A Few Brief Reflections on Synod -- Tim Phillips

 



The 2022 meeting of General Synod ended this morning around 11 a.m. I drove about 8 hours and arrived home this evening. Even though I am fairly exhausted, I know that Kyle Sims will berate me mercilessly if I don't turn my monthly article on time, so I thought I would offer a few observations about the meeting.

What I Liked

1) Bonclarken! Synod had not met at Bonclarken since 2018 (2019 was held concurrently with the RPCNA at Geneva College in Beaver Falls, PA, and the 2020 and 2021 meetings were moved to Columbia, SC, because of COVID restrictions). It was good to be back in Flat Rock, NC, again!

2) The Moderators.  Bill McKay (Moderator) and David Lauten (Vice Moderator) both did excellent jobs chairing the meeting. Rob Patrick was elected as Moderator for next year, and I know he will do a good job as well.

3) Worship.  The preaching, as usual, was excellent. The sermons by Patrick Malphrus and Morrie Lawing especially stood out to me, but others, such as Henry Bartsch and Howard Wheeler, also did fine jobs. God's word was faithfully proclaimed, and the gospel of Jesus Christ was clearly set forth. Also, we were able to sing from the Psalter at this meeting, something that was missing the last two years.

What I Didn't Like

1) Time Management. Even though we finished the meeting "early" (Thursday afternoon instead of Thursday evening), there was some lost time that could have resulting in the meeting ending on Wednesday evening. Some of the speakers giving presentations ran a little long, and much of the meeting seemed like sitting through presentations rather than doing the actual business of Synod. The officers of the court are aware of this and I am confident this will be addressed in preparation for next year.

2) Controversy. While controversy is not always a bad thing and often is helpful in furthering the growth of the church (e.g., see Acts 6 or Acts 11 or Acts 15), there was one item of business that disappointed me because of the (albeit fairly mild) uproar it caused. A paper from the committee I chair, Theological and Social Concerns, sought to answer a question concerning whether women could lead in corporate worship services (the paper may be accessed here). It seems the aspect of the paper that was the most troubling to a portion of the court was the statement that women (as well as unordained men) were not to publicly reading the Scriptures during a worship service. This seemed to surprise several members of the court, even though it is mainly an application of Westminster Larger Catechism Q. 156. In the end, the recommendation about the paper was amended (changed from Synod "approving" the paper to Synod "receiving" the paper as information) and passed in that form, but it was very disappointing that there was such a pushback against the teaching of our Standards.

All in all, I am thankful to be home on the same day Synod ended, but I am also thankful to have been with godly brothers, even if just for a few days.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A Reluctant ARP Pastor's Take on Synod

Image
  I am a reluctant ARP pastor. Don’t get me wrong, I love being Presbyterian (see my love letter to Presbyterianism at https://seventeen82.blogspot.com/2022/09/i-love-being-presbyterian-james-mcmanus.html?m=1 ). Yet, in that love is some amount of reluctance.  When I say I am a reluctant ARP pastor, I am mainly thinking about the meetings of presbytery and Synod. My personality is very much geared to getting things done. When I go to a meeting, I want to get to work and get the work done so I can move on to what is next. If you are familiar with the workings of a presbytery and/or Synod meeting, you know that doesn’t always happen. It’s a time for every voice that wants to be heard, to be heard. It’s the occasion where when you speak, people have to listen (or at least pretend to). You can stand up and say the same thing you’ve already said before. You can say what the previous 16 people before you said. You can go to the mic and ask the moderator a question that has other people scra
Read more

A Friendly Response to “A Reluctant ARP Pastor's Take on Synod” - Andy Webb

Image
(Note to Readers: authors who do not send a pic get my favorite pic of them as the pic for the article. Love you Andy)   Dear James,  I wanted to thank you for speaking so honestly in your recent letter/essay in  S eventeen82  and although I am on the other side of the female deacon issue, I wanted to offer some reasons why I wasn’t discouraged by the recent Synod and why I don’t think you necessarily should be either. Let  me begin by confessing that I too was once something of a reluctant presbyter. While I enjoyed most session meetings, for several years I found myself dreading going to presbytery meetings and absolutely hated going to the PCA General Assembly ,  which I found to be immensely discouraging year after year . One year I  actually asked  my session if I could give it a miss entirely, and they wisely answered, “No.” As a result , from the time I was first ordained as a Ruling Elder in 1997 till my departure from the PCA in 2020 ,  I believe I only missed  one  Assembly ,
Read more

Evening Worship Services and the ARP by Rev. Benjamin Glaser

Image
Good Morning, Recently a friend of mine compiled a list of churches, presbytery-by-presbytery, in the Presbyterian Church in America who offer a second service (whether that be in the afternoon or in the evening) on the Lord’s Day. The PCA currently has 1,930 worshipping congregations. 238 of them have morning and evening services on the Sabbath, or roughly 11% of the denomination. Not to be left behind I went about and did my own sleuthing to see what the situation looks like in our beloved Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church. Similar work done for the Orthodox Presbyterian Church (the OPC) and the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America (the RPCNA) showed in those respective communions a near/above 60% rate for evening worship. Our Dutch Reformed brothers (CanRC, URC, etc...) are closer to 90%. I figured we would not be anywhere near those numbers, and I was correct. As with all investigative reporting I am sure my findings are not 100% on the nose accurate, however, I thi
Read more