After several years of wrangling, we will now with the 2015 General Assembly in Aruba have our General Assembly of the future.

Charlie: “Well, now that the great and awesome President Obama’s Health Care plan is on its way to full implementation, we have our first shot at full implementation of our Coordinator Care Reform. After several years of wrangling, we will now with the 2015 General Assembly in Aruba have our General Assembly of the future.”

Jim: “Yaaayy. Hip, hip, hooray. Missional, missional, missional, relevant, chic, and progressive R us. Let me give you the vitals, Madame Moderator.”

Sally: “Thanks; start with the numbers if you will. We want to have the Teaching Elder to Ruling Elder ratio be at least 9:1.”

Jim: “Righto, Miss. We may not achieve that balance this year because of registration totals, but we should approach that soon. As far as registration totals, we have 37 registered for the 2015 GA. Each has paid his $100, oh I’m sorry, that’s $5,000 now to cover all the other agencies. Of the 37 registrants, 29 are from Key Innovator Churches, 4 are MTW-paid missionaries, and of the 4 ruling elders, three are on the Cooperative Ministries Committee. We’re not quite sure who registered as ‘John Knox.’”

Sally: “So, registration is down slightly . . . ?”

Jim: “Yes from a peak of about 2000 to 37. But that’s just slightly down because WHAM (We have a mission).”

Sally: “And we can count on plenty of support from Atlanta, New York, St. Louis, and Dallas. And with 33 TEs and 4 REs, that’s almost our 9:1 ratio.”

Jim: “And the Aruba Hilton will be very comfortable: flights are under $2,000 and nightly rooms are about that. I really cannot understand the lack of commitment from smaller churches not to register. It’s hard to believe that 800 churches who can hardly pay their bills with less than $100,000 in annual income do not see our new plan as a steal. They’re clearly not gospel-centered enough to pay out the waazoo to attend Assembly.”

Sally: “OK, let’s look at the agenda. Here’s our Number One concern: For some reason, we don’t have much money coming in. Haven’t for several years. Only 3% of our churches now give ‘Demandings’ since we made them much more affordable by tripling in 2011. And it appears that we cannot attract many people to serve on committees. What gives?”

Hot Rod: “And our Number Two concern is that, while presbyteries and sessions are receiving full funding and doing well, some group of UTRs (ultra Truly Reformanistas) are going around claiming that the GA and Coordinators are irrelevant. Trivial, some even say.”

Marie: “Even though we funded a study committee for $35,000 on ‘how to increase coordinators tenure and salary,’ (staffed by coordinators and moderators) and another one called ‘Ecosystem this!’”

Snookie: “I wanna, like, be moderator next year. Can I? Since Sally is the first Madame Moderator, I wanna be one, too.”

Coordinator #52: “Is there any disciplinary action that we can take against those who do not ‘register?’ What about creating a ‘Grabbings Offender Registry’? We can hardly fund anything if only 3% of our churches contribute—even if it is the large ones who have all the say, or is it all the pay?”

Charlie: “Why don’t we commission another study to find out why we have so little support and attendance? And rule out from the beginning that the cause is because we’re out of touch and removed from the real work of local churches. Just rule that out from the outset; we know better.”

Jennifer: “One of the things we’re hearing over and over again is that presbyteries are functioning just fine, in fact 46% could care less if General Assembly even met. In addition, another 31% can’t even name the city where the GA will meet. Those pesky lower courts (excuse me, lower support groups) are beginning to act as if our work is totally irrelevant.”

Pauly D: “Kinda like Washington.”

Jennifer: “Well, worse. Washington can tax; we can only hope. It’s the triumph of audacity over hope all over again.”

Jim: “Well, is that some kind of return to that old pre-civil war approach? Wasn’t there a theory that advocated for the lower support groups to be more vital, more active than higher support groups?”

Cal: “That could kill missions; some of those wild characters could also get ideas. Why, we might also not have as much centralized money for MNA junkets, coaching, and networking. And, we’ve already had to sell one of our HQ buildings in Larryville. This could get crazy if it gets more out of hand.”

Jennifer: “Or could it actually result in higher investments and more hands-on commitment to missions? I thought missional was when each church tried to take responsibility for doing the work of missions, without necessarily depending on distant bureaucracies? And by logic, oh I apologize for that, wouldn’t the presbyteries be more vital, robust, and alive—perhaps even implying the end of certain bureaucracies?”

Cal: “Where’d we get her? Is that what we expected by ordaining/commissioning/liking/approving/women? Don’t they know their place is to support the Coordinators?”

WormTape: “Maybe some empirical analysis will help. Has anyone studied the ratio of dollars received by local churches, presbyteries, and assembly agencies during the recent 5-year recession? Amazingly, our CBO (Church Budgeting Office) has found that local churches continue to receive 98% of their offerings for that whole 2009-2014 period. Presbyteries are only slightly down in the 93% range. However, bureaucracies that cannot show much have been utterly devastated. Those are only receiving 28% of their 2010 levels now. It appears that this recession is confined primarily to extraneous bureaucratic members.”

Charlie: “Then we must re-relevantize ourselves. Exegete the culture missionally. Maybe we need to start a centralized capital campaign to raise $15M to get back on track.”

Jenn: “Why would you think people will give more when they’re clearly giving less, and they are less impressed with an outdated denominationalism than at anytime in our history? Maybe you need to start bashing the lower support groups as naïve, bush-league, and hateful?”

Czar of Ordination Standards: “Hey, where are all the secretaries? And substaffers.”

Sally: “Remember when we had to make cutbacks in 2014, the only raises that year were the double digit increases to our top leaders. That left no money for any of the staff, and we had layoffs of a number of para-ministerials.”

Hot Rod: “Wanna go to lunch in my Maybach 62S?”

Sally: “No; we need to eat in and work today. We’ve got to figure out why our churches think General Assembly is a waste of time, worthless.”

Czar of Ordination Standards: “Also, we never expected that our Emergent and Urban Network churches would contribute so little when we formulated our plan. Apparently, many of them are going belly-up because all their members are under-25s and unemployed poets.”

Dr. Temple: “Our seminary’s having some shortfall also. If not for raising money outside the church (and giving more seats at the table to those donors), we could hardly continue our new buildings. Professors’ salaries have not increased in 8 years. Few churches seem to want to give the “grabbings.”

Rob Roy: “And the AC would be bankrupt without using our line of credit. After 2011, gifts went south and do not appear to be returning. All our assets are now tied up in funding a magazine that no one (except us) wants, paying for Committees that are irrelevant, and funding the office building near our neighborhoods.”

Jim: “MNA is hardly getting any funds, unless we have a hottie church planter who can raise money from lower support groups and the missionalistas. For some reason, only 17% of churches think we do anything. Hey, I might as well join you for lunch in your new Maybach.”

Charlie: “We really need another study of why the silly grassroots give us so little support and attendance.”

Cal: “And I thought we were the leaders. Where are the followers? Whatever happened to WHAO (We Have An Office): ‘Just elect us and stand out of the way’?”

Sally: “Why don’t ruling elders want to attend our meetings? Supposedly, some are now using their time doing real ministry in the lower support groups. Could it be that they don’t want to pay so much to attend something that looks like a railroad job?”

Cal: “Nah. Impossible. Let’s move on to plan the 2016 General Assembly in either Paris or Venice.”
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WormTape is a satirist and a member of the Presbyterian Church in America.