Day 5

REFLECTIONS (from an observer to the Form of Government Committee)
Negatively, there is a fair amount of confusion regarding how to proceed since the moderator opened up the option of not requiring the committee to work on amendments prior to making a decision about what to do with their final product (i.e. send it to the GA for approval or to the presbyteries for study). Too many options makes it hard for a large body to proceed, but having the options narrowed may eliminate the best decision before the committee has a chance to consider it. It also raises suspicion about moderators controlling the outcome of a committee's work by controlling the options and/or the process. The moderators of this committee have truly moderated the committee's work without trying to control it or its outcomes.

Positively, order and good will have not been broken in this committee. With such a controversial and complex task before them, simply avoiding pandemonium is at least half the battle for this committee. Towards the end of the day, Terry Schlossberg, with the Presbyterian Coalition (an evangelical affinity group), told me that she thought the moderators had done the most fair and able job of leading a committee that she’s ever seen (and she’s been attending GA’s regularly for many years.)

“Friendly amendments” don’t exist in Robert’s Rules of Order, nor can someone withdraw their motion once it’s been seconded (it then “belongs” to the committee). Motions are requested in writing. Knowing how to use Robert’s Rules of Order is important for commissioners. Patience in teaching Robert's Rules of Order is critical for the moderator and vice-moderator. We saw amendments of amendments, substitute motions, amendments of substitute motions, points of order, call for the question, etc. today--most of which are never used in the session meetings of most congregations. A lot of time was lost from trying to help the commissioners learn and effectively use Robert's Rules.

The main focus of this committee today has been to try to discern what process would best allow presbyteries and sessions to have time to digest the nFOG and have input into it, and then to have some task force distill feedback and send to the next GA a second draft of a Form of Government that has buy-in and wisdom from the ground roots. They finally reached their conclusion at about 5 p.m.

To refer and recommend the nFOG to the GA for a period of consultation and study with churches and presbyteries through a system or systems designed and implemented by the Task Force that has designed the nFOG to the 218th GA and members of the 218th GA committee on the nFOG. The participation of every presbytery in the period of consultation and study will be strongly urged. New members of this expanded Task Force are to be chosen from the Committee on the FOG of the 218th GA by the Moderator of the 218th GA on consultation with the moderator and vice moderator of the GA Committee on FOG.

The new task force will revise the nFOG taking in to account the concerns and suggestions gleaned from the consultation and study process. The guidance of the ACC and the overtures and testimony received by the FOG Committee of the 218th GA and is will be referred to the task force for serious and studied consideration.

The revised nFOG is to be submitted to the stated clerk of the GA no later than October 15, 2009 for distribution to the church at large no later than January 15, 2010 for consideration to the 219th GA.

Once they got this done, their work on the overtures sent to them went very quickly. I left before they began the work of creating comments to add to the discussion about the new FOG.