There were two major conversations at General Assembly this year, both of which had been forwarded from previous years. One was on a vision statement, the call for which was first raised in 2011. The other was over the move to biennial assemblies, which has been in discussion for several years as well. The court defeated both recommendations.
In each instance, it is not the result but the debate itself that is interesting. (You can find the reports and watch the debates online at presbyterian.ca/ga140.) The vision statement, on the surface, seemed fine: That we affirm Christ and support congregations. Then the tinkering began, subtle and not – so – subtle changes in wording and punctuation. In the end, the court decided it wasn’t enough.
While the vision statement was treated in almost a technical fashion—an editor’s delight to watch hundreds engaged in punctuation—the biennial debate raised a deep passion for this thing we call our church. It would be a stretch but I’ll do it regardless: The biennial debate was about a vision for our denomination.
The primary reason for holding assemblies every second year is financial, a matter of about a hundred thousand dollars within a multi – million dollar budget. It was about money, and the court in many ways wondered if that was reason enough. Speaker after speaker pondered the purpose of General Assembly—what is it that we do?
The word “business” is bandied about often in relationship to GA. But what is this business? In a speech from 1968, American politician Robert Kennedy spoke about the Gross National Product, a measure of the financial wealth of a nation. Here’s an excerpt:
“Too much and for too long, we seemed to have surrendered personal excellence and community values in the mere accumulation of material things. … [The GNP] counts special locks for our doors and the jails for the people who break them. … It counts … the television programs which glorify violence in order to sell toys to our children.
“Yet the Gross National Product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.”
So, what is the business of General Assembly? Is it reports and financial statements and recommendations? Or is it the beauty of our poetry? That was the essence of the biennial debate: What is our business? Or, perhaps more importantly, what should our business be?
In part the answer to these questions lies in the two other national assemblies this year: The Women’s Gathering in May and Canada Youth in July were both filled with worship, praise, song, laughter and community, with constant affirmations of the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. General Assembly also had these elements but it is encrusted with tradition and expectation; the biennial debate was a deconstruction of that encrustation. I might think our business is the Great Commandment, you might think it is the Great Commission, but I’m sure—like the commissioners at assembly—we can agree our business is not merely about budgets.
