Should the Co-Moderators of the 226th General Assembly be full members of the Unification Commission?

LOUISVILLE — Meeting in person Thursday in the Conference Center at the Presbyterian Center Thursday for the first of two days of meetings, members of the Unification Commission spent considerable time debating whether the Co-Moderators of the 226th General Assembly, the Rev. Tony Larson and the Rev. CeCe Armstrong, should be members of the commission with both voice and vote.

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Under the commission’s proposed Interim Governance Operating Manual, which can be found here, the Co-Moderators have voice but not vote on the commission. One of them has voice and vote on the commission’s Ministry Coordination Committee “to ensure coordination in areas of their responsibility relevant to the planning and procedures of the General Assembly.”

Larson pointed out the Standing Rules of the General Assembly as approved by commissioners to the 226th General Assembly state the Co-Moderators “serve as members, by virtue of office and in accordance with these Rules and the Organization for Mission, of bodies that provide leadership for the governance and mission of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.).”

But as the commission’s co-moderator, Cristi Scott Ligon, noted, the Co-Moderators and their predecessors, the Rev. Ruth Faith Santana-Grace and the Rev. Shavon Starling-Louis, “have had voice but no vote since the inception.”

The Rev. Jihyun Oh, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly and Executive Director of the Interim Unified Agency, said Laurie Griffith, Associate Director of Constitutional Interpretation, is researching the issue and would return Friday with what she’s learned.
Commissioners will consider adopting the 17-page Interim Governance Operating Manual on Friday.

Morning session
During the morning session, the commission’s co-moderators, Ligon and the Rev. Dr. Felipe Martínez, offered up a report on their recent activities.

“The work of governance includes focusing on partnership between the Unification Commission and the Interim Unified Agency,” the co-moderators said. “We are so grateful for the hard work of all the staff, especially the senior staff of the [former] Office of the General Assembly and Presbyterian Mission Agency” as well as the Administrative Services Group. “We thank once again the Rev. Dr. Diane Moffett for her leadership and ministry with PMA and the Leadership Table, which helped bring the church to this moment in our journey.”

The commission’s co-moderators have begun meeting weekly with Oh “to coordinate and collaborate ways in which we support and resource her, and ways in which we align the work of the UC and the IUA,” the co-moderators reported. “In the very near future, we will stand up the Unification Management Office under the leadership of the IUA.”

“We also want all the church to hear how grateful we are for the staff of ASG and for the role they play in the life of our national offices,” the co-moderators said, praising the work of incoming president Ian Hall and outgoing president Kathy Lueckert. “We value the independent character of the work of ASG, and we appreciate the ability to partner with them.”

“We want to affirm that it is not in the charter of the UC to fold the work of ASG into unification,” the co-moderators said. “We are grateful for the A Corp Board, and we are seeking ways to deepen our collaboration with them.”

The January meeting is focused on “thoughtfully and intentionally” moving the work of unification forward, they said. “We recognize this work is difficult and challenges many of us to think differently about how the work of the church is done. Changing how we have existed and worked is hard and requires each of us to reflect on our role in the church and how we can support the work of unification through our hands, hearts and words.”

“We are one church,” the commission co-moderators said, “and we are grateful for each and every person who is walking with the UC on this journey.”

Oh reported on both her recent and her upcoming work, then offered an update on the coming changes to World Mission.

“Shifts in World Mission have been researched and discerned over several years,” Oh told commissioners. A process has been developed and approved “for taking bias out of the equation” for determining which mission co-workers will be invited for re-deployment. The timeline for doing that has been pushed back a bit, Oh said.

“There’s been a lot of chatter online,” she said. “We have received emails from a variety of people across the Church concerned about the process.” Financial sustainability figures “indicate it will be a significant reduction in force,” Oh said. A communications plan is now in place “to share information when it’s available.”

The Unification Commission resumes its work in open session at 11 a.m. Eastern Time Friday. Watch the commission’s proceedings here.