An Open Letter on Order vs Chaos

What follows is a letter I sent to the presbytery, synod, and GA stated clerks. The Presbytery of the Pines has an unorthodox set of policies and procedures which have been in place since its inception. The Presbytery's Stated Clerk is reasonably knowledgeable of Presbyterian Polity but has a few blind spots because of the culture of this particular presbytery. His response to the first observation I make (see below) is that he did forward the session's letter to the presbytery when he gave it to the Response Team. He equates this Response Team to the Presbytery. The session could have sent its request for dismissal to the Response Team, but that is not the proper path for such a request. I think the clerk could recommend that the request be managed by the Response Team, but that is the decision of the presbytery and not the clerk.

This is a pattern in this presbytery. The session forwarded an overture to the presbytery. The clerk forwarded the overture to the Polity Committee, which is a reasonable thing to do but, then, the Polity Committee presented the overture to the presbytery with a two page written defense of their decision to vote in the negative. Then, the overture became a motion from the Polity Committee and not one from the session's commissioner. This allowed the Polity Committee to give a long supporting presentation of the overture with their spin. I, the moderator of the session sending the overture, had to stand in line to speak against the Polity Committee's recommendation. I had 120 seconds to defend the overture from our session. As the maker of the motion, the Polity Committee's chair had the last word. The overture was defeated by two votes.

As an observer of the process used by our presbytery’s council, committee on ministry and staff I note several actions that are at best unwise and worse, out of order.

1.  The session, via its clerk, sends a correspondence to the presbytery via its stated clerk. The stated clerk fails to report that letter or publish its content to the presbytery at its next meeting. The clerk, I suppose, could choose to read the letter aloud or print it out. I don’t believe a stated clerk has the discretion to withhold the existence and content of a letter ordered by a session to be sent to the presbytery. Do such discretionary powers exist?
 

2.    The General Presbyter met with over twenty members of the congregation upon a request from a single member of the congregation. This person is neither an elder nor, naturally, serving on the session. When I conferred with the chair of COM concerning this, her reply is that General Presbyter was legitimately acting as a “pastor” to members of a congregation. The GP did not inform the pastor of this meeting, nor did he inform the session. The rule for when the presbytery may offer to help settle a conflict through its committee on ministry or more drastically intervene through an Administrative Commission are clearly spelled out in our Form of Government. They do so, only at the session's request or when they determine the session has lost its capacity to govern. As to a staff member of the presbytery, who is a teaching elder, I would think the standards of professional ethics would apply. It is the same as any teaching elder meeting with the members of a congregation over which he serves as neither the pastor or as one who is the appointed moderator. When the synod reviews the presbytery’s minutes, I would simply inform you to look for finding of errors of omission. This regards the failure of a committee on ministry to enforce its own professional standards and wrong view of a GP as the pastor at large for all congregations.

3.      I have chaired two Response Teams that later became ACs The Response Team played more the role of mediator than the finder of facts.  The Administrative Commission carried clearly defined “powers” with limitations and oversight by the presbytery commissioning them. The Response Team assigned to the congregation (by action of the Council) has broadened its powers to carry out a sweeping investigation and recommending that (1) those members who don’t like the PC(USA) are free to leave the congregation from one of their own choosing and (2) that the Response Team be kept in place indefinitely. My recommendation is that a session ought to be given the right to accept or reject a Response Team and, at any time, request that the Presbytery form an Administrative Commission with clearly defined powers. A Response Team seems to be an alternative method for settling conflict. This method ought to be consented to by the session that may have a say in how the Team functions and who are its members. Two members of the session ought to serve on the Team and, perhaps, members of opposing parties within the congregation ought to be represented. Otherwise, the Team is viewed as a Star Chamber - acting in secret and responsible to no one.

I think we have set aside our long standing Presbyterian Order in order to deal with a present crisis. The only response to chaos is order. When we set aside our order we are left with only chaos or a new order based on expediency.