goes to Denver for penultimate annual meeting By John H. Adams The Layman Online Monday, May 19, 2003 For eight days, beginning May 24, Presbyterians will give back to Denver what the fast-growing city has been hemorrhaging – Presbyterians. The city will be the host to the 215th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA), perhaps the penultimate annual meeting of the largest – albeit shrinking – Presbyterian denomination in the nation. The denomination is scheduled to hold the last annual meeting of its governing body in 2004 in Richmond, Va., with biennial sessions beginning in 2006 – maybe. This year's agenda includes a proposal to continue meeting annually, which would scrub the biennial schedule adopted by the 214th General Assembly in 2002. Local Presbyterians will join the incoming – 548 commissioners, a nearly equal number of denominational resource people and nearly 200 advisory delegates – to pad the pews for at least one huge worship service in the Denver Convention Center on Sunday morning. But what will be decided during the business meetings could have an even more dramatic bearing on whether the PCUSA can begin to reverse its fading dynamism – in Denver and elsewhere. Presbyterianism in Denver is a microcosm of a denomination that continues to lose members and money as fast as it chases social and political causes and strays from historical Reformed theology. Never a hotbed for American reformers, the town that started as a Rocky Mountains gold rush camp has seen its limited Presbyterian roots shrivel. The mile-high city (measured from the 15th step on the west side of the State Capitol Building) had 5,069 Presbyterians in 17 PCUSA congregations in 2001, according to PCUSA data. Twenty years ago, Denver's Presbyterian churches had more than 7,000 members. The slippage has been 27.6 percent. Correspondingly, the denomination has lost 21.9 percent of its members over the last 20 years. Denver's loss of Presbyterians is even more pronounced because the city's population has exploded. The largest city within a 600-mile radius, Denver has become a hub for professional football, basketball and baseball, entertainment, air travel, brewing and minting money – but not producing Presbyterians. The agenda for the 215th General Assembly is full of the issues that have pitted Presbyterians v. Presbyterians and spawned membership decline that began in 1965 and has increased steadily in the last three years. The commissioners (advisory delegates cannot vote) face fiery and divisive issues – public defiance of church law, the ordination of practicing homosexuals, shifting financial priorities from mission and evangelism to social action, partial-birth abortion, leadership, staff influence over the elected decision-makers, and others. They will review a proposal that could move them even further away from the Biblical understanding of family – a report by the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy that concludes that diversity in "family" groupings, including same-sex partners and mothers who have children out of wedlock, reflects godly diversity. The first business session will be held Saturday, March 24, in the afternoon. On Saturday night, they will elect a new moderator from a field of three candidates. On Sunday night, the 13 committees that first consider the General Assembly's business will begin reviewing 36 overtures, a number of reports and studies and resolutions from commissioners. Committees will continue meeting through Tuesday night. Plenary sessions will resume on Wedneday night and continue until Saturday noon. |
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