Overtures address nFOG
task force recommendations
The Layman, February 25, 2010
As the Presbyterian Church (USA)’s new Form of Government (nFOG) Task Force gears up for its report to the 219th General Assembly this summer, ideas on what to do once the recommendations are made continue to proliferate.
The committee was formed by the 217th GA in 2006 to draft a revised Form of Government (FOG) for the denomination and was re-commissioned by the 218th GA in 2008. The final draft of its report was approved in mid-2009.
In that report, the task force suggests replacing chapters 1 through 18 in the Book of Order’s current FOG section with two new documents: “The Foundations of Presbyterian Polity” and “new Form of Government.”
First step toward ‘enabling constitution’
The Presbytery of Foothills, through an overture it has advanced to the GA, has proposed shifting the nature of the denomination’s current FOG from a “manual of operations” to an “enabling constitution.” Citing the FOG’s treatment as a “manual of operations” as a reason for the denomination’s “breakdown in governance,” the overture calls for approval of the task force’s recommendations as a “step in that direction” and a GA-presbyteries partnership to develop the enabling constitution.
“An enabling constitution finds the unity of the church in Jesus Christ, the true governor of the Church,” the overture states. “Such unity is connectional, with clear lines of authorization for each congregation and governing body of the church. … This kind of unity, in Christ, requires shared worship, vigorous conversation, strong collegiality and mutual cooperation, in sharp contrast to the uniformity demanded by a top-down hierarchy or bottom-up peer pressure.”
Foothills proposes a “transparent, on-going dialog” on church governance, suggests specific issues that need action and outlines a strategy for forming the GA side of the partnership to form an enabling constitution.
Time of discernment
A Presbytery of Middle Tennessee overture will ask the denomination to commend the task force, accept the report and take a long look at the proposal before moving forward.
“We affirm the goals of a more missional, less regulatory form of governance,” the overture states. “However we also conclude that the church has not broadly studied, nor adequately digested, the effects and implications of sweeping changes as proposed by the nFOG task force.”
The goal of a discernment process, according to the overture, should include:
- building greater understanding of nFOG among presbyteries and congregations that must live with it.
- further examining the implications and consequences of such sweeping reform.
- and, building confidence, trust and ownership broadly within the PCUSA for governance forms to be undertaken.
Both overtures will be considered as the GA meets July 3-10 in Minneapolis, Minn., along with many others that propose new ways to govern PCUSA. Recent overtures calling for government reform call for “flexible presbyteries,” the creation of a 17th Synod and the elimination of Synods altogether in the PCUSA’s middle governing body system.