For those of you who don’t know, every year, presbyteries, sessions, and even individual church members can take the opportunity to send requests — called “overtures” — to the General Assembly. Before those requests make it to the floor for the consideration of the full Assembly, they are first referred to a committee, where they’re debated and voted upon at that level.

(Editor’s Note: *Noob is apparently the hipster version of ‘newbie’)

I’ve been watching the PCA’s General Assemblies since they started streaming video in 2008, but 2012 was my first time there as a commissioner. Even with a decent knowledge of how things “work” in our denomination (having served as the clerk of my session and moderator of my presbytery), and even after having read Sam’s guide for GA newbies, being at GA in person still provided a new perspective on “how the sausage is made.”

There are a number of things to say about this year’s GA, but I wanted to throw out a few observations, as a first-timer.

The low number of ruling elder commissioners

I don’t remember the exact figures, so I’m approximating here — there were a little over 1000 commissioners at this year’s General Assembly. Of that thousand, about 300 of them were ruling elders. The rest were teaching elders. Now, most of you reading this are probably thinking something like “how cute. The n00b expects ruling elders to show up at GA!”

Yes. Yes, I do.

Every particular church in the denomination is permitted at least two RE commissioners — more, if the church is on the larger. At the very least, that’s potential for 3000 ruling elders. Three-thousand! Now, I’m not saying that it should ever be expected that every church send all of the REs that it can, nor am I saying that it’s easy for every RE to swing a trip to General Assembly every year. We generally have full-time jobs already, and governing the church generally isn’t part of the description. We have to take time off from work, time away from our families (unless they come with us), time away from our local congregations, etc.

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