For many in the PC(USA), the conclusion that synods would be "going away" after this GA was a foregone conclusion. I was one of those many. As a synod commissioner, I have been steeped in this conversation for the last two years and thought that we would go into Pittsburgh with this change all but a done deal. I am not so sure now.
Reading the recommendations from the Mid-Councils Commission (I dealt with their recommendations on presbyteries in a previous post) and the advice and comment from standing committees and the Advisory Committee on the Constitution, I am persuaded that we need to sleep on it. That is not to say that we need to scrap the idea. We just need to let it stew a bit longer.
In their comment, the ACC points out that to affect the changes recommended will take more than a few edits to the Book of Order. There are a number of things that will have to happen and structural changes that will have to be made first to ensure that pulling out synods does not make our ecclesiastical house collapse. Making those changes thoughtfully will likely take more than a week in Pittsburgh.
Our synod has been operating under the assumption that something is going to happen. Our transitional executive has been leading us through a thorough process of discernment about who we are and what we do and what we are called to do in the future. Whether or not that new vision is played out as a governing council of the PC(USA) or as an extra-ecclesiastical union of presbyteries and agencies is yet to be seen. What is clear is that although synods as they now exist are a relatively new thing in the church, they have deep roots and reach much further than many of us realized.
It is my hope that the Mid-Councils Review Committee will recieve the report of the MCC with thanks and ask them to return to their conversations to discuss these structural and technical issues in greater detail.
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