Please keep the entire assembly in your prayer.
Our own Susan Pierson, an elder and seminary student, is the featured blogger today on the Presbytery’s website coverage of the assembly. She is in Detroit as a student delegate. You can read her reflection below.
Otherwise, General Assembly bear witness to a broad range of social justice, worship, public policy and other concerns.
With strong margins and less acrimony than some expected, marriage equality has been approved at the committee level. The floor discussion on these proposals is slated for tomorrow afternoon. For more detail on those proposals and a range of others (gun control proposals, The Belhar Confession, divestment related to the Israel-Palestine conflict, new missional initiatives, New Worshipping Communities and immigrant ministries ) are all covered here.
If you would like to talk more about same-gender marriage, don’t forget that the Living the Sermon discussion group convenes tonight at 6 in the prayer room. As always, all are welcomed.
In Christ,
John
From Susan Pierson:
Greetings from Detroit, Caldwell!
I write to you during this rare quiet moment during the 221st General Assembly of the PC(USA).
As many of you know, I am attending GA as a Theological Student Advisory Delegate (TSAD) from my seminary (San Francisco Theological Seminary) and as a member of the delegation from the Presbytery of Charlotte. GA is about half way over, time-wise, though much important work lies ahead. I wanted to send you all an update of what’s happened so far, and what lies ahead.
For the past three days the commissioners and delegates have been working through overtures on their assigned committees. I was assigned to Committee 7, Ecumenical and Interfaith Relations. As you would expect we spent a lot of time talking about the work the denomination does to engage other Christians and people of other faiths. We heard reports from the World Council of Churches Assembly (which Pastor Evie attended) and about dialogues the PC(USA) is having with the Episcopal Church and Seventh Day Adventists.
Perhaps the most interesting work this committee did was discuss adopting a policy statement that would articulate an interreligious stance of the PC(USA). Essentially this statement would affirm the dialogues that individuals and churches are already having with people from other faith traditions, and encourage the Church to continue such conversations. The overture that suggests adopting this stance will go before the entire assembly later this week. In another overture, we discussed the language we use to talk about Ancient Israel and the modern state of Israel, including the importance of distinguishing between the two. For various reasons, this overture did not pass committee, but the committee still felt like it was an important conversation that the Church should continue.
In a few hours the General Assembly will reconvene, and over the next few days we will discuss all of the business that passed in committee.This business will include overtures that would affirm marriage for all persons, and allow pastors to marry any couple they see fit for marriage. We will also discuss divesting PC(USA) money from three companies that do business in Israeli occupied Palestinian territory. It will be a busy and intense three days of work. If you’d like to stay up-to-date wit whats happening at GA, see the end of this email for ways to do just that.
Please keep all the commissioners and delegates in prayer as we strive to discern the Spirit’s leading and to follow God’s will for us.
Grateful for your support, and wishing you grace and peace,
Susan Pierson
Ways to keep up with what is going on at GA:
-PC Biz has all of the overtures and agendas of the General Assembly. If you want to keep up live, go to “Session Sync” on the PC Biz site to see what the Commissioners and Delegates are seeing.
https://www.pc-biz.org
-The More Light Presbyterians Live Blog will keep you abreast of all the discussion related to marriage.
http://www.ga221.org/
-On Twitter you’ll get the most live, up-to-the-minute information. Follow hashtags #ga221 for all business and #love221 for marriage specific issues. I tweet @susanmpierson . Feel free to follow me!
-On Facebook, check out the More Light page at: https://www.facebook.com/more.light.presbyterians