15.1
14-1
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.
15.2
14-2
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.
15.3
14-3
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.
15.4
14-4
14-4. Each commissioner, before his name shall be enrolled as a member of the Assembly, shall produce appropriate credentials.
15.5
14-5
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.
15.6
14-6
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.
15.7
14-7
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.)
15.8
14-8
14-8. The whole business of the Assembly being finished, and the vote taken for final adjournment, the moderator shall say from the chair: By virtue of the authority delegated to me by the Church, I do now declare that the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in America is adjourned, to convene at __________ on the _________ day of __________________A. D. After which he shall pray and return thanks, and pronounce or cause to be pronounced on those present the apostolic benediction.