Presbyteries will vote on 9 proposed amendments The Presbyterian Layman Volume 32, Number 5 Posted November 11, 1999 The following are brief descriptions of nine proposed amendments to the Book of Order. Each amendment requires the approval of a majority of the presbyteries in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Amendments winning approval would become a part of the Book of Order after the 2000 General Assembly. Amendment A – This would explicitly state historic Presbyterian policy recognizing the need to ensure confidentiality in pastoral counseling. It would allow a minister to share information upon request of the person being counseled and to reveal confidential information if the minister believes there is risk of imminent bodily harm. Amendment B – This would affect retired ministers. For those who continue to engage in ministry, the presbyteries would exercise oversight. Retirement would no longer automatically qualify a minister for the honorific, “honorably retired.” Whether a minister “retired honorably” would be decided by the presbytery. Amendment C – This amendment would allow governing bodies beyond the session to decide, through a procedural rule, who presides in the absence of the moderator. Amendment D – In some circumstances, a presbytery would be permitted to appoint a commissioned lay pastor as moderator of a session. Amendment E – The amendment, which is part of an effort to increase the number of racial-ethnic congregations in the denomination, would allow presbyteries to ordain “immigrant” ministers who did not meet the denomination’s education requirements for ministers of Word and sacrament. Amendment F – Between annual meetings of the General Assembly, the business of the denomination is directed by the General Assembly Council, now comprised of nearly 100 ministers and elders. This amendment would replace that body with a 21-member Council of the Assembly, whose members would include: current and two previous General Assembly moderators; three commissioners each from the current and two previous General Assemblies; five from the Mission Agency; one each from Board of Pensions; PCUSA Foundation; PCUSA Investment and Loan Program, and Presbyterian Publishing Corporation. Council of the Assembly members would have to be elders or ministers. A second part of the amendment would be the creation of a Mission Agency and a Mission Agency Board. The function of the agency would include church planning and strategies, partnerships with synods and presbyteries, development of comprehensive mission budgets, and other duties as assigned by the General Assembly. Amendment G – The proposal would establish, at the presbytery level, a two-person review of disciplinary cases going before the presbytery’s permanent judicial commission. The two persons would be members of the judicial commission, and, after their review of a case, would not be eligible to hear the case at trial. Another element of the proposal would be an investigatory committee for disciplinary cases at the congregational level. Sessions would appoint the committees; members of the session could not serve on the investigatory committees. Amendment H – This provision is aimed at overseeing the work of ministers who might have moved because of retirement or personal reasons, including disciplinary action, from one presbytery to another. It would require that ministers who continue in some form of ministry submit to the jurisdiction of the presbytery to which they move. Amendment I – If, at the conclusion of a disciplinary case, a church officer or member renounces the jurisdiction of the church, the name of the accused, the date and fact of the renunciation and the nature of the charges filed against the officer or member would be reported to the governing body that had jurisdiction over the officer or member.

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