By the time you read this post, I should be on my way to Sacramento for the fall meeting of the General Assembly Council. Some of you are not Presbyterian, so you have no idea what that means. Unfortunately, many Presbyterian people don’t know what that means. So, I thought I would give a brief refresher course.
Then General Assembly meets every two yours with delegates from all the presbyteries that comprise the Presbyterian Church (USA). They set the policies and priorities for the denomination. So, who watches over things during the two years between general assembly meetings? The General Assembly Council.
The General Assembly Council is the board for the PCUSA Corporation and meets two or three times a year. We are responsible for oversight of the policies and priorities the General Assembly has put in place. We have oversight of GAC staff and financial operations.
Currently, there are 48 presbytery members, 18 synod members (I am from the Synod of Mid-America), the current and past General Assembly moderators, the moderator of Presbyterian women, 2 youth members, and 2 ecumenical advisory members. There are four major divisions of the General Assembly Council:
- Worldwide Ministries
- National Ministries
- Congregational Ministries
- Mission Support Services
The first three are programmatic. Mission Support Services, where I serve, deals with financial and legal concerns. In addition, there are some smaller committees. I serve on the Restricted Funds Oversight Committee and am presently on the ’07-’08 Mission Work Plan task force. Here is a link that gives a roster of the GAC members:
People frequently get confused about who the GAC is. The people I have described are the GAC elected officials. People also use “GAC” to refer to the staff and offices at the headquarters that do the ongoing work. When I tell people I am on the GAC, more often than not, they think I am a staff person living in Louisville.
Furthermore, the Office of the General Assembly answers directly to the General Assembly, and the GAC does not oversee these operations. Per capita contributions fund the Office of the General Assembly and Mission giving funds to the GAC.
The GAC does not officially convene until Wednesday afternoon. However, I am going out a day early to do my duties on the Restricted Funds Oversight Committee Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday morning. The Agenda for the GAC meeting is at this link:
If you want to view the actual business, you can go to LES and read the documents:
There is much work, but it helps to have such a dedicated group of people. I hope to report daily on my experiences. I will see how it goes. There are many difficult decisions to make. Please keep us in your prayers.
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