GA08127

Assembly approves revisions to descriptions and timing of ordination exams

by Emily Enders Odom

Commissioners and advisory delegates followed discussion during Thursday evening’s business meeting. Photo by Joseph Williams

SAN JOSE, June 26, 2008 — As the hour approached 11:00 p.m. following a full day’s business on Thursday (June 26), Susan Gieser, elder commissioner from Elizabeth Presbytery and moderator of the Assembly Committee on Review of General Assembly Permanent Committees, presented the committee’s report to the 218th General Assembly.

On behalf of the committee Gieser moved, and the Assembly approved, two recommendations that call for the revision of the Book of Order descriptions of the Open Book Bible Exegesis and Theological Competence ordination exams, the order in which the exams are listed, and other wording in G-14.0431.

Included in the approved recommendation is a proposed change in the timing of the four main ordination exams. The proposal would require that the four exams “shall ordinarily” be taken “only” after two years of seminary and after the committee on preparation for ministry has attested that the candidate has “completed adequate academic preparation.”

In line with the advice of the Presbyteries’ Cooperative Committee on Examination of Candidates (PCCEC), which has responsibility for the written exams that are among the requirements for ordination to the office of Minister of Word and Sacrament, both recommendations were approved.

Gieser explained that the task of the “committee on committees” was to review the way in which these entities do their work and not the content of their work.

After a thorough review of the self-study, relevant surveys and hearing a full description of how the Advisory Committee on Racial Ethnic Concerns (ACREC) does its work, the committee recommended to the Assembly a series of recommendations on ACREC, commending it for its work and encouraging it in its mission. Motions on all four recommendations passed.

Similar recommendations on the work of the General Assembly Permanent Judicial Commission (GAPJC) were also made, commending it for its self-study and encouraging it to move forward to provide adequate information and technology support for the commission to do its work, among others. All five recommendations contained in the committee’s report passed.

In other action, the Assembly approved the committee’s two-part recommendation on the work of PCCEC, commending it for its thorough self-study.