The pun opportunities are endless for describing the General Assembly debate over the moderator's stole: Should each new moderator wear the same symbolic stole? Who would pay for it? Who would clean it? Should there be more than one? But that's the only smile in the story. In the end, it was a headshaking event to see approximately 300 commissioners inventing yet another camel: will that be one lump or two?
Measured by any significant decisions made, the last two assemblies have been snoozers. The meeting of the church's highest court should be an agenda packed with reasonably important decisions that affect the life of the church as a whole. Housekeeping should be handled by Assembly Council, which governs between assemblies.
Not only that, annual assemblies aren't cheap. It costs about $250,000 from national coffers to run the event and likely at least that much again in costs to congregations and presbyteries. On top of this, non-clergy commissioners have to take time from work, most likely using a week of vacation, inevitably tilting the assembly in favour of retired elders.
Then there are the reports. An annual assembly means committees of the assembly (the largest being the Life and Mission Agency and its national staff) have to write annual reports about their work for commissioners. So, if they get a new or tweaked assignment, they will begin that work after summer vacations at the fall committee meeting, say sometime in September. Assuming people can get to their tasks immediately (no certain thing if the matter has any degree of complexity or requires consulting with another committee or department), they will have about five months — including the Christmas period — before they have to begin writing another report for the next assembly.
Of course job assignments overlap; the point is that the structure has imposed such onerous (probably unintended) accountability that it's hard for people to be efficient and creative in their work. It's like a company burdened with a layer of unproductive middle managers who spend their time telling the owners what the workers are up to, except in this case, the workers and middle managers are the same group and work is stifled.
Perhaps this is why assembly agreed with council's recommendation that it consult with presbyteries about moving to a biennial event. The Presbyterian Church in the United States and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada hold biennial assemblies. The Anglican and United churches each gather for national meetings every three years.
The only downside, if informal conversations with commissioners are a guide, is that some people won't get to meet their friends and associates so frequently. It's not an unimportant point. Meeting people face to face is often undervalued when technology permits more efficient ways of meeting, but it's hard to argue that much would be lost by shifting to a biennial meeting. And it would only save three per cent of the national budget every off year.
Oh, yes. The moderator's stole. Displaying adept knowledge of the rules, Rev. John Vissers of Presyterian College, Montreal, moved that, because assembly's decision could have financial implications — possibly as much as $300 a year! — the matter should be referred to assembly council. And it'll be certain to steal some time from next year's assembly.
