I think I am experiencing what is known as ‘hitting the wall.’

Enforced extroversion is taking its toll, and the weight of the denomination’s concerns would have my head spinning, if the muscles in my neck weren’t keeping a vise-like grip on my brain pan.

So, how are you?

Seriously, we’ve gone through a crush of business here on Thursday, including, but not limited to, General Assembly Procedures, Mission Coordination, Church Polity, Social, Justice and the Board of Pensions, Presbyterian Publishing Corporation and the Presbyterian Foundation.This morning, my Committee was on the clock. Committee 5, Middle Councils, dealt with a variety of issues, most of which were not controversial, like churches transferring from one presbytery to another. There were a few issues of some particular interest, though. Let's look at one.  

The first controversial item was what to do with Synods?

The Report of the Middle Council Commission had an answer: scrap them. Their recommendation was to eliminate the synod as a council of the church (what we used to call a Governing Body) and reserve their necessary ecclesiastical functions to a series of regional Administrative Commissions – leaving presbyteries free to form mission cooperatives in whatever direction their collective hearts desire. At first reading, this was quite appealing to me; my opinion about synods is much like Rick’s opinion of Ugarte, if you catch my meaning. But there were a lot of unanswered questions in their recommendation – the kind of constitutional holes that drive clerks crazy, and end up making the congregations and presbyteries suffer. Then we heard from a lot of people how much they love their synod, how vital and active they are, how mission-minded and helpful they are, how clean and bright and beautiful all synods could be. We found ourselves on the horns of a dilemma: take the word of the Mid Council Commission, who undertook one of the most thorough surveys ever of our denomination, or heed the experience of so many (both on our committee and in open hearing) who weren’t asked what they thought.

My head still hurts.

In the end, Committee 5 recommended not eliminating synods, but reducing their number, recommending a Task Force to figure out how best to accomplish this. And then the Assembly got hold of it, deciding to simply refer the matter without recommendation to a new task force, to figure out just what to do about Synods – whether to scrap them, reduce their number, or perhaps reduce their mandates, giving them more flexibility to thrive where they are strong, and retract where they are not.