The Vice Moderator of the PCUSA has released a video inviting church members, sessions, and other councils to provide feedback on what it means to be part of the PCUSA.
Watch it below:
To date, responses have been limited. By last week responses to the survey ranked at around 2,500–that’s less than 1% of our denomination’s 1.76 million members.
Responses to the survey will be presented to the next General Assembly, which meets next year.
It will be the starting point for discerning the future of the church. As Larissa notes,
And it’s COGA’s [Committee on the Office of the General Assembly’s] opportunity to hear responses and reflections from across our denomination about who we are as Presbyterians and why the denomination matters to our local congregations, mid councils, and the larger Church. So this is our opportunity to offer feedback and responses to start off the process of dreaming and envisioning how we can best serve the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).
It’s an important discussion and I encourage all of my readers who are members of the PCUSA to take part.
The congregation that I serve has followed a similar process to our denomination as we have asked for feedback in our discernment of our future together.
We took a congregational survey–one that was taken by more than 1,200 people. As a reference point, that’s about 50% of our 2,600 members compared to less than 1% of the PCUSA.
Like the Moderator and Vice Moderator, we are using the results of our survey to continue asking questions about our future and to work toward resolution of open questions.
I offer my best wishes as the General Assembly wrestles with survey data knowing that such a small response rate is a real problem.
Larissa continues, “So after the format is completed and we get as many responses as we can from the larger Church we’ll be taking that and creating a report that, then, the next General Assembly commissioners will be able to use in their discernment at the next General Assembly about “what does it mean for us to be the Presbyterian Church” in the denomination today.”
At FPCB we’ve wrestled with the results of our survey and our leaders have done their work of discernment, just as General Assembly Commissioners will do.
The decisions of councils affect those whose ministry is governed by them there’s no way around that–even when you disagree.
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