This report is limited to highlights that could be of interest to our readers.

First up on Thursday were two additional program reports from the Christian Education and Publications Committee and Ridge Haven.

The first of the Board/Agency Committee of Commissioners to report for this Assembly was Ridge Haven.

(Editor’s note: Committees of Commissioners (hereafter referred to as COC, are made up of Commissioners to the Assembly who are appointed by their Presbytery to receive the reports of the Permanent committees and agencies prior to their being presented to the General Assembly. This gives a smaller group the opportunity to fully examine and debate the issues, and then make recommendations to the full Assembly. The COC reports to the Assembly can only be voted up or down, and may not be amended.)

It is common for each agency to ask the Assembly to set aside a specific Sunday during the coming 12 months for churches to pray for and recognize the work of the various ministries. A motion was made to set Feb 20, 2011 for Ridge Haven. For the first time in the collective memory of many experienced commissioners, an argument apposing that practice was made. However, the motion passed with an overwhelming majority.

Next up was the report of the Standing Judicial Commission. The chairman noted the large number of cases adjudicated during the year and that in every case, there was no minority report to present to the assembly. Thus all of these cases are now final.

The Nominating Committee report came to the floor next. It is normal that they present all the nominations they have presented to the Assembly that have NOT been challenged by floor nominations to be approved in one vote. This year for the first time there was objection to that concerning one nominee. After some time of parliamentary discussion, it was ruled that the questioned nominee be voted on separately from the rest.

The nomination in question was that of Teaching Elder Bryan Chapell who was nominated to serve as a member of the Standing Judicial Commission. A point of order was made asking that the Moderator rule the nomination out of order since Dr. Chapell is member of an Assembly level committee, the Cooperative Ministries Committee (CMC). The Moderator ruled against that point of order on the grounds that the CMC is not one of the Permanent Committees/Boards of ministry and the limitation only applies to those agencies.

A separate vote was then taken on Dr. Chapell’s nomination to the SJC. A show of Voting Cards revealed that Dr. Chapell was elected without having to count the vote; however many commissioners made note that more than 100 no votes were cast.

The Committee then moved to vote on challenges from the floor. The chairman noted that several floor nominations were rejected by the committee due to incomplete nomination form submissions.

Over the years the Committee nominations have been overwhelmingly approved. This year three floor nominees were elected to replace the Committee nominations.

Ruling Mark Miller of Evangel Presbytery was elected to the PCA Retirement and Benefits Board in place of Ruling Elder Reid Cavnar.

Teaching Elder Mike Biggs of North Texas Presbytery was elected to the Reformed University Ministries Committee in the place of Teaching Elder Marshall Brown.

Teaching Elder Jeff Hutchinson of Western Carolina Presbytery was elected to the Standing Judicial Commission in the place of Teaching Sam Wheatley. While the other two elections did not require a counted vote (due to the astute eye of the Moderator) this one did. And the closeness of the vote indicated why the Moderator was unable to discern the first ‘raised card’ vote – Mr. Hutchinson won by a margin of 357 to 346.

The Chairman of the Constitutional Business Committee, Ruling Elder Dan Carrel, reported, although no votes were required. This Committee advises other committees and individuals and simply reviewed the work they had accomplished (some of which was reported at: http://bit.ly/bmanEy)

Next came a long series of reports from the COC’s of the Permanent Committees and Agencies, including
· PCA Foundation
· Mission to the World
· Christian Education and Publications
· Retirement and Benefits
· Covenant Theological Seminary
· Reformed University Ministries

Details reports on the work of all of these Permanent Agencies can be found at http://byfaithonline.com. However, several items involved some debate on the floor and are worth singling out for mention.

During the report of the Mission to the World COC a question was raised concerning the work of MTW and Mission to North America to develop cooperative ministry of Disaster Relief efforts. A motion was made to refer that issue to the Cooperative Ministries Committee (CMC), and in fact the report from the COC included a statement saying ‘if the denomination wants to address the question of overlap in a deeper way, MTW recommends that this matter be referred to the CMC. However the motion failed without need of a count.

During the report of the Reformed University Ministries COC, a question was raised by a member of the COS about a motion to approve minutes. The minutes contained a report that RUM and RBI were negotiation a sale of space in the PCA office building (RUM has extra, RBI needs more). In this process, both Boards were scheduled to contract with separate appraisers to determine the fair market value of the space.

The commissioner was concerned about the expense of two separate commercial appraisals and asked if the committees could simply negotiate the transfer on the basis of past historical data. While there were expressions of sharing the concern, assembly quickly voted to approve the minutes – which was the expected outcome given the reluctance of PCA General Assemblies to go into details on the floor.

The Assembly recessed for lunch at 12:00PM and will return to deal with the two major issues of the Strategic Plan and the role of Women as Deaconesses after lunch.