It is one thing to serve on the Overtures Committee (previously known as Bills and Overtures) at the PCA General Assembly – and yet another thing to sit in the pack of the room, keep your mouth shut, and just listen.

The Overtures Committee at the PCA General Assembly this year had a couple of tough overtures to deal with, but everyone knew that the 900 pound gorilla in the room was dealing with the five different overtures concerning the roll of women in the work and/or office of Mercy Ministry/Deacons. (See http://bit.ly/bmanEy for a review of those overtures.)

After picking out Overture 13 as a starting place (http://bit.ly/9VMbLy) and some spirited debate the committee decided to not recommend its approval by a fairly considerable margin.

The next overture to get intensive scrutiny was Overture 7 (http://bit.ly/crpsOR). Early in the debate a commissioner made a substitute motion to add different language to the proposal. He made it clear that his desire was to propose a compromise that might be found acceptable to both sides. The essence of the substitute involved the policy practiced by one congregation in the PCA, which, using their interpretation of BCO 9-7, authorized a group known as ‘deaconesses’ who were appointed by the Session and under the authority of both the Session and the Board of Deacons.

This proposal resulted in a long series of motions to amend. Some were trying to perfect the wording; some were trying to weaken the impact of the substitute. But nearly every visitor watching this process take place felt that the momentum in the room appeared to be going with the concept of unordained deaconesses being approved for those churches which so desired.

During this amending process, it was pointed to a unique situation in the Korean congregations in the PCA, following traditional patterns developed by Presbyterian churches in Korea during the 1950’s when so many male church members were killed in the civil war. The churches began appointing (and some electing) women, mostly older and themselves widows) to serve as ‘Qwonsa’. American churches continue to follow those patterns.

Several Korean pastors were in the meeting room and they fielded questions from the members of the committee. This was a very sincere attempt of the committee members to be sensitive that their actions would not have unintended consequences in these sister churches.

However, as the questions were answered it became clear, according to the Korean pastors, that the very word ‘deaconess’, when translated into Korean, would be understood by their church members to be ‘Female Deacons’
This brought to the floor several new amendments, which ended up at a point when no one else was ready to seek the floor and the committee appeared to be ready to vote.

A point of order to the moderator asked that the Korean pastors would speak to the issue of whether the proposed language would be properly understood by members of the Korean Language churches in the PCA, and the response confirmed that.

The amendment became the main motion and the vote was taken on language that would be added as an additional sentence to Section 9-7 of the BCO that was different than the language proposed in Overture 7 and very close to the language of Overture 13 that had been previously defeated.

Overture 7’s recommended action had been to add the sentence in bold bring below to the Book of Church Order:

“9-7. It is often expedient that the Session of a church should select and appoint godly men and women of the congregation to assist the deacons in caring for the sick, the widows, the orphans, the prisoners, and others who may be in any distress or need. These individuals who assist the deacons, selected by means determined by each Session, are not subjects for ordination.”

The motion that ultimately passed removed the sentence proposed by Overture 7 and replaced it with a sentence that would say (not the exact language, but close) that the Assistants to the Deacons (the topic of 9-7) were not officers of the church and were not subjects for ordination.

The committee had, in a sense, gone full circle and voted by a 60-36 margin to recommend to the General Assembly approval of this overture with the revised sentence.

Immediately after the vote the required number of 3 Teaching Elders and 3 Ruling elders identified themselves as those who would be drafting a minority report to be presented to the General Assembly. However, about an hour later, the group – having read the language to be attached to the Committee’s recommendation with grounds (reasons) upon which they made their decision – came to the conclusion that what they had intended to say was sufficiently covered in the grounds.

As of the posting of this story, there is yet no final decision – this is simply a committee recommendation. However, without a minority report, most observers seem all but certain that the issue concerning women serving in the diaconal function had been decided – at least for this year.

The Aquila Report will publish the final story, with the approved language for the Book of Church Order, when the full Assembly votes later in the week.

[Editor’s note: The original URLs (links) referenced in this article are no longer valid, so the links have been removed.]