Chapter 14: The General Assembly

14-1. The General Assembly is the highest court of this Church, and
represents in one body all the churches thereof. It bears the title of The General
Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America, and constitutes the bond of
union, peace and correspondence among all its congregations and courts.
Principles for the Organization of the Assembly:
1. The Church is responsible for carrying out the Great Commission.
2. The initiative for carrying out the Great Commission belongs to the
Church at every court level, and the Assembly is responsible to
encourage and promote the fulfillment of this ministry by the various
courts.
3. The work of the Church as set forth in the Great Commission is one
work, being implemented at the General Assembly level through
equally essential committees.
4. It is the responsibility of every member and every member
congregation to support the whole work of the denomination as they
be led in their conscience held captive to the Word of God.
5. It is the responsibility of the General Assembly to evaluate needs and
resources, and to act on priorities for the most effective fulfillment of
the Great Commission.
6. The Church recognizes the right of individuals and congregations to
labor through other agencies in fulfilling the Great Commission.
7. The Assembly's committees are to serve and not to direct any Church
judicatories. They are not to establish policy, but rather execute policy
established by the General Assembly.
8. The committees serve the Church through the duties assigned by the
General Assembly.
9. The Assembly's committees are to include proportionate
representation of all presbyteries, wherever possible.
10. The committees are to be established on the basis of an equal number
between teaching and ruling elders.

11. A Nominating Committee shall be comprised of one representative
elected by each Presbytery in the following manner. Each Presbytery
shall be assigned to a class by the stated clerk based on its date of
formation. The members shall serve in classes of three year terms,
alternating between ruling and teaching elders. When necessary,
unexpired terms shall be filled by an elder of the same class, teaching
or ruling.
This committee is to present all nominations for which it is
responsible to the next meeting of the Assembly from a slate of men
nominated by the Presbyteries. Presbyteries shall utilize the
nominating forms provided by the stated clerk for their nominations.
Each presbytery may present one teaching elder and one ruling elder
for each committee or agency.
In addition to nominees for expired terms, the Committee
shall nominate for each permanent committee one ruling and one
teaching elder as alternates to fill any vacancies that may occur during
the year. Each alternate should attend each meeting and fill any
vacancy necessary to meet a quorum. In addition to the new nominees
from the Presbyteries, alternates not assuming any vacancies during a
year will be automatically considered by the Nominating Committee
as candidates for nomination to that same committee.
12. The Assembly permanent committees are the Administrative
Committee of General Assembly, Committee on Discipleship
Ministries, Committee on Mission to North America, Committee on
Mission to the World, and Committee on Reformed University
Fellowship.
The Administrative Committee of General Assembly (AC)
shall consist of twenty (20) members:
a. Eleven members in classes elected through the standard
nomination and election procedure,
b. One member each from the following program
committees or agencies:
1. Committee on Discipleship Ministries (CDM);
2. Covenant College (CC);
3. Covenant Theological Seminary (CTS);
4. Mission to North America (MNA);

5. Mission to the World (MTW);
6. PCA Foundation (PCAF);
7. Geneva Benefits Group, Inc. (Geneva);
8. Reformed University Fellowship (RUF);
9. Ridge Haven Conference Center (RH).
The eleven members at large shall serve a term of four years.
The chairman of the Administrative Committee shall be one of its
members at large.
Each program committee and agency shall designate its
member each year at the last meeting of the committee or board before
the meeting of General Assembly. The chief administrative officers of
the program committees and agencies may attend any meeting of the
Administrative Committee. They shall be entitled to the privilege of
the floor but shall not have a vote and must be excluded when an
executive session is called.
Committee on Discipleship Ministries, Committee on Mission
to North America, Committee on Mission to the World, and
Committee on Reformed University Fellowship shall consist of fifteen
(15) men divided into five classes of three men each, with two men
being TEs and one RE or two men being REs and one TE on alternate
years, elected to serve five-year terms. Committees on Discipleship
Ministries, Mission to North America, Mission to the World, and
Reformed University Fellowship shall have one ruling and one
teaching elder as alternates to fill any vacancy that may occur during
the year.
Persons who have served for a full term, or for at least two
years of a partial term, on one of the Assembly’s permanent
committees or agencies shall not be eligible for re-election to an
Assembly committee until one year has elapsed. (Exceptions may be
permitted in agency bylaws approved by the Assembly.)
13. The General Assembly establishes personnel salaries after hearing
recommendations from the appropriate committee.
14. The Assembly shall elect a six-man Theological Examining
Committee (three teaching elders and three ruling elders of three
classes of two men each). Nominations for this Committee will be
presented by the Assembly’s Nominating Committee.

This committee shall examine all first and second level
administrative officers of committees, boards and agencies, and those
acting temporarily in these positions who are being recommended for
first time employment. They are to be examined in the areas of:
a. Christian experience,
b. Theology,
c. The Sacraments,
d. Church government,
e. Bible content,
f. Church history, and the
g. History of the Presbyterian Church in America.
No person will begin work or move on the field without prior
examination and approval by the General Assembly’s Theological
Examining Committee. No first level administrative officer will be
presented to the Assembly for election who has not met the approval
of this committee.
15. All business shall ordinarily come to the floor of the Assembly for
final action through committees of commissioners, except reports of
the Standing Judicial Commission, the Committee on Constitutional
Business, the Committee on Review of Presbytery Records, the
Nominating Committee and Ad Interim committees, which shall come
directly to the Assembly.

14-2. The General Assembly, which is a permanent court, shall meet at least
annually upon its own adjournment. It shall consist of all teaching elders in
good standing with their Presbyteries, and ruling elders as elected by their
Session. Each congregation is entitled to two ruling elder representatives for
the first 350 communing members or fraction thereof, and one additional
ruling elder for each additional 500 communing members or fraction thereof.

14-3. When an emergency shall require a meeting of the General Assembly
earlier than the time to which it stands adjourned, the moderator shall issue a
call for a special meeting at the request or with the concurrence of ten percent
(10%) of the commissioners who had seats in the Assembly at its preceding
meeting, of whom at least ten shall be teaching elders and at least ten ruling
elders, representing at least one-third (1/3) of the Presbyteries. Should the
moderator be for any reason unable to act, the stated clerk shall under the same
requirements issue the call.

The members of the special meeting shall be the commissioners elected to the
preceding meeting of the Assembly or their alternates. A Session, however,
shall have the right to elect a commissioner or alternate in the stead of one who
had died since the last meeting of the Assembly, or of one who has notified the
moderator of the Session of his inability to serve. Notice of the special meeting
shall be sent not less than twenty (20) days in advance to each commissioner
and to the moderator of each Presbytery. In the notice the purpose of the
meeting is to be stated and no other business is to be transacted.

14-4. Each commissioner, before his name shall be enrolled as a member of
the Assembly, shall produce appropriate credentials.

14-5. Any one hundred (100) of these commissioners, of whom half shall be
teaching elders and half ruling elders, representing at least one-third (1/3) of
the Presbyteries, being met on the day and at the place appointed, shall be a
quorum for the transaction of business.

14-6. The General Assembly shall have power:
a. To receive and issue* all appeals, references, and complaints
regularly brought before it from the lower courts; to bear
testimony against error in doctrine and immorality in practice,
injuriously affecting the Church; to decide in all controversies
respecting doctrine and discipline;
b. To give its advice and instruction, in conformity with the
Constitution, in all cases submitted to it;
c. To review the records of the Presbyteries, to take care that the
lower courts observe the Constitution; to redress whatever they
may have done contrary to order;
d. To devise measures for promoting the prosperity and enlargement
of the Church;
e. To erect new Presbyteries, and unite and divide those which were
erected with their consent;
f. To institute and superintend the agencies necessary in the general
work of evangelization; to appoint ministers of such labors as fall
under its jurisdiction;
g. To suppress schismatical contentions and disputations, according
to the rules provided therefor;
* Editor's note: "Issue" means "settling the issue of the case".

h. To receive under its jurisdiction, with the consent of three-fourths
(3/4) of the Presbyteries, other ecclesiastical bodies whose
organization is conformed to the doctrine and order of this
Church; to authorize Presbyteries to exercise similar power in
receiving bodies suited to become constituents of those courts, and
lying within their geographical bounds respectively;
i. To superintend the affairs of the whole Church;
j. To correspond with other churches; to unite with other
ecclesiastical bodies whose organization is conformed to the
doctrines and order of this Church, such union to be effected by a
mode of procedure defined in BCO 26; and
k. In general to recommend measures for the promotion of charity,
truth and holiness through all the churches under its care.

14-7. Actions of the General Assembly pursuant to the provision of BCO
14-6 such as deliverances, resolutions, overtures, and judicial decisions are to
be given due and serious consideration by the Church and its lower courts
when deliberating matters related to such action. Judicial decisions shall be
binding and conclusive on the parties who are directly involved in the matter
being adjudicated, and may be appealed to in subsequent similar cases as to
any principle which may have been decided. (See BCO 3-5 and 6, and WCF
31:3.)