Presbyterian Outlook: FOG Task Force recommending replacing BOO chapters with new “statement”
LOUISVILLE – While acknowledging that the first four chapters of the Book of Order are beloved by many in the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the Form of Government Task Force is recommending that the church replace those chapters with a new statement it has written called “The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity.”
It could have gone a safer route, holding on to language in the church’s constitution that in some quarters is already accepted and loved.
But “we do need to be bold,” said task force co-moderator Sharon Davison, an elder from New York City. In what the task force is recommending, “we’ve basically turned the polity of the church on its head.”
The nine-member task force is coming close to the end of an immense task: trying to rewrite the Form of Government to make it more concise, easier to use, and more focused on the mission of the church.
The task force, meeting here August 16-18, will make its report to the church in September, encouraging people to offer comments and concerns in the months to come, and will respond to what it hears at its next meeting, from Nov. 29-Dec. 1. …
I haven't seen the report, so I have no comment to make. However, I loved the end of the article.
Small also encouraged the task force to return to using the language of “teaching elders,” meaning ministers of the Word and Sacrament, and “ruling elders,” and to speak of the ordered ministry of teaching elders, ruling elders, and deacons.
“We believe the basic ministry is the ministry of the whole people of God,” Small said. But within that, certain ministries are ordered — given particular shape and form
The work of deacons and elders is vital, Small said; the idea of ordered ministry is “the genius of the Reformed tradition,” and “the words clergy and lay should never escape the lips of a Presbyterian.”(Underline is mine.)
Sweet music to my ears.
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